by Sierra Rose
At that point, Mitchell decided not to push his luck. Instead, he snapped his fingers again for a server to clear our plates, then lifted his eyes tentatively to his son. “Care for a drink? You still prefer rum and Coke, do you not?”
Nick stared steadily back. That had not been his drink of choice since about the sixth grade, but he knew his father was trying to make an effort, if only to impress his cradle-robbed bride-to-be. After a second, he glanced down and nodded. “Sure, Dad, that’d be great.”
As Mitchell got up to make the drink himself, Claudia leaned forward once more, this time turning her predatory smile on me. “So, Abby, have you and Nick talked at all about having children? I know Mitchell would love nothing more than a little grandson running around these lawns.”
My stomach performed an Olympics-worthy round of gymnastics flips and somersaults, so violently that I spilled a splash of lemonade on the table. “Oh! I’m sorry!” I said with a squeal of embarrassment, trying to sop it up with a linen napkin.
A trio of expressionless servers rushed forward to take care of it, and they wiped it clean and replaced the drink before I even had a chance to say another word.
“Abby and I aren’t thinking about that right now,” Nick swiftly intervened, taking my hand firmly in his. “We’re still in the early stages, figuring things out. The last thing we want to do is rush into a family.”
A wave of numbness crashed over me, melting from the top of my head down to the tips of my toes and taking my smile with it. “That’s right,” I said flatly. “We don’t want to rush.”
Claudia considered that for a moment before her eyes lit up with a manic gleam. “I couldn’t disagree more. Mitchell and I can’t wait to start a family.”
Oh really? Has she forgotten that Mitchell already has a family, one who is sitting right across from her at the table?
A look of faint amusement flitted across Nick’s face, and I knew he was up to no good. “Is that right?”
“Yes,” she said without a shred of uncertainty in her voice, her eyes dancing as she imagined it the same fantastical dream all the other wives had before her. She was about to marry a billionaire who found women disposable, and she knew the first thing she had to do was anchor him down with kids. “I can’t wait to be a mother.”
Either my gag reflex was on high alert or the woman was literally making me ill. My hand slipped distractedly down to my stomach, and I stifled a shudder, wondering what kind of awful hatchling the succubus might produce. But I knew I had to play nice so I said, “I’m sure you’ll be terrific at it.”
She beamed at me, thrilled by my assessment, before turning back to Nick. “In the meantime, I’m going to get some practice with you.” Then, before he could pull away, she reached across the table and took his hand, flashing him what she clearly thought was an indulgent, maternal smile. “I know this might be a little awkward, Nick, what with the age gap and all, but I’m hoping that in time, you won’t just see me as your stepmother but also as your friend.”
It was a good thing Mitchell set the rum and Coke down when he did, because Nick polished the outdated tonic off in about two seconds flat. He then moved swiftly to his feet, pulling me up with him, and declared, “On that note, I think Abby and I need to settle in.” He flashed his father an indescribable look before pulling open the door to the house. “Will we be in my same room?”
“Yes, son,” Mitchell said quickly, glancing up the stairs. Under normal circumstances, such an abrupt exit would have thrown him into a frenzy, but at that point, the only emotion he seemed capable of was an apologetic kind of gratitude. “Harold laid out some clothes for the two of you. Dinner is at six.”
“Can’t wait,” Nick muttered, pulling me up the stairs with him.
He didn’t look back and didn’t stop moving until we were safely inside our Hamptons bedroom, a monstrous space that was larger than my entire Brooklyn apartment. There was a series of metallic clicks as he secured not one but three separate locks. The second he was finished, he paced swiftly forward and collapsed on the bed.
“It was a terrible idea to come here,” he said, moaning into the comforter. “I can’t do this, not again.”
I laughed quietly and perched on the bed beside him, offering him a sympathetic back rub. “She’s a real snake, isn’t she?” A series of chills ran down my skin as I recalled the conversation. “Thank goodness that salad showed up, or she might have dislodged her jaw to swallow me whole.”
His lips twitched up in a reluctant grin as he flipped onto his back and stared up at me. “They’re always like that, every single one of them.” He shook his head and let out a soft sigh. “It makes me wonder how things ever got started with my mom. She was so...different.”
It grew abruptly quiet for a second before I forced the conversation forward. “Well, I think you’re looking at this completely the wrong way. I mean, not only are you getting a wonderful new stepmother, one who probably got her driver’s license the same year as you did, but just a few months from now, you’ll have a little brother or sister too!”
It was a bold joke, considering what we’d just been through, but Nick was always one to play a little rough. “Yeah,” he said, laughing sarcastically and shaking his head with a roll of his eyes. “She’s in for a bit of a disappointment on that one.”
I cocked my head curiously to the side. “And why’s that?”
A dark smile ghosted his face. “Well, gold-diggers might have rules for dating billionaires, but billionaires have rules for dating gold-diggers as well.”
I shook my head, still not following. “I’m sorry? What does that—”
“Vasectomy, Abby.”
“Huh?”
“Little Miss Too-Much-Mascara doesn’t know it yet, but dear old Dad only shoots blanks. I bet she didn’t read that in Gold-Digging for Dummies! The only pitter-patter she’s gonna hear are her own overpriced stilettos marching out the door. It happens all the fucking time.”
“Doesn’t your father ever learn?” I asked, almost sad to hear it.
“You know what they say. You can’t teach an old dick to stay away from new dogs.”
Chapter 10
The so-called family dinner that night was a spectacle of epic proportions.
It all began with a soft knock on our door at a quarter after five. Nick had passed out on the bed, likely a side effect of the barrel and a half of whiskey he had consumed in preparation for spending quality time with his father, not to mention the rum and Coke he’d gulped down to avoid committing homicide against his future stepmother.
Just finishing a shower, I hurried to the door and pulled it slightly ajar to see who was behind it. “Yes?”
“You are new woman, Mrs. Nicholas Hunter.”
A spray of spit followed every word the deranged face of a clown sputtered, and I blinked slowly, taken aback by trying to keep up. She didn’t say it like a question, even though it was supposed to be that, but my bigger problem was that I could hardly understand a word beneath her whimsical accent—that and the fact that only a thin layer of terrycloth stood between her eyes and my nakedness.
How many lies does a person have to tell before they are officially sent to hell? I pondered, not wanting to confess my true identity. Is there some kind of moral credit I can use to earn more time?
“I... Yes, I am the new woman,” I parroted, finding myself unable to do anything but repeat her words as I tried desperately not to stare at the wild array of colors painted around her eyes. “I am Mrs. Nicholas Hunter.”
Our strange visitor emitted some sort of guttural sound halfway between “Harrumph” and a satisfied sigh. Then, without any warning, she stuck her hand right in my face. “Sophine.”
My eyes flashed between her face and hand, and I looked at her blankly, as I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do. Since she only stood there waiting, I went out on a limb and gave it a quick kiss, as if I was meeting the pope or a James Bond villain.
Sophine
seemed to expect that gesture; her lips curled up into a grotesque approximation of a smile before stretching back to reveal a row of serrated teeth. “You’ve been expecting me, I presume.”
I had no idea what the hell was going on, nor was I able to determine where such an accent had come from. It was as if I’d been sucked into some hybrid world between the Twilight Zone and the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks, and none of it seemed real. For a moment, I wondered if I’d conked my head on the shower wall somehow and had tumbled into a weird nightmare, but another look at the whack-job told me she was very real and very patiently waiting for an answer. “I-I actually wasn’t told we’d have any...”
In a rather unfortunate bit of timing, Sophine chose that moment to pull what looked like a nightstick out of her purse.
I threw pretense to the wind and leapt back with a shriek. “Uh...Nick!”
He bolted off the bed in a single, fluid motion, only to come face to face with every child’s worst nightmare or something out of a Stephen King novel. His feet scrambled backward before the rest of his body could follow, causing him to sway unsteadily for a moment, and the alcohol still in his sleepy system didn’t help. Finally, reality—as unreal as it was—caught up with him, and his face melted into an exhausted smile. “Sophine!” He clasped a hand over his heart and closed his eyes, sighing in relief. “Shit, you scared me.”
The fearsome joker hardly even blinked but simply shrugged a bony shoulder. “Scare is good. Gets the blood flowing.” She wasn’t really a small woman, as she was just about as tall as Nick, and she gestured with the nightstick as she spoke, emphasizing every word.
I eyed the clown and her weapon warily and backed into Nick’s arms.
“What have I told you about pulling out your stick on people you don’t know?” he scolded, giving her a chastising frown. “It looks like you’re about to commit sodomy in the first degree.”
She opened her mouth, but he silenced her with a quick hand and turned back to me.
“Abby, meet Sophine, our stylist here in the Hamptons. She spends her days doing hair and makeup, but obviously, she spends her nights fighting animated crime.”
Stylist? This...thing? The walking amalgamation of rhinestones and paint has put up some sort of flag in the world of fashion? I simply couldn’t believe it.
As if sensing my disbelief, Nick continued, wearing a coy little smile. “Soph has dressed everyone who’s ever set foot in the manor, from actresses to queens.”
And have any of them ever come back? I wondered as I stepped forward with a nervous smile of my own, determined to make the most of a bizarre situation. “What’s the stick for?”
“No stick!” she yelled. “Is tool!” Then, without another word, she smashed it against my arm.
I jerked back with a yelp, bracing for the ensuing pain, only to find that Sophine was right: It wasn’t a stick at all. It was actually a tape measure, and the sting of it made me realize why those stupid snap bracelets had been banned from some schools and were no longer a fad. It loosened and lost form the second it touched my skin, though, and she promptly began wrapping it around every inch of my body she could get her hands on, muttering indeterminable numbers and other calculations under her breath, at a volume and in a language I couldn’t understand.
I just stood there in shock, resisting the urge to sneeze as her feathery hair swept across my nose. It wasn’t until she tried jerking off the towel that I put up a bit of resistance. “Whoa there!” I stumbled backward, clutching it firmly around my chest. “Can I get dressed first? Or, better yet, I can just tell you my size.”
Her eyes gleamed as if I had presented her with a unique challenge, and she smirked at me.
Nick simply chuckled and headed back to the bed, shaking his head. “Play nice, you two. Wake me when it’s dinnertime.”
Chapter 11
For the next hour and a half, I was pressed and preened, polished and waxed, curled and styled to such an extent that I didn’t think an inch of my body remained the same.
Sophine didn’t work alone; she had an entire team at her disposal. While the others scrambled around like a flock of manic birds, she stood on a chair in the back, screaming, directing, instructing, and waving her damn stick around like a conductor in a show that had gone off the rails. How Nick slept through the whole thing, I would never know.
I had never seen so many products in my life, in spite of my career as a publicist. She had a massive collection of expensive, designer shimmers, oils, bronzers, and creams. By the time they were finished, I was flat-out terrified to look in the mirror and see what they’d done, absolutely horrified to see what the she-devil had done to me. I tried to steel myself for the reflection that would look back at me, but I never could have prepared for the outcome. When they finally spun me around, I didn’t even recognize the girl in the looking glass.
My mouth fell open with a little gasp as the band of people who’d bombarded me with treatments and products, prying and prodding and plucking melted slowly away. Sure, the woman I saw looked a little something like me, with the same complexion and bone structure, but every other bit of me had been washed away or covered up, concealed or changed.
I no longer looked like a publicist. I no longer looked like Mitchell’s pawn. I no longer looked like a pretty girl trapped in a tricky situation, trying to find her way back to the light. Now, I fucking was the light.
The dress draped over my body was otherworldly, like something from another planet. It spiraled down my length in a continuation of the same iridescent shimmer from a jeweled clip on my shoulder, trailing all the way down to the floor. It hugged every curve and contour of my body but seemed to flow freely at the same time, catching every possible ray of light as it whispered lightly over the carpet.
My hair was curled and swept up off my shoulders, secured with a jeweled clip identical to the one that held the dress in place. A metallic dusting of silver and gold danced across my eyes before darkening down into a coppery-bronze shimmer. Pale, pink lips were a perfect complement to my dark lashes, and my eyes, which had always been huge, now seemed to take up half of my face.
As I glanced down, I realized that the best part of the whole look was probably the shoes. It wasn’t that they looked spectacular. In fact, I couldn’t even see them because they were completely hidden beneath the folds of that glorious dress. The best part was that because they were hidden, they didn’t have heels to complicate my walking. I couldn’t believe I was allowed to attend a formal event in flats. Granted, they were Swarovski crystal-encrusted gladiator sandals that laced all the way up to my thigh, but they were flats nonetheless!
I giggled aloud as I twirled around, watching the dress flutter around me in a shimmering arch. It wasn’t until the door closed with a loud snap that I realized Sophine and her entire team had left and that Nick was watching me with a gentle smile.
A crimson blush blossomed in my cheeks as I skidded to a quick stop, dropping my eyes to the floor in a moment of sheer mortification. When I looked back up, I found him standing right in front of me, still staring with that same quiet smile.
“Please don’t stop,” he coaxed softly. “Watching you dance like that... Well, it’s the only good thing that’s happened since we landed back in New York.”
Gosh, he’s as beautiful as I feel. How is it possible for a single person to have all the beauty in the world?
For a moment, I just let it wash over me, basking in the soft glow of his eyes. Then I reached up and brushed a lock of golden hair away from his face. “We’re gonna get through this, Nick. You know that, right?” I stretched up on my tiptoes to brush my lips lightly against his. “When we leave here in a few days, we don’t ever have to look back.”
His hand reached out as well, but he didn’t actually touch me. He just traced me with it, hovering it in the air an inch above my face, so close that I could feel the heat, that it drummed up in me a deep ache for more. “How did I get so lucky?” he murmured, skimming the
tip of his fingers beneath my eyes, along my cheekbones. He was like a painter, memorizing his canvas, as if he was worried he might have to say goodbye. “I haven’t done much in my life to deserve someone like you.”
My heart warmed but tightened at the same time. I appreciated how sweet he was being, but something about the place had obviously broken him, left him shattered. “It’s okay. I like slumming it once in a while,” I replied, coaxing out a reluctant grin.
He kissed me slowly, tenderly, then picked up speed when I wrapped my arms around his neck. There was a frantic energy in the way he moved now, in the way he eased me closer and closer to the bed, slipping his tongue inside my mouth as his fingers fiddled with the edges of my dress. It wasn’t until he’d successfully unhooked the clasp that I pulled back.
“Dinner’s in five minutes,” I said breathlessly, unable to believe I was actually stopping him in his tracks, “and, I swear, there are over 200 bobby pins holding my hair. If you knock even one of them out, I’m sure your friend will whack you with her nightstick.”
Nick glanced up, giving my head a quick onceover before looking back down with a grin. “I promise to be careful with your hair.” He leaned toward me again, but I pushed him back with a little giggle.
“Nick, it’s not just the hair. It’s everything. Besides, you’ve still got to get dressed. We need to head down there in just a second.”
They were wise words, but my beloved boyfriend seemed to have gotten a second wind. His eyes twinkled with the kind of unbridled charisma that used to send me running for the hills, back when I was his publicist, the kind that would have had me preemptively calling The Post and The Times, bracing in advance for whatever mayhem and adventure was soon to follow.