Which meant Callum was also the exact opposite of my father.

Which meant that for the sake of my sanity, I should at least give him a chance.

He was my redo. My second chance. My redemption.

“So? Would you give me one date?” he begged. “I promise to prove to be wonderfully unstable, with a dash of incompetence, and provide you with plenty of unpredictability.”

“Fine.” I rolled my eyes with a giddy smile.

“Ha!” He slapped the bar in triumph. “It was the unstable bit that did it, wasn’t it?” He settled himself back down, pushing his beer away like he finally could, like it revolted him. “Always gets the ladies,” he said.

I take a deep breath, meeting Callum’s eyes in the ballroom. “I’m sure you’re about to tell me all about the whores and the dicks,” I say, his erection throbbing between my legs through his cigar pants and my dress.

For the record: Callum lied that night at the bar. Not one bone in his entire body is messy, risky, or uncalculated. As for the birthmark? His skin is as unmarred as a blank new sheet of paper.

Callum Brooks is attractive in a Nantucket-summer-house, two-point-five-children, Polo-shirts-and-golf-tournaments kind of way, with his pulled-up white socks, sandy blond hair, impressive height, and runner’s body. Summer, my best friend, likes to joke that he looks like David Duke’s dream candidate.

He looks into my eyes. “I’m a serial monogamist, thirty-two, and have been dating you for almost a year. Commitment doesn’t scare me, Rory. If I have it my way, you’ll move in with me tomorrow morning.”

I unbutton his blazer and loosen his tie, just to do something with my hands. I like Callum, too, but a year is still early in our relationship.

It took you twenty-four hours to promise Mal your forever, says the voice in my head.

I was also new to dick and non-self-induced orgasms. I proceed to make excuses for my eighteen-year-old self.

Callum ushers me to our table. We sit down next to a bunch of suits from accounting and marketing, who munch on their first-course ceviche and talk about hedge funds and newly popular beach towns that are driving people out of the Hamptons. Callum slides into the conversation effortlessly, sticking to his club soda—as he does, still without a drop of alcohol. I focus on my colleagues, trying to put the man in the VIP area behind me.

As I said before, it’s not Mal. And, okay, fine. Let’s humor the craziest part of my brain and say that it is him—so what? He didn’t see me. And I’m not going to approach him, either. He’s probably in town for a few days. Mal’s extremely devoted to his family, his farm, his country. I knew that when I met him. That man wouldn’t move to America. Not even for a girl.

Especially not for a girl.

Definitely not this girl.

As for money? He doesn’t care for it. Never did.