It wasn’t that I didn’t want friends or that I didn’t want to do good deeds. I was ready, willing and able to be friendly and helpful. For example, I would have been happy to fund the new library project for the school that the teacher, Holly St. James wanted to build. All I asked was for her support of Jay in the election. She didn’t even think about it.
What was really galling was that she had done an asshole thing by lying about her marital status to Meredith Reynolds, the richest person in town, until I got here. But did the town ostracize her for trying to dupe an old woman out of her money? No? They commended her for being willing to risk so much for the children of Salvation. Maybe they forgave her because she was now engaged to Tucker Marshall, the man she’d pretended to be married to, but in my mind, she lied. I never lied. Sure, I manipulated and maneuvered, all to help the good citizens of Salvation, but I never lied. Yet I was the asshole.
So why was I still here, I wondered as I took in everyone drinking my free booze and eating the free canapes and other gourmet foods I’d brought in for the event. Jay Wallace, while holding steady in the polls, wasn’t likely to beat Deputy Mayor Sinclair Jones. While he’d grown up here like she had, he hadn’t been as involved in the town for as long as her. He also had the personality of a wet dishrag, and I knew for sure he wasn’t as smart as her. The chance of my guy winning was low in which case, there was no reason to hang around.
Sinclair didn’t like me about as much as I didn’t like her. As mayor, she’d put the kibosh on anything I wanted to do just because it was me. I had half a mind to fund the library just to prove my thesis when she found some way to stop the permits or have the kids refuse to read or something.
But I wasn’t a man to give without getting something in return. Not anymore. I wasn’t going to be lied to, betrayed, or tricked ever again. So, no free library for Salvation.
“Quite a showing you have here,” Mayor Valentine came to stand next to me.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” I said, wondering if he was scouting out his protégé’s competition.
“Even though I’m retiring this year, I like to stay involved in community
events.”
“This isn’t a community event. It’s a fundraiser.”
“But anyone is welcome right?” He seemed more relaxed than usual. I wondered if that was because he knew his stint as mayor would be over soon or the effect of his young wife.
“Anyone who paid.”
“I paid.”
A part of me wanted to admire him. He was doing just the type of thing I would do. In fact, I had done it. I’d paid to check out the one fundraiser Sinclair had put on.
I smiled the way I’d learned how to do years ago. It made people relax and feel welcome, even though on the inside I didn’t care one iota.
“Well, then mayor, welcome. I don’t see your young pretty wife.” I tossed in the word young knowing it would gall him. He was nearly old enough to be her father.
He gave me a smile that I suspect was much like the one I’d given him. “She’s spending the evening with her friends.”
A movement across the room had my eyes narrowing to get a better look. As the dark-haired woman came into better view I cursed. That woman was back again, God dammit. I thought I’d seen the last of her in the fall.
I knew who she was, but I’d stayed out of her way. My goal in life was to avoid being made a fool, lied to, or misrepresented, and in my book, journalists were the worst of the bunch where that was concerned.
She’d been talking to people about some sort of story she was doing on me. So far, no story had been printed that I’d found and I figured it had been killed especially since she hadn’t reached out to interview me. I was important in my little world, but I knew I was nobody to the rest of the world. Who’d give a shit what I was doing in Podunk, Nebraska?
“Excuse me, mayor.” I left Mo Valentine to whatever skulking he planned to do and made my way to the women.
She was a stunner for sure, but I’d learned to separate my dick from my brain a long time ago. Many men with my wealth used it to attract women to fulfill their baser needs. I wasn’t built like that. The truth was, for most of my childhood and teenage years, I felt like a fucking alien mutant. I was tall, thin, and gangly. I once had a roommate at boarding school who said I should dress up like Elastic Girl from the Incredibles because I looked like I was stretched like her. Fucker.
Swimming and lifting weights helped me build some bulk. I was still tall and lean, but didn’t look like I’d been run over by a steamroller anymore. However, that didn’t mean my relationship with women changed. Not that I never dated, because I did, but I knew they liked the money more than me. Because I was man, and liked sex as much as the next person, usually I didn’t care.
Only once had a woman fooled me into thinking she cared for me. That never happened again. And would never happen again. The Stark line would die with me. I’d made sure of that five years ago, when I got myself snipped. Thank God I did it before I met the woman who solidified my belief that love was a cruel joke.
The reporter, Erica Edmonds, must have had a sense that I was on to her as when I finally caught up to her she was standing in a dark corner, the shadows hiding her from the others at the event.
“I don’t appreciate your skulking around and interfering with my life and business.” I worked to keep my tone casual. I didn’t need any lurkers getting a sense of something was wrong.
She looked at me and for a moment my insides went cold and an image of Leslie before she ripped what was left of my heart out of my chest flashed in my head. But this woman wasn’t her. For one, this woman was named Erica. For another, while there was something familiar, they looked different. Leslie had long thick dark hair, whereas the woman before me had shorter straight hair. Leslie wore adorable bookish glasses, while this woman wore none. And up until the day Leslie lied and betrayed me, she had a sweet innocence about her that had made me believe in good, and being with her was like a cleansing of my soul. This woman looked like she wanted to set me on fire.
“I’m just exercising my first amendment rights,” she said in a curt tone.
“Actually, unless you paid, you’re trespassing.”
She held up a paper with her invite. Fuck.