Chapter 79

That was what he wanted people to believe. He knew he was good-looking and played on it so that no one would get to know the man behind the fa?ade. The man whose parents had brought him up to believe his looks were all that counted.

“You’re very handsome,” his father had told him more than once. “With that going for you, and a good education, everything you want will fall in your lap. The perfect job. The right woman.” His father should know. It was how he’d led his life.

Tony had believed every word his father had said, until he was out of school and working as a marketing manager for an advertising firm. He liked the job, or he wouldn’t have taken it. He didn’tlike it when his parents had set into motion the second step in their plan for him—finding him a suitable wife. That wasn’t going to happen, for the simple reason that he was gay—something he had never revealed to his parents.

“Dad would disown me in a heartbeat,” he’d told one of his short-term lovers.