Page 58 of New Girl in Town
“Don’t you see? Thatishim, he didn’t just make it up, because that would be weird. This makes it not as bad, right?”
“It’s still bad,” I muttered, throwing the pillow to the side and getting up to pace the room.
My boyfriend’s last name was Bradford, not St. John, which meant he was a Bradford, one of five siblings born into the influential and old money family of William Bradford. Everyone knew them, or of them. They were as big as the Kennedy family, and here I was dating their youngest without even knowing it. They were nothing but pedigree and class, and as Melinda had said, practically owned Wall Street.
My boyfriend was aBradford.
I shook my head and rubbed my temples again. I had a certified degree in reality television, and I hadn’t even seen Grant coming. What in the hell had happened here? If anything, I should have known who he was before he had suddenly appeared on a national morning show.
“I need a drink,” I muttered.
“Fine, but be a peach and get the good whiskey while I google the hell out of him.”
I froze and then nodded. “Yes, oh my god. Do it. I want a full FBI report.”
Within minutes I had drinks in hand and rejoined Melinda on her couch. She sat hunched over her laptop, shaking her head.
“How bad is it?”
Melinda lifted a shoulder. “Depends, really. He dated a lot of supermodels.” She tapped the screen, which showed Grant with a bevy of leggy and busty women.
I pulled a face and reached over her shoulder, clicking out of that screen. “I want to see what he did since he came to Colorado. Why he came here instead of staying in New York.” My eyes skipped over the search engine listings. “Here we go,” I mumbled, taking another swallow from my glass.
The article mentioned Grant’s abrupt departure from the New York social scene five years before. I frowned, because after a quick speed read of the article the only thing I learned was Grant had left New York after a stint of out-of-control partying and fast women.
“Youngest Bradford chooses to live practically in Siberia,” the writer lamented.
I clicked out of the article and moved through another series of articles in rapid succession. Some of them offered glimpses of what Grant had been up to, but only in the form of a ‘Look who’s rugged in flannel’ or ‘What a lumberjack the youngest Bradford has become’ type of headline. Not exactly what I hoped for in terms of answers.
“I don’t understand why he didn’t tell me.”
“Probably the same reason you didn’t want to admit why you wouldn’t date him.”
I glanced at my friend and rolled my eyes at the sight of her sipping at her whiskey with a smug expression. She was right, and we both knew it. I swallowed a disgruntled moan and pursed my lips. “Shit.”
“It could be worse, you know. His deep dark secret is that he’s rich and powerful. Oh no.” Melinda held her hands out in feigned horror. “The absolute depravity of it all. Save us!”
I forced out a laugh, but it sounded hollow to my ears. It wasn’t the what or why of finding out who Grant really was that had affected me. It was the implication that I did not know who I was dating—who I was falling in love with—that had me reeling. When you trusted someone with your heart, gave it to them willingly and made yourself vulnerable, there was nothing to save you when they decided to cut you open and scoop you out, leaving you hollow like some old Halloween jack-o-lantern.
I shivered at the thought and looked away from my friend. I couldn’t tell Melinda that, not now, not while I was still trying to sort it out for myself. I knew what she would say: that it wasn’t truly a lie, that Grant was still the same man I had been dating, that nothing had to change unless I let it. She wouldn’t understand. No one did, not until it happened to them, and it had happened to me in a big way as Dylan’s wife.
The hurt of all those years didn’t simply evaporate in the face of a new love, but my words wouldn’t come to explain because I simply did not have them. Maybe I wouldn’t ever have them. Instead, I took a deep drink from my whiskey glass.
“So you think I should go easy on him when I talk to him?” I asked.
“I’d say hear him out. He was just on the most popular morning show in America. You got your very own shout-out from him. Let the kid have a chance at explaining.”
I snorted at her use ofkidbut nodded. “Yeah, okay.” I forced a smile on my lips and clinked my glass against Melinda’s when she gave a small cheers.
I could hear him out, but that wouldn’t change the fact that I felt so stupid. That I felt let down and...lost.The fragile feeling of trust that had bloomed between us felt like it had been broken. The only thought running through my mind was if there was any way to repair the damage done. And if there was, how we would move forward when I had no proof that the man I’d fallen in love with—my Grant—the gentle smartass I knew—was the real Grant St. John, and not some Bradford in a suit.
