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Back A Small Affair Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. Part One
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. Part Two
  22. 1
  23. 2
  24. 3
  25. 4
  26. 5
  27. 6
  28. 7
  29. 8
  30. 9
  31. 10
  32. 11
  33. 12
  34. 13
  35. 14
  36. 15
  37. 16
  38. 17
  39. 18
  40. 19
  41. Part Three
  42. 1
  43. 2
  44. 3
  45. 4
  46. 5
  47. 6
  48. 7
  49. 8
  50. 9
  51. 10
  52. EPILOGUE
  53. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  54. Booklist

Some girls, some daughters, they would have rebelled. They would have made themselves ugly, average creatures, would have forced themselves to fade into the background. But not I. I was instilled with a need to be special, to have all eyes on me. Because my mother showed me that was the only way to live. But look where that got me, Mom. Look where that got me.

I prick a stigmata-size hole in my head, watch my flesh ruffle around the knifepoint.

5

TOM

1.5 years ago

Vera’s dating app profile was one of the better ones he’d seen; her answers were witty, her pictures elegant and sexy, giving just enough information about her body, her sexual energy, while still leaving you wanting more. He suspected, somehow, that not too many of the men she met “got” her, aside from her obvious beauty, and that she had a long line of dating dolts who weren’t on her intellectual level, who couldn’t keep up with her references and quips.

Good thing he was up to standard.

This was better, he thought, than stalking those bars looking for her, putting himself out on a limb that way. Women these days, they didn’t trust meeting men in person; it was better to lay all the cards on the table that dating was what they both wanted, that they were both available. He wanted her to come to him easily, with no qualms about who, in the strange, unfamiliar darkness of a bar, he might be. Better to put his profession, his age, his pictures, up, to be completely transparent about who he was. Or who he wanted her to think he was.

He’d chosen photos he knew were attractive, soft, not too intimidating. He’d done his research. He had spent ample time on her profile, on the articles in which she was quoted for that fashion brand. He knew how, in the way Peri had trained him to, to subtly decipher what this woman would be attracted to, what she’d be looking for. She was confident in a way that made him uneasy; if her security came from male attention, she was good at hiding it.

But there was also something lonely about her, a vague veil of protectiveness that emanated from her photos. In many of them she was surrounded by people, but upon further investigation, he would find that they were mostly coworkers, not friends; people with whom she was thrust together because of her industry, her rising importance in the New York fashion world.