She began her life as a pampered socialite, where Ty worked overtime to turn her into a wife fitting of a Hollis. His faith was rewarded when he realized that she would never be happy living the country club life, hosting benefits and spitting out heirs to his fortune. She had a keen mind and a fierce business sense that earned his respect and, ultimately, his love. Ty had defended her against the barbs of his affluent (and snobbish) mother whenever she tried to accuse Gay of social climbing. It was exactly what she did. He knew it. She knew it. Her in-laws knew it.
It was the main reason he had purchased Southern Nights for her to run, so they could finally prove she was more than that.
It had worked for a long, long time. By the time her mother-in-law passed away, she respected Gaynell, even if she didn’t particularly like her. Gay could win over anyone anytime anywhere. All it took was a little time and a lot of charm and she could virtually mold just about anyone to her will.
The only surprises left in her life were those errant individuals who refused to get with the program. She usually dealt with them quickly, either strong-arming them to get her way or kicking them out of her life entirely.
In that respect, Tony Paul had proven her greatest challenge. She couldn’t just scrap her plans for him and start over because he was her son, her firstborn. Even though she knew she wasn’t supposed to have a favorite, she totally favored the dark-haired boy who, just like his mother, charmed the pants off of everyone he knew to get his way.
It was rather impossible not to have a favorite child when one had so many. She had given birth to five children, but only understood one. He had lofty ambitions and incredible drive since he was a toddler. Of all her kids, he was the one she didn’t have to convince or cajole into performing on her stage. He started bugging her about it from the time he was ten.
Her other children loved music, but had no desire to be famous or tour the world or become more than what they were. Tony Paul was reaching for the stars practically from birth. He looked like her and he acted like her. He was her truest link to immortality.
And, just like her, he was stubborn as a mule. When he decided he wanted to do something, whether it was good for him or not, he simply did it. It started with a long line of girls who had turned his head from the time he hit puberty. She had warned him that there were women out there who would take advantage of his amorous behavior to land themselves a rich husband. She wasn’t pregnant when she married Ty, but she knew several girls who had that strategy stored away in the back of their minds if they couldn’t win the guy’s heart for real.
And her Tony Paul was a total alley cat. He wasn’t the least bit discerning when it came to filling his bed. It was the biggest contention between them. Sometimes she suspected he deliberately picked girls he knew would piss her off or scare her senseless.
Such was the case with an eighteen-year-old Lacy Abernathy. He got it in his head that he would seduce her, primarily because she had rebuffed his affections from the get-go. He wasn’t used to that and Gaynell knew it. She also knew that Lacy was a smart girl, who could have plotted her strategy accordingly. When Giovanni Carnevale showed up and she just conveniently decided she wanted to sing, it was slapped Gaynell’s history right in her own face. The more she learned about Lacy, the more convinced she was that she needed to keep Tony Paul far away from her. Doyle Quinlan had warned her from the start that Lacy was the worst sort of grifter, one born into it and trained by her no-account father, Lucas.
“She tried to seduce me,” he had confided one night, while they were sharing a drink in her office. Normally they were bitter foes battling it out to have the hottest nightclub in Austin. But they were part of the good ol’ boy network, where you kept your friends close but your enemies closer. When he found out she was making inroads with the likes of Jasper Carrington, he showed up at Southern Nights just to see what all the hubbub was about. He spotted Lacy, dancing in her shirt denim skirt, and promptly raised the alarm.
“Her father got her a fake ID so she could perform in clubs,” he said as he stared down at Lacy, trying to do the math in his head if she was finally legal or not. “I tried to give ‘em a hand and she cornered me in the dressing room. After she got me in a compromising position, she threatened to tell everyone she was only fourteen. I kicked her out and I kicked her Daddy out. He vanished sometime after that.”
Gay had simply nodded, taking it all in. She mentioned the incident to Tony Paul, but he brushed her off. “How can you believe what that old coot has to say anyway, Mama? He keeps trading his wives in on newer models every few years. He was just probably pissed he couldn’t add Lacy to the corral.”
It was clear that Tony Paul wanted this girl, and he was ready to go toe-to-toe with his mother to get her.
That was when she knew Lacy Abernathy wasn’t just some throwaway. She was a legitimate danger, threatening everything she was trying to do for Tony Paul’s career.
She had handled it like she had handled everything. She used Lacy’s own desperation against her, to control her and get her to do exactly what she wanted her to do. She had forced her to tone down her incredible voice so that Tony Paul’s more mediocre talent would impress the likes of Jasper Carrington, an east coast media titan she had been trying to court since she banded her family together as the Hollis Five. She pushed a message of family, while he proved time and again that sex really does sell.
To get what she wanted, she basically had to turn her own children into sex objects, which meant that her randy son would parade a never-ending stream of harlots through her expensive lakeside house until one of them finally managed to trap him by getting pregnant.
Lacy had done this right on cue, virtually double-crossing Gay’s original double-cross. She had taken her by surprise, which very few had ever done. If her son’s future hadn’t been at stake, she might have even been impressed. But Gay had worked too hard and success was too close to risk by softening toward the enemy. She took a hard line immediately, demanding that Tony Paul deal with the issue quickly and discreetly.
Instead, Lacy had that baby anyway, even when she couldn’t afford to. She didn’t take the money he offered to handle it. Instead she took menial jobs to pay for everything. Gaynell knew exactly what those jobs were because she had never let Lacy Abernathy too far out of her sight. She knew that this girl would turn up like a bad penny right when it would screw over Tony Paul the most.
It happened just like she predicted. Fortunately she had a contingency plan. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. She’d ship Tony Paul off to their tropical resort and keep him far away from a girl who was every bit as smart and driven as Gaynell herself was.
She had to keep them separated or else he would have married that girl, had a dozen white trash babies and derailed his career entirely. Gay couldn’t risk that. She had come too far and sacrificed too much.
And she never once regretted this plan until he told her that there would be no more babies. He had had a vasectomy without telling her or even asking her what she thought about it. In one respect, she had to admire his commitment to his life as a budding rock star. He had always had a strong drive to succeed, ready to do whatever it took to make things happen – much like his mother.
On the other hand, it had effectively erased Phase II of her plan. She had an idea of what her son’s life should have looked like, which what her own life would have looked like if she had been born to better parents. He would make himself a huge success before finding an equally driven girl to have a houseful of babies who would continue their proud Hollis tradition. By then Gay would be ready to spoil this new generation and teach them all she had learned, so they could be even more successful than their parents or grandparents.
It was the way life should be.
And Tony Paul smashed that dream with a wrecking ball without even warning her first. “You have four other kids,” he pointed out when she railed at him about it.
Not like you she had almost said. Her othe
r kids were softer and weaker, more like the entitled Hollises who took the good life for granted. That meant their children would be a step backward from that person she wanted to be.
Tony Paul was her only hope to prove to the world, and to herself, that she was not a fraud, that she had earned her place not only as a successful businesswoman but also a successful parent. For a woman in her circles, the latter far overshadowed the former.
Sadly there was no changing what was done. He had left the country and Lacy had disappeared to parts unknown. She dropped her lawsuit seeking child support without a fight, which instantly made Gay suspicious of what was to come. Years passed and she never struck. She just lay in the grass like a snake, poised and ready.
It was as if she knew that the passing years stacked the deck even more in her favor. Gay only had one grandchild from Tony Paul now, and Lacy wouldn’t let any Hollis near him. The more she thought about him, the more Gay wondered about him. She would thumb through her old photo albums, staring into the angelic face of her firstborn, wondering how many characteristics he shared with Cody, a child whose name she knew but whose face she had never seen.
When Lacy showed up at the club last year, Gay hired her on the spot. Part of it was that Lacy was talented, even if she had marred her appearance and wore the biggest chip on her shoulder that Gay had ever seen.
But most of it stemmed from all the burning questions she had about Cody. As the years marched on, it was clear that Tony Paul had gotten soft as well. He lost his drive when he lost Lacy, and Gaynell knew she had only herself to blame. She had taken care of his problems, which turned him into an entitled brat who would do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Being a star was no longer an option, not with some baby mama lying in wait for him to strike it rich so that she could pounce and take it all in exchange for a few stolen minutes during weekends and alternate holidays.
Being a playboy was a lot more fun. He could drink to his heart’s content. He could romance every pretty girl who crossed his path. And there were no consequences. Gay had made sure of that.
Sometimes she suspected he was punishing her. And she loved him so much, he totally could have.
He hadn’t been all that interested in Lacy, even when she came back to work at Southern Nights. By then he was a raging alcoholic much like her father had been. He couldn’t even be bothered to show up for work.
In contrast, Lacy showed up early and worked hard for every dime Gaynell paid her. She reminded her a lot of herself. When Gay had offered that ninety-day probation period, to earn Lacy’s trust, there was no agenda behind it. She desperately wanted to start over, to make inroads with the woman who now laid claim to the one thing Gaynell wanted: her grandson.
When Jonah Riley came to work at Southern Nights, she was sure that she had an ally to make that happen. He was a lot like the son she wanted Tony Paul to be. When she took him under her wing, she employed the same devices she once used to control Lacy, but it wasn’t for the same reason. She really believed that she could start over, that she could right a few wrongs.
Jacinda had popped that balloon quickly. She didn’t trust Lacy as far as she could throw her, so she rattled in Gay’s ear nightly about how it was all a plan to get even for what they had done to her. Lacy’s behavior supported that theory. She fought Gay on every single suggestion. If she had given just a little, she could have ruled Southern Nights as the headlining act. But despite her drive and determination, Lacy didn’t seem to want that, even though it would have given her son the life he deserved. That didn’t fit into Gay’s mind, so she relied on her old bag of tricks to manipulate the situation.
She ended up losing Lacy and Jonah in the process. Worst of all, she lost any chance whatsoever of getting to know Cody. Lacy handed over the paperwork severing her claim to Hollis money and disappeared from Austin entirely.
So Gay brought Tony Paul back to the states. She was shocked to see how much weight he had gained and how rough around the edges he looked. She blamed the alcohol he drank like water. There was no way Jasper Carrington would take him now, not when he was the epitome of a fixer-upper.
But Jasper Carrington wasn’t the only media mogul in the biz. She researched everything she needed to know about Graham Baxter. When she learned about Fierce, she knew it was Tony Paul’s best chance to make his dream come true. He auditioned and made it through, so Gay had already planned to move to California temporarily to root him on (and keep him on track.)
She hadn’t intended bunking with the other families until he told her that Lacy, likewise, had been cast in this season of Fierce. Suddenly she had every reason in the world to move into that cul-de-sac. She landed right across the street from Lacy’s mother and, presumably, Lacy’s son.
In another move Gay couldn’t predict, Lacy hadn’t made her backstory public, even when it would have ensured her place in the Top Twelve. She was either really stupid or really smart, and Gay was pretty damned certain she wasn’t a fool. It gave credence to Jacinda’s dire warnings from the year before that Lacy had something up her sleeve. “She hates us, Mama,” Jacinda pointed out with an exasperated sigh. “She’s going to get the most bang for her buck.”
Trotting her story out when it came down to her and Tony Paul was right out of Gay’s playbook. It would have ensured her success and destroyed him in the process.
Fortunately Gay had the presence of mind not to file the papers relinquishing custody. She still had one ace in her hand. And she was prepared to use it.
Yet as week after week passed, Gay couldn’t help but wonder about that little boy living right across the street. She hadn’t seen him yet, though she desperately wanted to. She had hosted the block party in hopes that somehow, some way, she’d get just one little kernel of information about this mystery child who had haunted her thoughts for four years. This was her flesh and blood and she didn’t even know what he looked like.
“Maybe he’s not even Tony’s,” Jacinda had suggested when they had spent one evening liquored on distilled whiskey, talking about it. Gay conceded with a nod that was possible. Lacy was no angel by far. She had practically jumped into Jonah’s bed, though who wouldn’t? If Gay hadn’t been married, she might have been tempted to do so herself.
But it was easy to shade her into the opportunist Doyle Quinlan had once claimed her to be when she wrapped poor Jonah around her little finger. He was besotted from the start, much like Tony Paul had been.
The only difference between the two was that Jonah wouldn’t have left Lacy, even if that meant he had to cross blades with Gay Hollis. He stood up to her, throwing all her leverage right back in her face.
Jonah Riley was a good man. That was why she knew he wouldn’t win Fierce. He had the heart of a lion, but music came a distant second to the things that really mattered to him, like family and love and honor. She had used that against him once upon a time. Now it was one of the things she admired most.
Truth be told, Jonah was stronger than she could have ever been. He didn’t forfeit who he was to get what he wanted.
He wasn’t a fraud.
“Mama,” Jacinda said from the doorway of their new living room. Gay stopped staring out of the window at the house across the street to look at her daughter. “We were going to go shopping today, remember?”
“Oh, yes,” Gay said as she rose from the cushy chair she had placed right in the bay window just so she could keep silent and steady watch on the comings and goings of Jules Abernathy. “Let me get my purse.”
Jacinda nodded before she turned away to get her own jacket and purse. Gay checked her phone more out of habit than anything else.
There was a message from Tony Paul, so she opened it. It was a picture of a little boy who looked exactly like he had when he was four years old. And, just like Tony Paul, this little boy was happily sitting amidst stuffed frogs of all shapes and sizes, smiling at the camera like he was the richest little man on the planet.
Gay wilted back into her chair as she s
tared into his sweet little face. Tears sprang into her eyes, blurring her vision. There was no question anymore. Cody Abernathy was her grandson.
And she loved him instantly.
Chapter Thirteen
Clementine Pomeroy was 198 pounds of pure energy. Her brown hair was cropped and highlighted, dipping over her caramel brown eyes dusted with shimmering coppery eye shadow. Her eyeliner was heavy and dark, which matched her eclectic array of tattoos well on display across her exposed skin. She wore a cotton camisole and fashionable jeans. When they passed people on the street, she drew stares from those who thought she should be more decently dressed for her size, but she didn’t really give a shit. She knew what she liked and she was going to be what she was going to be, no permission required.
It was a surprising new mindset for someone like Jules, or even Vi, to embrace. Both came from a generation, and a region, where women’s value depended upon their level of virtue. They wore mom jeans, ponytails and sensible shoes, not showing an inch of skin they didn’t have to. When Clementine first dragged Vi, Jules and Leah to the nail salon, she blindfolded all of them and picked their colors and patterns for them, just to get them out of those tiny conservative boxes that drove someone like Clementine bonkers.
She had been a stylist for a while so she knew to start with the nails. It always started with the nails, from girls nine to ninety. She’d learned a long time ago that even her nursing home clients were open to radical nails, even if they locked down on more conservative clothes, makeup and hair color.
Fun nails uplifted every single client without fail. Every girl felt pretty with shimmery, sparkly nails. Clementine had adopted a few mantras over the course of her young life; chief among them was that glitter made everything better.
Jules never would have admitted it, but she rather enjoyed the surprise every time she got her nails done. She grumbled, just because that was what she did. But every time Clementine pulled off the funky silk blindfold with large cartoonish eyes complete with bold, black eyelashes, Jules’s heart swelled with joy that her hardworking hands were actually pretty.
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