by Candy Gray
“Excuse me,” said a tiny voice as the girl from Zep’s bed entered the front room with wet hair and her head down. She was red-faced during her walk of shame, and because of that, I’d give her some credit. Most would stomp out unapologetically and half-dressed.
Zep entered the room shortly after, his hair still wet from his shower, and I could only assume the two had shared it.
“You’re looking good, friend,” said Zep as he plopped down in the closest chair that hadn’t been draped with garments.
“Thanks. We finally chose the right one. Now we’re making sure it fits me like a glove.”
“Are you sure we have to do the whole tux thing? Can’t I wear a tie and my boots?” Zep’s style had always been a bit edgier than the normal rich kid, but then again, my orphaned friend’s father was the same way, always wearing concert tees and ripped jeans with his biker boots.
“Yeah, you want to ask my mother that question? I’m sure she’ll give you an answer real fast.”
“Never mind, I’ll do it.” Zep leaned back and closed his eyes like he hadn’t gotten enough sleep.
“You’re dragging ass, this morning. She didn’t look like the type that usually wears you out.” The girl seemed to have a wholesome nature compared to others he brought home.
“She was a lunatic. She had me tie her up to the posts and then she wanted to be choked. I don’t mind holding a girl by the neck, but she begged me to make her pass out and then got upset when I declined.”
“Yeah, thanks for that. The last thing we need here is some girl dying from auto-erotic asphyxiation. Could you see the headlines? My mother would put us both in the ground before the police could get to us.” I shook my head. “She didn’t seem the type.”
“She was insatiable. I think I threw my hip out and I’m not even thirty. You just never know.”
“Maybe mother should make you settle down instead of me. Your sex life is way more fucked up than mine.” The guy always seemed to get the freaks, and I couldn’t tell if that made him the unluckiest man in the world or not.
“I know what I want. Hopefully, she brings her twin along for the ride this time.”
“You’re still hung up on Halle Blue?” I chuckled and felt a firm hand on my shoulder to keep me still. “Sorry, Frenchie.” The man shook his head and went back to pretending he wasn’t in the room and Zep continued the same.
“Wanting to fuck someone isn’t the same as being hung up, and besides, I want her sister to join us.”
“I believe they call that an infatuation,” I said, but Frenchie shook his head.
“I believe the correct term is obsession, Sir.”
Frenchie and I shared a laugh and Zep gave us both an obscene gesture before even trying to defend himself. “We have unfinished business, her and I.”
Before I could give him a good ribbing over it, my mother barged her way in. “Hello, darlings. Hello, Frenchie, dear.” She didn’t stop until she was standing in the middle of us with her hands clasped as if to say what’s next.
“You two have been busy boys.” She lifted a brow, but I kept a straight face. Zep knew better than to say a word, not until we knew of what we were being accused.
I gave her a blank look and tugged down on the cuffs as I bent my arms for Frenchie.
“Don’t even play like you have no idea what I’m talking about.” She folded her arms across her front, and I waited for her foot to start tapping. Surprisingly it didn’t, but she did continue. “I was at the club sipping my mid-morning tea when the towel girl came over to tell me how excited she is to be coming to the gala tonight and how she’d spent a month’s salary on her dress. You two really should have saved the poor girl the trouble. Anyone without an official invitation isn’t welcome.”
“Yes, mother, I know.” The cat was out of the bag, and the gala was just hours away. It wasn’t as if she could undo what was done. “That’s why I made my own official invites and handed them out to my friends, so they’d be able to attend.”
“You did what? I had those invites hand-scribed by the best calligrapher in town! They were even embossed.” She snapped at me as if I didn’t know who she’d used. “You can’t just send out cheap knock-offs and expect that to work.”
“I didn’t. I made sure that I had the same woman do mine, too. She did an excellent job as she did on the others with the calligraphy and the embossing.” I knew better than to even smile, but Zep was doing enough of that for the both of us.
“You have no respect what so ever. Here I am trying to throw you this party, and you can’t stand to let me handle it!”
I threw my hands out nearly hitting Frenchie in the chest. “You’re not respecting my wishes, Patricia.”
Her eyes met mine as she jerked her head around. “Don’t you call me that! I’m your mother!”
Frenchie stepped back and folded his arms as if waiting for us to finish and I spun around to tell Patricia what for. “If you want me to have a good time and to find someone I can warm up to then you have to invite more than those icy-frigid bitches from your elite society list. I need people who are warm and caring, who have more to offer than just money. And frankly, you’re lucky I’m going at all.”
“Well, as far as I’m concerned you’ve already sabotaged this party. There’s no chance of you finding someone who is decent and proper. And once the riff-raff starts piling in, the respectable few will leave.”
“Then it will be their loss.”
“I have a few of my old client’s kids coming, and I had hoped you’d be hospitable and welcoming. You know the Blue Twins. They’ll be here, and they are very important right now. See to it that you show them some special hospitality.”
“I am going to take care of them personally, Mrs. P. You can count on me.”
“You’re such a sweetheart, Zep.” She tousled his hair like she had when he was a boy, back when it used to make me a bit jealous, but now I wish he had taken my mother.
“Kiss ass,” I mumbled, earning a smirk from Zep as she headed to the door.
“You men be ready for the gala by six. I want you downstairs front and center to welcome your guests.” And then she was gone.
“See, she wants me to fuck them. Did you hear her? All that talk about showing them hospitality. That’s precisely what I plan to do.” Zep got up and crossed the room to stand beside me in the mirror.
Frenchie, who had gone back to work the minute my mother had left, was all done with me. While he worked with Zep, I called a few of my friends and made sure they were coming. The man promised to have us looking sharp by then.
After Frenchie left a girl showed up delivering our masks. I’d opted for the plague doctor look, while Zep preferred the hawk mask, and both of us looked like a pair of vicious birds.
She showed us how to put them on and then before she excused herself, I slipped her one of my last invitations to the ball, which lit her eyes. “Thanks,” she said, before leaving.
“Why did you do that?” asked Zep.
“I saw the way you looked at her, and she’s talented. Look at these masks. Wouldn’t she be a hotter fantasy than those dragon twins you’re after?” Anyone would be.
“No, man. I want those girls, and I want them before the night is over, so I’d appreciate any help you can give me.”
“You want me to recommend it?”
“Fuck, I don’t care, but if there is an opportunity, your help will be appreciated. Sadie always did like you. Halle told me so.” Sadie was the crazier of the two and downright scary.
I didn’t want to promise her shit and get her on my bad side. “I don’t know, man. Let’s play it all by ear and see how the night goes. I’m not getting stuck with those girls all night.
It was a party after all, not a punishment. But I was sure if things didn’t go as planned for me, my mother would make sure that in the end, it was both.
Chapter 7
Ella
I was in my room hoping to get dressed without any
interruption from the twins. I was officially off work until the party, at least that’s what Nola had told me, and I wanted to milk every single minute for all it’s worth.
I was shocked when Millie came up wanting to help me get ready and even more when she started telling me stories about my mother. I hadn’t known Millie knew her when she was so young or that Scott Blue had known my mother long before Nola, from what she told me.
“So, they knew each other a long time before I was born, then?”
“Oh yeah, and you know, you should wear this one.” Millie held out the pretty blue gown I’d thought about wearing.
“I’m not sure. I wanted to wear that one originally, but Halle warned me that I shouldn’t wear her color.” I had no idea what the girl would do if I decided to go against her warning, but considering I didn’t want to rock the boat, I thought it best to listen.
Millie huffed. “Her color? If I’m not mistaken this is the perfect match to your eyes, and besides, she doesn’t own the shade, only the name. Besides, this gown was made to match those eyes.”
“My mother’s eyes were not blue.” I thought that was what Millie was referring to, but then she gave me a knowing glance, and I wondered for a moment if my mother had matched them to another set of eyes. They were the same exact color.
“My mother was a huge a Scott Blue fan, wasn’t she?” I narrowed my eyes, and Millie let out a long breath.
“She was his biggest.” She gave me a wink, and I didn’t bother questioning things further, but I wondered how my mother matched the color so perfectly as if she’d spent hours studying the color.
“Are you going to wear your mother’s jewelry?” Millie picked up the pieces from my collection that I’d laid out, her fingers unhooking the clasp of the bracelet and then closing it back.
“Yes, but those aren’t my mother’s pieces. I designed those myself, and I’m hoping to do as well as my mother. I’d like to make a name, but I need some connections.”
“Your mother had plenty of connections, surely some of them would be willing to work with the daughter of the great Layla Ford.”
“I’ve had Nola help me a bit, and I know a few people, but I was trying not to lean on them too much. It hasn’t gone well. I’m afraid they don’t seem to like me much.”
She cleared her throat and leaned in closer. “Please don’t take this wrong way, but perhaps you’d do best not to let Nola be so mixed up in your affairs.”
She said it was as if I couldn’t trust Nola, or that maybe her own reputation was ruining my chances, but I couldn’t imagine that being so. Nola was connected, the wife of Scott Blue, and mother/agent to the girls. I thought about that last thing and decided that perhaps she had a point.
“Thanks, Millie. I’ll keep that in mind.” I wondered why the woman hadn’t gone to see her granddaughters get ready. Instead, she’d chosen to sit with me, and I’d enjoyed her company. I felt too alone in the world now that mother had passed away and Millie eased that pain for me, much the same way Nola and Scott had.
After a bit, I was ready to go down and meet the girls. They’d asked me to be punctual, and when I got downstairs in the sitting room, where they wanted to meet, I realized why. “They’ve left without me,” I said, turning to Millie.
“Are you sure? It’s a big house. Perhaps they’re here somewhere. Maybe they’re late?” It was sweet that she wanted to think the best of her awful grandchildren, but I knew better. I glanced out the window seeing that the limo was gone too.
“Oh look, they have to still be here,” said Millie. She held up a pair of masks that had to be theirs for the party. Both were intricately decorated with braided rope and feathers and like the girls, both matched.
Nola walked in, and all the color drained from her face upon seeing me. Then she turned her nose up. “You’re late. The girls left twenty minutes ago.”
“She’s right on time. They left early. They’ve even forgotten their masks.” Millie was speaking through clenched teeth as if she wanted to reach over and bite Nola’s head off for not controlling the girls better.
“It’s fine. I can call a cab.” I reached into my handbag for my phone, but Millie stopped me. “Nonsense, I have a private car. I’ll call my driver, and he’ll take you.”
“I couldn’t put you out, really.”
“Well, you can’t show up in a cab. Not to a gala.” Nola snorted like I should know better.
“I’d think that’s precisely the option your daughters had hoped to leave her with,” snapped Millie.
Nola tilted her head and placed her hand on her heart. “Mama Blue, surely you don’t think—
“I don’t think. I know. I was willing to give those little monsters the benefit of the doubt, but now I see how cruel they can be.”
My phone went off in the awkward silence that followed that remark. “It’s them.” I answered the phone and Nola and Millie exchanged daggers. “Hello and thanks for waiting.”
Halle’s voice came through the phone. “We couldn’t possibly wait any longer for you. You were going to ruin our grand entrance. But we seemed to have forgotten our masks, so be a dear and bring those to us, would you? Even if you have to go back for them.”
“I don’t have to go back for them. I’ve got them already.” I glanced over to Millie who shook her head. “I’ll see you at the party.”
I hung up, and Millie was already on Nola again. “Those two hoped to make her go back for those masks. That’s why they left them.”
“I won’t stand around letting you insult my children.” Nola stormed away, and before she made it out the door, she took her phone out of her pocket. I had a feeling the girls were about to get a call.
“They are going to try and ruin your night, but don’t let them. Your mother loved the gala and you will too. Maybe you’ll even dance with a handsome man and fall in love.”
I laughed at the thought. “I’ll be lucky to find someone who loves my jewelry, much less me, but it’s worth a shot.” I shrugged and picked up the mask as she called her driver.
Three minutes later, the old man pulled the car out front and Millie sent me along with him telling him just to wait until the gala was over to return. I’d need a chauffeur home.
“I can get a cab home, honest, Millie. You’re going to spoil me.”
“You deserve to be spoiled now and then too, besides, you’re—well, you’re very special. Those girls are just jealous of you.” She smiled, and I could tell there was a hint of sadness in her eyes. “You look so much like your mother.”
“Thanks, Millie.” With that, the driver, who she’d called Anthony, opened my door and I climbed inside the white Rolls minding my dress.
The ride there was quiet, and I took the time to breathe and relax knowing that when I got back around the twins, I’d want to poke my eyes out. I had no idea what Millie meant by them being jealous of me. How was that even possible and why? They had everything and what they didn’t have their money could buy them. New lips, new boobs, new clothes, and what could I afford? Nothing but to be their assistant. Not for long. I felt a new determination rose inside me and I pepped myself up with the idea of meeting that one special person that could change my life forever. It was wishful thinking sure, but more fun than sitting around moping.
In that long ride out to the Prince family mansion, I had plenty of time to fantasize and dream of my line becoming enough to open my shop.
I missed the house at the beach where I’d grown up, and the large shop my mother had made in the garage and wondered if maybe now some nice family lived in it. Nola had told me all about how it had been sold, and I could only wonder if one day I’d be rich enough to buy it back. I would in a heartbeat.
As the car drove around the circle drive, I watched as many cars in front of me stopped and let out the people inside, all dressed to the nines in the highest fashions of the hour. My stomach twisted in knots and I gathered up my mask and put it on. I clutched my handbag that I’d slipped my pho
ne in along with a tube of lipstick and then fumbled with the girl’s masks. I’d like to throw them out the window, but instead, I held them tight, stepping carefully out of the car as the valet held the door. I stepped out and onto a gorgeous red carpet that was trimmed in gold and it led right up to a pair of double doors that were opened wide, with two attendants on each side. I fumbled through my purse, realizing that everyone was presenting their invite as a ticket. Dammit! There had been no ticket for me.
Three more steps and I was about to be turned away. My heart sank to stomach like a rock as all the blood rushed from my face and into my hands.