But what keeps stopping me is knowing that she has plans. She wants her father to get out of this city. She wants to make a real run at her dream, and now she can. What kind of asshole would ask her to put her dreams on hold for him?
It feels like she’s already gone, and it’s killing me.
It hit me last night, holding her after we’d finally worn each other out, that I want that every night. The differences between her world and mine, all that shit that once made me so sure this couldn’t work…all of it fades away next to the prospect of losing her, of not having her sweet smile, her dark eyes, or the way she murmurs my name. She sees me, not for my money or connections, but for who I am. She doesn’t pull punches when I’m acting like an asshole, and she doesn’t let me tell her what to do. I never knew how much I needed someone like her.
And now she’s almost gone.
A good man would let her go, let her start her new life on her terms.
I’m not that good of a man.
As we make our rounds of the ballroom, I introduce her to friends and associates. She greets my father and Janet warmly, remembers my brother’s whining about his golf game and asks him about it.
I was an idiot to ever think she doesn’t fit in here.
I introduce her to people I want to work with for my charity foundation, and she listens closely to them as they prattle on about possibilities for funding and implementation. She seems genuinely interested, even asking them questions. It’s clear that they’re charmed by her, and I can’t blame them. Though if Donald Kramer doesn’t stop looking at her like that, I’m going to knock him out, no matter how much he’s promised to the foundation.
Across the room, I see a group of people I invited specifically with Samantha in mind. I excuse us, and we head through the crowd toward them.
“Samantha, this is Reginald Kirby. He’s—”
“You wrote ‘Distance,’” she says, naming a show that’s just opened to a ridiculous amount of good press. She sounds awestruck, and Reginald smiles at her.
“Have you seen the show?” he asks her.
Samantha shakes her head. “Not yet, but it’s on my bucket list,” she tells him with a smile.
“Dante tells me you’re a theater person,” Reginald says to her, and I nod. He’s an old acquaintance of mine, someone I fell out of touch with until I realized what a musical theater fan Samantha is. I’m grateful he agreed to not only show up tonight, but also to talk to Samantha.
“I’m trying to be,” she says with a smile. Reginald asks her about her acting experience, and then the whole group is in full-scale theater geek mode. I smile and see my father beckoning for me.
I lean in toward Samantha. “I need to go do something. Okay if I leave you here with Reginald for a little bit?”
“You couldn’t take her away if you tried,” Reginald says with a grin.
“I’ll be fine,” Samantha says.
I squeeze her hand gently and then walk over to my father and brother. I know what they want. They want to go over my speech again, and they want to make sure I mention the family business, as if I’d ever forget.
I need to make this quick. I need to tell her not to go.
***
Samantha
After I stop fangirling over Reginald and his associates and promise to audition for his next show, I recognize the couple Dante and I went to the theater with, and LeeAnn gestures me over. I take a seat next to her after hugging first her, then John, and we talk for a while about the show.
“I hope we’ll get to do that again,” LeeAnn says, and I plaster a smile to my face.
“That would be lovely.”
“Make sure you tell Dante how much we enjoyed that,” LeeAnn says, and I nod. She must see something in my expression, because her own manner becomes more subdued. “You are still seeing him, aren’t you?”
I shrug. “I’m moving to L.A. soon. Family and work issues.”
She looks crestfallen. “But you’ll still be around, right?”
“I don’t think so,” I say quietly. I say it, still with hope burning in my heart that he’ll ask me to keep seeing him, not with money or contracts between us, but as a couple, as two people who have grown to care for each other. “But you never know,” I hear myself add, and LeeAnn smiles.