Page 16 of Don't Hate Me
“Last time I tried to tell you, you said I was just trying to hold your attention,” she reminded me.
I winced. “Okay. Fine. That was wrong. You wouldn’t lie to me. I get that now.”
She seemed to think about it for a second.
“No secrets. That was a rule, too,” I reminded her.
“Promise me you won’t overreact.”
“I absolutely donotpromise that.” Because I had this gut feeling I really wasn’t going to like whatever she had to say.
“You’re not going to like it,” she said quietly. “But I think…I think maybe…my father is trying to sell me to someone.”
What. The. Fuck.
5
Amelia Island
Ashleigh
“You better start talking. Now,”Marc growled.
I got off his lap and took his coffee cup and mine to the sink in the kitchenette to have something to do with my hands. But he followed me like I was trying to run from him.
“Do you know Evan Sanderson? Or the Sanderson family? They’re older than you and you wouldn’t have gone to school with any of his brothers. But you might have heard of the family.”
“There was a Richard Sanderson in my class.”
I nodded. “I’m sure he’s related. Maybe a distant cousin. All the Sandersons in Harborview are. They come from seriously old money. Like, founding fathers of New Jersey old money. I’ve known them peripherally for years, but, lately, Evan has been showing up at places, calling himself one of my father’s clients.”
Marc held up his hands. “Your father manages a hedge fund. That’s entirely possible.”
I shook my head. “The Sandersons don’t need people like my father. As wealthy as Arthur is, he’s small potatoes compared to them.”
Marc’s jaw dropped a little then, and I nodded. “You’ve lived on the periphery of this world. And I know you want to be part of it, but to do that you have to understand how it works. There’s old money, new money. Flashy money, private-jet money and own-a-private-island kind of money. My father has always been one of the flashy, new-money types. Buying the estate in Harborview, he wanted to make a statement. But I’m not sure it ever worked.”
Marc’s eyes narrowed. “Back in high school, girls used to make fun of you for your shoes. The kind of money you’re talking about, I would think five-hundred-dollar shoes were to be expected.”
I smiled gently because it was clear how much of my world he didn’t see. “Harborview High is a public school, Marc. The people I’m talking about don’t go to public school. They go to private academies with other people who have just as much money as they do. That’s why those girls were making fun of me. They didn’t think I belonged there because of the estate we lived on. They thought I should be with my own crowd.”
“You’re telling me your father is considered low rent among the Sanderson crowd?”
I nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. My father has plenty of money. He’s just not attheirlevel.”
“So why is this guy hanging around?” Marc asked.
“I don’t know. He came to the house a few times for dinner after you went to Princeton. Then he showed up in Switzerland—”
“Switzerland?”
I nodded. “When my father was visiting. They justhappenedto be doing business nearby.”
“And you think these visits are what, exactly?”
I sighed and crossed my arms over my stomach. “I don’t know. He’s never been creepy. He doesn’t leer at me or try to touch me, ever. He’s polite, charming, very formal. Of course, I’m polite back. But it just doesn’t feel right. Like he’s biding his time before he makes his move. And all these visits are just to show me he has my father’s approval already.”
“So he makes his move and you say, back the fuck off, asshole.”
