Somebody had drugged her drink, I was sure of it. And her own friend, the one she told me countless times always protected her when they were out, couldn’t even keep his dick in his pants long enough to make sure she was good. Blood boiled under my skin thinking about the pretty boy who she shared a past with—one I wasn’t stupid enough to believe was just platonic. I’d seen the way he stared at her ass when she swiveled those goddamn hips she grew into. She didn’t seem to know people like him watched, but they did. It wasn’t always because of her past like she assumed, it was out of desire and it pissed me off.
She’d denied ever getting involved with Pretty Boy, the McKinley kid, for years. I’d known better than to believe it because they were always pushed together by Sophie. I didn’t give a shit if she thought they made a cute couple, it was only a matter of time before the kid wanted to start pushing his luck with her. I was a teenage boy once too and knew what my dick wanted. Anybody with eyes could see that would happen between them at some point.
“Fuck,” I repeated, gripping the nearest manilla folder and studying the contents to shove the thought out of my head. I didn’t want to think about who Della had been involved with in the past. I knew for a fact it wasn’t many people at all. Pretty Boy was definitely one, and maybe the Phelps kid who hung around her a few summers before her father’s arrest. The only good thing that came from that was the Phelps family and their kid, who I didn’t care enough about to remember the name of, left Della alone when news broke because they didn’t want to be involved with anybody that had the Saint James last name. I’d seen what it did to Della, but I couldn’t get myself to care because it meant I didn’t have to threaten some asshole over how they treated her.
Focusing on work helped, it always did. Not just because of Della, but life. The divorce. The drama. The gossip. Then the trial. I dove into what I did best—making money. I hardly made friends in my line of work because that wasn’t what I set out to do. Most people I encountered only wanted to use me for my bank account anyway, so it wasn’t worth it. Anthony had been the only true friend I trusted, and not even what he’d done wavered that.
Work was the same bullshit, different day as I stared at the files. Numbers in black that had more zeros than most people saw in their lifetime and names of millionaires attached that I knew for a fact were too full of themselves for their own good. Most days, I liked my job. The business world was one where I got to get shit done in my own way, at my own pace. Typically, it was straight to the point without the bullshit attached.
Before Anthony Saint James became governor, he’d once been a partner in my consulting firm that I started shortly after acquiring my master’s in business from NYU. He had set his sights on something else, something bigger, while I was content staying on the sidelines and watching him get everything he wanted. In fact, I encouraged him. That was what friends did and I was happy to see him achieve whatever the hell he put his mind to because it meant something to him.
I was far from a jealous man. Possessive, perhaps, but not jealous. Everything Anthony worked hard for was well earned—the job, the title, the family. He loved Elizabeth and Adele with everything he had, even more than his job. There wasn’t anything he did that he wasn’t good at; being a loving father and husband and governing an entire state. He’d had bad days, some worse than others, and I wasn’t sure Della knew when their parents’ marriage was rocky, and he stayed with me for a week. I was under the impression he guised it as a trip for work. She had no reason to believe otherwise because her parents had the kind of sickening love that people envied. Me though? Not so much. Not until I saw what her death did to him. He was ripped apart, like a piece of him was suddenly missing, and I didn’t realize until then, that it was the kind of love worth envying. Something I didn’t have with my wife at the time.
I worked until the early hours of the morning before dumping out the warm alcohol that taunted me and heading to my bedroom upstairs—right next to the one I used to share with my ex. There were plenty of other rooms in the house, but I favored the downstairs one since it was close to the office, kitchen, and gym. I rarely went anywhere else on the second floor unless there were guests over and that was rare considering the few that stopped by shared a bed with me only until they left in the morning like agreed upon.
Maybe it was knowing that Della was downstairs after what had happened that left me restless, maybe it was the stiffness in my boxer briefs that I refused to relieve no matter how painful it got, but I gave up sleeping more than four hours and found myself in the kitchen just as the sun rose.
I heard the light footsteps before seeing her from my peripheral, her body leaning against the archway leading into the kitchen. She was still wearing the same dress
