by Josie Brown
Time to pay the piper, Jillian thought. “But I didn’t bring a checkbook.”
He was practically shoving her and the stroller out the door. “That’s okay. We take credit cards.”
Tara waited until Lutz closed the door before handing Jillian his bill. Jillian’s eyes bulged. “Forty-eight hundred dollars? But I was only in there for two hours! I thought it was six-hundred dollars each—”
“We bill the first eight hours in advance,” Tara explained sweetly.
Jillian fumbled in her purse until she found her Visa card and handed it over.
Tara swiped it, then frowned. “Oh dear! Declined. I guess Mr. Frederick has already had it cancelled.”
“What? Can he do that?”
Tara’s nod was sympathetic. “We see it all the time. If I were you, I’d head down to the bank. He may have closed your accounts there as well.”
I can’t do that now! Jillian thought. I’ve got to get the girls to the meet-up! Oh hell, this is a nightmare.
A tear dropped from her cheek onto the assistant’s desk. Patting Jillian’s hand, Tara murmured, “Don’t worry. I’ll bill you for it. But hit the bank as soon as you can.”
Jillian was too choked up to do anything but nod.
She practically ran down the hall to the elevator. By now the girls were so hungry they were wailing.
She waited until the elevator started its descent before she allowed herself to cry, too.
9:52 a.m.
“Well, well, well! Aren’t we the early birds!” Bettina’s tone was all sweetness and light as she reached out for Dante. Once he was in her arms, she dismissed Lorna with a wave of her free hand.
Lorna had already made up her mind that nothing Bettina did today would get under her skin. But then Bettina stared down at Dante. “What is that, a tracksuit? Omigod! You’ve dressed him like some little old Florida retiree!”
Lorna’s retort—that it was Ralph Lauren; that it was official Olympic gear; that Matt had chosen it for him—stuck in her throat as the room filled with more moms and tots.
Most of the other little boys were wearing tuxedos.
If not a tux, then monogrammed sweaters and khakis.
Had Matthew been standing beside her at that moment, Lorna probably would have kicked him. Hard. Then she would have ordered him to run home and get Dante’s tuxedo.
Instead, she stood there like a lump while Bettina introduced “Dante Connaught, and his mother, Lorna,” to two other women who gushed reverent thanks for the honor of being there.
In fact, one of the women—Chakra Crutch—proudly said, “I made Quest’s tuxedo myself—out of hemp! My husband, Stone, and I eschew synthetics. Plastics, too, for that matter. In fact, we live our lives entirely green.”
Who the hell actually uses the word ‘eschew,’ Lorna thought as Bettina and the other woman, Kelly Overton, cooed admirably over the little boy’s duds. Then Kelly did a double take and turned to Lorna. “Oh, so you’re a Connaught? Then you must be married to Bettina’s brother, Matthew.” Kelly shifted her son, Wills, onto her other hip and held out a hand to Lorna.
“You know my husband?” Lorna asked as she shook it.
“Ha! You bet I know Matty! Why, Bettina and I practically grew up together. She’d be the first to tell you I had a crush on her older brother. He’s still adorable, I presume?”
Lorna didn’t like the way Kelly had practically purred his name. Her only consolation was that Bettina was just as annoyed. No one else would have picked up on Bettina’s ire, but Lorna had been around her long enough to know that whenever she smoothed her hair behind her right ear, she was pissed about something.
She waited until the women drifted off to the buffet table before asking Bettina, “It sounds like she knows Matt pretty well. Why is that?”
Bettina shrugged. “We all prepped together at Lick-Wilmerding.”
That’s when it hit Lorna. “Bettina, if that Kelly person hadn’t caught my last name, no one here would have known we were related.”
“That’s the point.” Finally, Bettina was smiling again. “I’d rather that it not become an issue—I mean, should you ever have to leave the club.”
“What does that mean, ‘should I ever have to leave’? The invitation said—”
“The invitation specifically mentioned a probationary period. Seriously, Lorna, with your lack of attention to detail, I’m surprised you actually graduated from Berkeley.” Bettina’s giggle was accompanied by a shrug. “To be perfectly honest with you, this year we’re in a bit of a pickle. Too many great families for too few slots. There’s still some weeding out to do. So let’s all pray you don’t somehow screw up Dante’s chances here at PHM&T, because we both know I don’t, and can’t, play favorites.”
Ha, Lorna thought. What you mean is that you won’t play favorites with me, but you certainly will for your BFF, Kelly.
Lorna waited until her voice was steady. “I would never presume that you would,” she said.
“So glad we’re both on the same page. You deserve to pat yourself on the back, Lorna. For once, you got somewhere all on your own.” Bettina didn’t excuse herself. She just handed Dante back to Lorna then walked toward the women and children who were now flowing through the doorway.
Lorna had a good mind to grab Bettina by her fake blond roots and pummel her into the ground. To stomp that smirk right off her face. To yank off one of her suede Prada platform booties and beat her to death with it.
But no, of course she couldn’t do that. It would set a bad example for Dante and the other children.
Besides, there were too many witnesses.
And as much as she’d like to, she couldn’t run away, either. She had to stick it out, for Dante’s sake.
She sighed deeply and tickled him under the chin in hope that he might smile. When he didn’t, she reasoned that her perceptive little man felt her pain.
He probably knew his Aunt Bettina was the cause of it, too.
From now on, whenever she read him a fairy tale, she knew what name she’d substitute for the word “witch.” It started with a ‘B’. And no, it wasn’t bitch.
As her heart swelled with love for her son, she smiled and hugged him even closer. “Come on, Stud, let’s go impress all these cute little girls.”
10:15 a.m.
Knowing the Pacific Heights Moms & Tots Club’s Official Onesies Inaugural Play Date had been underway for the past fifteen minutes was driving Ally Thornton crazy. Flocks of mothers with children rushed through the gated entrance of the Flood Mansion and up its grand old stone staircase, but all Ally could do was watch from the backseat of her BMW X6 SUV while Ellis Conway, the chief executive of the online shoe company, Foot Fetish, droned on and on about the finer points of the latest inventory procedures.
To make matters worse, Ally was missing half of what he was saying because Zoe, her fifteen-month-old daughter, kept tossing her Baby Stella dolls into the front seat. Each time Ally retrieved one, Zoe would squeal, then send yet another doll over the headrest.
“Okay, Zoe, game over,” Ally whispered. Her cell phone was on MUTE, but she hoped that leading by example would silence Zoe.
As if that would ever happen.
“No! Babas! BABAS!” Zoe shouted as she motioned toward the front seat, where her dolls had flopped, like drunken sailors after a beer binge.
“Shhhh!” Ally warned her daughter. So that Zoe could be buckled into her car seat, Ally handed her a sippy cup.
Not a smart move. Zoe slapped it out of her mother’s hand. The top popped off, and Ally’s chest was hit with a wave of milk.
“Bad girl! Bad, bad girl!” she hissed as she scrounged in Zoe’s diaper bag for a cloth to wipe herself off.
If she thought it would shame her daughter into silence, she was sadly mistaken. Instead, Zoe screamed gleefully as she climbed out of her car seat.
Ally had just grabbed hold of one of Zoe’s plump little legs when she heard Ellis say through her cell phone’s
earbud “—which I presented to the board a list of proposed options to be granted to company employees and its advisors, for their approval. Ms. Thornton had previously mentioned a concern regarding the initial stock split. Ally, would you care to elaborate?”
Ally quickly tapped her cell phone’s MUTE OFF button so her corporate board members could hear her.
Big mistake. At that very second Zoe let loose with a banshee cry. Then, with her tiny fist, she grabbed the cell phone and tossed it out the window.
“Ally! Are you there? Are you all right?” The last voice Ally heard before the moving truck ran over it was that of Barry Simon, her corporate attorney.
Well, thank God he had attended the meeting on her behalf. He’d make something up so the board wouldn’t think she’d been eaten by an anaconda or something.
Barry had been her best friend since high school. He was also Zoe’s sperm donor, and in Ally’s will, he shared the responsibility of Zoe’s legal guardianship with his lover, Christian Cordell.
Not that the Pacific Heights Moms & Tots Club would ever know that. On her application, Ally and Barry had presented themselves as a happily married couple.
Nor would the club find out that Ally Thornton hadn’t completely stepped out of the workforce to care for Zoe: she was still working part-time as the chief strategy officer of Foot Fetish. Her reconnaissance of PHM&T had warned her that the application committee frowned upon working moms. By putting down “board member in an advisory capacity,” she sidestepped the issue of how much time she was obligated to spend at the company.
Ally had mentioned that she had been accepted to the club only the day before, during Barry and Christian’s weekly Sunday dinner together with her and Zoe. Barry had laughed so hard he’d spewed his martini. “Ally, my sweet, tell me you’re kidding!”
Ally, who had been mixing the salad, put down the tongs with a thud. “And why is that funny? All anyone on the playground talks about is how PHM&T is the club to join.”
Barry winced as the last drops from the martini shaker trickled into his glass. “I don’t know about that. One of the biggest jokes around Christian’s hair salon is all the hoops that club makes its members jump through. If you think the Bracknell lackeys are giving you grief with their macho corporate games, just wait until you meet that woman—Christian, what’s her name again?”
“Bettina Connaught Cross.” Christian shook his head gravely. “All my customers gossip about her. They say her name is apropos: you ‘cannotcross’ her, or you’re out of the club. Their horror stories could curl your hair.”
“Which is why you do so many Kerastase treatments.”
Barry’s joke earned him a raised brow from Christian.
“We all know that’s the last thing I need.” Ally shook her head. Her long, dark curls, which spiraled down her back, bounced from side to side. “Seriously you guys, how bad can it be?”
“Oh, it would be okay,” Christian had chimed in, “if you were a brain-dead stay-at-home MomBot who angsts over whether you gave up breastfeeding too early because you pulled the poor kid off your tit before she started grade school. But that’s not you, Ally. And you know it.”
Barry’s brow shot up. “Well, well, well! Someone is being a bit too catty.”
Christian shrugged. “Nope, sorry. You can’t accuse me of that. Hell, if it had been up to Ramona, I’d still be suckling.”
Barry laughed. “You’re right. You’re such a mama’s boy.”
They were only kidding, but that didn’t stop the tears from welling in Ally’s eyes. She’d always felt guilty for never breastfeeding Zoe. But how could she? Bracknell International’s offer to buy Foot Fetish had been proffered in the fifth month of her pregnancy. The deal had closed the day Zoe was born. Her dream—to sell the company, so she’d have enough money to raise Zoe without ever having to work again—to put her through college, without the fear of her daughter incurring debt to get her degree, like she’d had—had finally come true.
With one caveat: Bracknell International insisted she stay on as the company’s chief strategy officer for at least three years.
The offer had been too tempting to refuse, especially after BI had accepted Simon’s counter: besides taking home a seven-figure salary and additional stock options, she’d only have to show up at the office two days a week in order to participate in design sessions, vendor relations strategies, and the monthly board meetings.
For those days, she had lined up a great nanny: Lucy Sweetin, a grandmother to three strapping grown boys, all San Francisco firefighters.
A corporate board hadn’t been easy to get used to. Before Ally had sold the company, she’d had only one person to answer to: herself. Her style was to make snap decisions. Now she had bean counters who questioned her every move.
The worst of them was the CEO, Ellis.
But she also had the financial freedom that any mother would envy.
And she’d done it without a man at her side.
Working all those long, late nights was easy when you were going home to an empty house.
Her twenties had been a decade of missed opportunities and heartbreak. The decision to have Zoe meant that at least she would enter her forties with someone at her side. Someone to grow with and with whom she’d share experiences.
Someone who would always love her.
Now that she and Zoe had been accepted to PHM&T, the good times were about to get even better.
Ally had smiled up at Christian. “You know better than to listen to gossip. I’ll finally have an opportunity to bond with other moms while Zoe socializes and plays. It’s a dream come true.”
Barry frowned even as he kissed her forehead. “Be careful what you wish for, Al.”
Now, even as she patted down the wet stains on her blouse and stared out at plastic shards and crushed circuit board that used to be her cellphone, Ally Thornton knew that her sweet Barry had nothing to worry about.
She grabbed her bag, scooped up Zoe, and ran through the mansion’s front gates, right behind some tall man with a baby boy on his shoulders.
10:14 a.m.
The man may have been over six feet tall, but this didn’t seem to bother his toddler son, who sat high on his shoulders and chortled as he yanked at his father’s thick, blond hair.
Mallory, who along with Joanna had been handing the guests their nametags, saw him first. She nudged Kimberley, who had been handing rose corsages to the new Onesies moms: red for legacies, and white for those six moms who would be competing for the four other slots. She grimaced at his audacity and signaled Bettina with a wave.
If anyone was going to tell this guy that this was a private party, it had to be Bettina. Kimberley was much too shy to the point of blushing as deep red as her hair, Mallory would be rude about it, and Joanna was too big a flirt to tell him to get lost.
Bettina sighed as she straightened her shoulders. By the time she’d reached the intruder, her lips were pursed into a benign smile.
10:25 a.m.
“Wow, Oliver, look at all the cute babes that are here.” Brady Pierce’s murmur was low enough that he may have truly been addressing his son, but certainly loud enough for the stately blonde with the SnoCone simper to hear it, too.
It was for her benefit, anyway.
As Brady had expected, it didn’t exactly stop her in her tracks, but the pale pink flush rising from her neck to those high cheekbones was proof it had the desired effect.
For a second, at least. Then the icy smile was back. “I’m sorry, but this is a private party.”
“The Pacific Heights Moms & Tots Club, right?” Steadying his son with one hand, Brady reached inside his jacket pocket with the other and pulled out the official PHM&T invitation. “I’m Brady Pierce. My son, Oliver, made the cut.”
By now he was used to the effect his name had on others. The cloud of wariness that had darkened her cornflower blue eyes now brightened in anticipation of how she could use this new relationship to her advant
age.
Brady was not above letting her take advantage of him—if it got him what he wanted, too.
Bettina honored him with a dimpled smile. “Oh! But…well, we assumed he would be here with his mother. It’s Jade, isn’t it?”
“This is Jade’s charity morning. She sits on Save the Children’s Celebrity Council.” He shrugged modestly, as if on his wife’s behalf. “But this is so important to her—tous—that I promised I’d stand in for her.”
He was lying. Wherever Jade was—and his security team had yet to figure that out—more than likely she was sleeping off a hard night of clubbing.
Not to mention that Jade hadn’t seen Oliver in months.
No matter. Had Jade shown up, this ice queen, and all these other buttoned-up mommies, would have been appalled at the way she’d try to navigate the mansion’s stone steps in her too short, too tight skirt and thigh high boots. He could just imagine them rolling their eyes whenever her oversized breasts jiggled under whatever clingy, low-cut top she’d chosen to wear that day.
Not to mention the gasps they’d give when one nipple just happened to pop out.
If that happened, she couldn’t even use the excuse that she was still nursing Oliver.
Brady wondered if he was nuts to presume these sorority types would arrange play dates with a platinum blond bombshell who thought the Kardashians were high society. He might have been stupid enough to fall for a big-titted pole dancer with a face like an angel, but none of them would.
Unless he was successful in winning them over first. Otherwise he couldn’t accomplish his end game: to get Oliver into the group.
At least he had Madame Ovary on his side. She had winked slyly at him when he entered and then pretended to be surprised to see him there.
SnoCone was there for him, too. That was obvious by the way she patted his arm gently and purred, “I’m the club’s founder, Bettina Connaught Cross.”