Page 24 of Acquiring Ainsley
“What?” She paused. “Why?” she asked, still sounding incredulous.
“Let’s face it, my love life isn’t the best.” I sighed. “I’ve been single for a while, and… I don’t know, Mom, he’s… different than I expected. The Trevor that I remember was a jerk. Cold. Callous. But this guy isn’t. He’s warm. He’s…” I trailed off and began wandering through my condo, looking at all the things I’d lose if our family went bankrupt. I couldn’t imagine it.
No, I would not let that happen.
“Marriage isn’t a merger, honey.”
“This one would be. He already has all the terms figured out. We have to stay married for a few years, for one.” I laughed at the absurdity of it all. “You know why he’s doing this, right? It’s not really because he wants to take control of Ross Publishing. He has plenty of assets; he doesn’t need the business. He needs—”
“Your name; he wants your name, just like your father wanted out of me.” Mom said. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? No matter what he does, he won’t ever fit in with the old money of New York City. They won’t accept him, even if he’s worth fifty billion dollars one day. He’ll always be new money to them, on the outside, looking in.”
“And we’re old money.”
“Some of the oldest, thanks to me.” Her voice lifted. “What is the term they use for new money down there? Ticket buyers?”
I laughed and began making my way back to the kitchen. “They still call them that. You know the funny thing about you is, you haven’t ever traded on your social status. It’s like you’re the last one to care.”
“That’s why your father liked me in the first place. None of it mattered to me. I just wanted to live, and at the time, he did, too.”
I sat at the kitchen bar. “I’m sorry it ended the way that it did.”
“It is what it is. I made my peace with it all, and with him, a long time ago. That divorce brought out the worst in me, and I didn’t like who I became. If I could change the way I behaved back then, I would, but we don’t get do-overs in life, do we?” She paused. “That’s why I want you to be careful, Ainsley.”
“Sometimes, people must make hard choices. They have to do things that aren’t always pleasant,” I said. “Maybe this is mine.”
“Well, if you get bored with him, I guess you can always have an affair.”
I shook my head. “That’s a bad joke, but why am I not surprised to hear you say something like that?” Since her permanent move to France, Mom had turned more libertine. She’d had a spate of lovers, and most of them were younger than her. None of them lasted very long. She also said she’d never get married again.“Now that I’m in my 50s, I’m living my best life. Why would I give that up for a man?”she often said.
“I just want you to make sure you’ve really thought about this,” she said, bringing me back to the present. “Trevor McNamara might not be the worst thing that could happen to you, but he might not be the best, either.”
“The least I can do is get to know him. That might not be so bad, right? Maybe I should try it on for size. If it saves the company, then that’s a good thing, too.”
I drank the last of my coffee and mulled the idea over again. At least Trevor was handsome. He had that going for him. There were worse things in life than spending time with a man most people considered one of Wall Street’s most eligible bachelors. He did have the money to save us. And, he was a decent kisser. At least I knew that much.
“He wants to have lunch. I’m going to go into it with as open a mind as I can.”
“Just be careful,” mom replied.
Of course, “going into it with an open mind” meant arriving at lunch looking my best. After I ended the call with my mom, I took a shower, spent a half hour drying my blonde waves to perfection, and another half hour perusing my closet for the best outfit. I decided that meant a pussy-bow blouse with splashes of pink, magenta, blue, and green in the print, a pair of black skinny ankle pants, strappy sandals, and my favorite black satchel made of distressed leather.
I called a car for just the afternoon, and arrived at the restaurant a few minutes after 12:30 PM, giving off an air of casual indifference about an encounter I’d insisted was more of a meeting than a date.
Trevor waited for me, sitting at a four-top table in the front of the restaurant, a spot with a coveted view of Worth Avenue. When the hostess showed me to my seat, Trevor stood. “It’s good to see you again,” he said.
“Nice to see you, too.”
He took a step toward me as if he wanted to embrace me, or even kiss me on the cheek, but then he hesitated. “Glad to see the hangover wasn’t too bad.”
“It was nothing. I can hold my liquor quite well, thank you very much.” I sat in the seat across from him and promptly swallowed a large gulp of water. My morning headache still lingered, and I didn’t want it to interfere with such a high-stakes luncheon.
We ordered cobb salads, a round of diet sodas, and some bread before the conversation really began. As we went through the usual motions, Palm Beachers filled in the tables around us, and soon the restaurant hummed with casual conversations about vacations, stock investments, and world affairs. As our moments together slipped forward, I noticed that the faint smile on Trevor’s face grew larger.
“Someone’s quite pleased with himself,” I said, once the server removed the menus and disappeared in search of another table.
“I am.” As he sipped his soda, he regarded me over the rim of the glass. “I didn’t think I was going to get this far with you.”
“This is lunch, nothing more.”
