“Poppy,” he breathed, and my name in his voice, that low timber, that dark accent, it held me like no grip on my elbow ever could. He didn’t finish the statement, and I looked over at him.
His cold mouth was not folded in some charming smile. His eyebrow wasn’t lifted in a sardonic curl. Everything about him was sharp.
“What?” I asked. For a moment, a razor-thin one, there was something he was going to say. I could feel it.
“No more drinking,” he said, and just like that, he was gone.
Again.
By the time the lights dimmed and Caroline got up on the small stage to present me with the senator’s award, I’d had two more champagne glasses. And, frankly, I was feeling all right. I should have been drunk at all these events. Justin came up beside me, and I wasn’t sure how he managed to still look like someone’s assistant in a thousand-dollar tux.
“Are you ready?” he whispered, pressing the neatly typed notes I’d approved a week ago into my hand.
“Sure,” I said. How hard could this be? I’d done it a million times and, frankly, no one cared. I was doing it, and I didn’t care.
“There are some changes,” Justin said, and that jerked me into caring.
“What?”
“Caroline approved them.” He pointed down at the cards. I only had a second to look before Caroline on the stage was calling my name and smiling at me in the spotlight.
“I’m sure it’s great,” I said and lifted my skirt to climb the steps up to Caroline’s side. There was a round of polite applause, and I was just drunk enough to wonder were they applauding my dead husband or me? Certainly not me. What had I ever done to earn applause?
“Thank you, Caroline,” I said and took the small plaque she held out to me. I cradled it in my arms while lifting the notes so I could read them. The spotlight was blinding and hot, and I could feel a couple hundred eyes on me in a way that made my skin crawl.
Did they know? I wondered. That every single thing in my life was a lie?
“Poppy?” Caroline whispered, and I realized I was just standing there like a statue.
After clearing my throat, I read the notes—prattling on about the senator’s commitment to struggling families. School lunch programs and affordable day care.
“But that was the senator’s public life.” This was new. All new. “In private, he was just as caring. Just as compassionate. Just as kind.” These lies rattled me, and I felt an old coping mechanism slipping over me. The deep retreat into my body, where no one could touch me. Where no one could evenknowme. “All Jim wanted was to serve this great state and to have a family.” My voice broke, and I looked at Caroline who only smiled at me, the way she usually did. Like she hadn’t just driven over me with a Mack truck. “Unfortunately, in the brief time we were married, my pregnancies ended in miscarriage. And since he died before we could achieve one of those goals...” I kept reading, the words meaning nothing. They were new and not at all what I’d approved. And they split my private life right open. Part of me wanted to stop. But the lights and the eyes and the way I’d been trained for the last two years to never, ever make a fuss...
The words just kept coming.
We were creating a new foundation, Caroline and I. Better Families, Better New York. Millions of dollars to help struggling families in New York State.
I read off the card, and the crowd applauded, and Caroline was there taking the microphone away from me.
“What are you doing?” I asked her, baffled and shocked.
“Giving you purpose,” she said and led me off the stage.
“All that stuff about Jim and me?” I asked when we were in the shadowed area beside the podium, and I could see Justin keeping people away from us. “That was private, Caroline.”
“It’s not private if everyone knows,” she said, and I gasped, my hand against my stomach like she’d stabbed me.
“Poppy, this is the real world. And you’ve got to live in it. Come to my house tomorrow and we’ll talk about everything.”
And then... she was gone. And I was left bitter and fuming, holding a plaque with my abusive husband’s name on it. Having told the whole room about my private heartbreak. And secret relief. A waiter walked by with an empty tray, and I put the plaque on it.
“Ma’am?” she asked.
“Throw it away. I don’t care.”
Another server came by with the champagne I needed, and I took two of them with me as I headed for the door. My purse, I thought, but didn’t care. I wouldn’t be touching up my makeup. And what did I need cash for? Nothing. I floated above cash. Above keys. It was just me and millions of dollars that I somehow kept selling my soul for. How many times could I do this to myself? For money I didn’t care about? How many times could I just be a pawn in another person’s game?
When was I going to grow a pair and figure out what I wanted?