by Shelly Ellis
“And you, too, Leila,” he said, turning to Leila with his hand extended. “It’s a pleasure.”
Though Leila wasn’t in the mood for introductions, she knew it wasn’t his fault that Aunt Ida had decided to just barge in here and force herself upon her relatives. The poor guy was probably being dragged along for the ride.
“Pleasure to meet you too, Michael,” Leila said, adjusting Angelica in her arms and shaking his hand. She then attempted to pull her hand back, but he held on a few seconds longer, much longer than necessary—making her frown.
“I can’t wait to meet your husband, Mrs. Murdoch,” he said, finally letting her go. “Especially since we’ll be living under the same roof for the next few weeks. Ida has told me so much about Evan, I feel like I know him already.”
“Weeks?” Leila repeated, choking on the word. “Did you . . . did you say you’re going to be staying here for weeks?”
“Aunt Ida,” Paulette rushed out, hoping to intervene, “you don’t really want to stay here, do you? Wouldn’t you be much, much happier in a place all to yourself?” Paulette raised her brows. “Maybe a five-star hotel in D. C. with room service or even a . . . a personal concierge? I’m sure we could recommend a place that would be just . . . just fabulous!”
“No, I think I’d be perfectly happy staying here,” Aunt Ida said. She linked her arm through Michael’s and stared up at him, fluttering her false lashes. She trailed her index finger along the front buttons of his shirt. “I told Michael here that we’d get to test out one of the four-poster beds in one of the rooms upstairs. I don’t think we can wait to make it to the city.”
Paulette’s eyes widened. Leila cringed.
“And besides, I haven’t been back home in ages. I was getting nostalgic.”
“Look, I hate to ruin the nostalgia,” Leila began, “but this is Evan’s house now, not yours.”
She paused when Paulette gave her a warning glance to tell her to keep quiet. She slowly shook her head, but Leila ignored her. Leila believed in respecting her elders, but this was ridiculous.
“He’s not here right now, but he should know what’s going on at the very least. Before you move in your things, shouldn’t you speak with him first?” Leila asked.
“No, I will not speak with my nephew first,” Aunt Ida said, lowering her eyes from Michael and turning to fix Leila with an icy glare. “Because even though Evan Murdoch’s name is listed as owner of this property, this house was built by Henry and Lucille Murdoch . . . my father and mother.” Aunt Ida then gestured to the staid portrait showing the original mansion owners. “So as far as I’m concerned, I have just as much claim to this house as every other person in this family. Maybe more! I may stay for a few weeks—or a few months. I haven’t decided yet.” Aunt Ida smiled up at the young man again. “Come on, baby. Let’s go pick out our room.”
Leila and Paulette then watched helplessly as the couple strolled up the stairs leading to the east and west wings.
Chapter 7
C. J.
C. J. clicked computer keys then paused to flip through her reporter’s notebook.
“Hey, can I borrow your highlighter?” her cubicle mate and fellow metro desk reporter, Allison, called out to her.
Allison sauntered toward her desk in the crowded newsroom. The skinny blonde then flopped back into her chair and leaned forward to boot up her laptop.
“Sure,” C. J. said absently, reaching into a coffee cup full of pens, pencils, and markers. She pulled out a yellow highlighter then held it out to Allison. The other woman grabbed it and popped off the lid before tugging a thick, binder-clipped document out of her tote bag.
They were the youngest on the metro desk—the newest recruits at the Washington Daily. She and Allison had bonded immediately and often grabbed coffee and biscotti together at the little shop downstairs, sharing stories about sources and marveling at the fast pace of news reporting in the big city.
“Ugh, the trains were super slow today! It took me forever to make it back here. Doesn’t WMATA realize I’m on deadline?” Allison asked, adjusting her glasses and squinting at her laptop screen. “Still finishing up that Advisory Committee meeting piece?”
“Yeah, three hundred more words to go before I’m done, I think. I should have just enough time to file it before I have to leave.”
C. J. glanced at the digital clock on the bottom right-hand side of her screen. “Two thirty,” she whispered before returning her attention to her notes. It’d be a tight deadline, but she’d have to do it to make it back to Chesterton by four o’clock.
“Where are you running off to after this?” Allison asked. “Another assignment?”
“No, I’m . . .” C. J. paused from typing. She wrinkled her button nose. “I’m trying on wedding gowns.”
“Wow! Really? I’m jealous!”
“Don’t be,” C. J. muttered under her breath, returning her attention to her news story.
Though she was excited to marry Terrence, she wasn’t excited about today’s outing to the bridal shop. She hadn’t found out until after the fact that Terrence had asked Leila to help her pick a wedding dress. To make matters worse, his sister, Paulette, was going to tag along.
“Why would you do that, Terry?” she had shouted yesterday while they lay in bed together. She had stared at him in shock, like he had sprouted a second head.
“I’d thought you might need some help, babe! To get a second opinion,” he’d said, bewildered at her reaction. “It’d give you a chance to bond with them, too. You know getting all girly and everything.”
Yes, because that’s exactly what I want to do—bond with the rest of the Murdochs, she’d thought mockingly.
Well, actually not all the Murdochs were bad. Leila Murdoch was always very sweet to C. J. and tried to make her feel welcome. Evan, Leila’s husband, was okay, too, even though C. J.’s relationship with Evan had started on a bad footing. Her stories about Murdoch Bank and Murdoch Conglomerated hadn’t enamored her to Evan—and when Evan had accused her of dating Terrence solely to gather information for the hit piece he claimed she planned to write about their family, he didn’t become her favorite person, either. But C. J. and Evan seemed to have put that ugly part of their shared past behind them.
In contrast, Paulette Murdoch hadn’t made any effort to get to know C. J. or to be nice to her. Terrence’s younger sister could be downright aloof sometimes, making C. J. suspect she didn’t like her, though C. J. couldn’t fathom why.
I’ve never done anything to the girl, C. J. now thought as she typed.
C. J. wondered if Paulette believed she wasn’t good enough for Terrence, that the preacher’s daughter wasn’t worthy of being a Murdoch.
C. J. had grown up far from poor; her father, Reverend Pete Aston, was rich by most standards. But growing up in the church had taught C. J. not to flaunt her wealth. Her brother, Victor, might be comfortable with his Prada shoes and Movado watches, but C. J. had always liked to keep things simple. She drove a Honda Civic, not a Mercedes. She did her own hair and nails. She considered buying a two-hundred-dollar dress at Macy’s a splurge.
But the Murdochs had Victor beat in their displays of affluence. A person only had to see the Murdoch Mansion and its surrounding ten-acre estate, the fancy cars, the boats, and the servants to know these people had money—lots and lots of money.
C. J. wasn’t from that world, nor did she want to be.
“So what’s your fiancé like, anyway?” Allison chirped, breaking into her thoughts. “You hardly ever talk about him for a guy you’re supposed to be marrying in five and a half months!”
“Oh, he’s just an . . . an average guy. I met him not too long after I moved to Chesterton. We started dating. We still live there. You know. Yada, yada, yada!” She shrugged, forcing herself to seem casual. She started typing again. “There isn’t too much to tell.”
“There’s a lot more to tell! In all our conversations, you haven’t even told me his name.”
“It’s . . . It’s Terry.”
“Terry? That’s it? Just Terry? Does Terry have a last name?”
C. J. loudly grumbled. “Ally, please . . . I’m trying to get some work done here!”
“Fine, I’ll let you get back to your work.” Allison cocked an eyebrow. “But if I were a paranoid girl, I’d swear you were hiding him or something. What is he, a CIA agent?”
“No, he’s not a CIA agent, and I’m not hiding him!” C. J. cried in exasperation.
But she was being vague about Terrence for a reason. When people in Chesterton figured out that she was engaged to a Murdoch they always acted strange, like she was suddenly a different person, like she had morphed into a celebrity they had to fawn over. The Murdochs weren’t as infamous outside of Chesterton, but they were still well known enough locally that she was wary of throwing the name around.
“Well, if you aren’t trying to hide him, then you won’t mind sharing a few more details about him, like, for instance, what does he do for a living?” Allison persisted. “What does he look like? Is he tall? Is he short? Does he—”
“C. J!” someone called out to her, breaking into her and Allison’s conversation.
Saved by the bell, C. J. thought as she saw their editor, Ralph Haynes, striding toward them. She instantly sat upright in her desk chair.
She had been working under Ralph for a few weeks now, but she was still a little awestruck and intimated by him. He was an exacting editor, often asking her to rewrite entire stories or call more sources. He was definitely keeping her on her toes.
“Hi, Ralph. What’s up?” she asked, forcing a smile.
Though she had been a chatterbox only seconds ago, Allison went mum as Ralph approached. She reached for her water bottle and turned around in her chair to face her wall calendar, pretending to write something on one of the day slots, trying her best to avoid drawing Ralph’s attention.
If C. J. was intimidated by Ralph, Allison seemed outright frightened by him.
“Did you see my notes on the story you filed this morning?” he asked C. J., frowning down at her.
“Uh . . . no. No, I didn’t!” She frantically clicked laptop keys so that she could call up the file in question. “I didn’t know you—”
“Well, there’s a shitload you’ve got to do to beef it up. You’re not in small town news anymore. I didn’t put you on my news desk to do half-assed stories!”
She flinched. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t think it was half-assed, Ralph. I really tried to—”
“I don’t want to hear excuses. I want you to pick up the phone,” he said, pointing to her desktop phone, “and call the commissioner and a few council members to get them to weigh in. And I want more background about the housing development. Clean up the story, then send it to me for review.”
C. J. swallowed. That sounded like a lot of time-consuming work, which would make her late for her bridal appointment. She didn’t have Leila’s or Paulette’s cell numbers to update them that she might be a little late.
“Is there a problem?” Ralph asked with raised brows, noticing her hesitation.
“No, there isn’t a problem! I’ll . . . I’ll make those changes and additions and get it back to you right away.”
“Good. I look forward to seeing those edits.” He gave a curt nod before moving onto the next cubicle to eviscerate another reporter.
Allison slowly turned away from the cubicle wall once Ralph was out of earshot. “Are you going to make your gown thingie?” she whispered.
“I’ll be a few minutes late.” C. J. winced once she saw all the red in the edited document and all Ralph’s notes in the margins. “Okay, maybe more than just a few.”
Allison snickered as she resumed highlighting her document. “My hat’s off to you, C. J.! I don’t know how you manage to keep this job and a personal life at the same time. I can barely make it home to feed my cat!”
* * *
C. J. rushed into the bridal shop at a near run—fifty-five minutes late. When she entered the carpeted dressing room, she was immediately met by melodic choral music playing on background speakers, walls awash in pale pink and white, and three women sitting on the white satin banquette in the center of the shop with facial expressions that varied between annoyed and bored. They simultaneously looked up at her when she entered. Leila smiled at her, and Paulette rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth. A petite older woman wearing a fox fur–trimmed beret lowered the champagne glass from her ruby red lips to the glass coffee table in front of them and laughed.
“See! She didn’t keep us waiting a whole hour! She made it here by the skin of her teeth, but she still made it. You owe me twenty dollars, honey!” the older woman said, pointing to Paulette.
Paulette rolled her eyes again and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’m so . . . so sorry,” C. J. said, gulping for air. She was out of breath from racing from her car, which was illegally parked four blocks away and would likely be towed by the time she got back. She tugged the strap of her satchel over her head and forced a smile. She blew a tendril of curly hair that had fallen into her face out of her eyes. “I really didn’t mean to keep you guys waiting. I got a last-minute assignment that I had to do and . . . well, never mind. Anyway . . . thanks so much for staying!”
“No problem!” Leila said. “We’re glad you made it!”
“Oh, yeah, no problem! It’s not like we have anything better to do than sit around waiting for you,” Paulette mumbled dryly.
C. J.’s cheeks reddened.
Yeah, I was right, she thought. Paulette Murdoch didn’t like her, and she suspected that, because she had made them wait so long, Paulette probably liked her even less now—if that were possible.
“Uh,” Leila said, after loudly clearing her throat, “C. J., have you met Aunt Ida?”
C. J. turned away from Paulette, shook her head, then waved. “No! No, I haven’t. But Terry’s told me so much about you. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you!”
That was a lie. Terrence had given only a few vague details about his aunt.
“She’s rich. She’s blunt and way too horny for one man’s appetite,” Terrence had confided a few days ago after he had gone to Murdoch Mansion with the rest of the family to welcome his aunt back to Chesterton. C. J. hadn’t been able to attend because of a news assignment. “Basically, Aunt Ida is the female version of what my dad would be if he was still alive today,” he’d confided.
“Aunt Ida wanted to . . . uh . . . tag along for the wedding dress shopping,” Leila now explained. “Isn’t that right, Aunt Ida?”
“Absolutely! I also wanted to meet the girl that our Terry plans to marry,” the older woman said, pushing herself up from the banquette. She strolled toward C. J., looking her up and down. “So you’re the one who won Terry’s heart?”
C. J. bashfully nodded. “Yeah, that’s . . . that’s me!”
Aunt Ida inclined her head. “I have to admit you aren’t quite what I expected. I thought you’d be more . . .” She fluttered her fingers in the air then ran her hands up and down her torso. “I don’t know . . . va-va-voom, maybe?”
C. J.’s forced smile disappeared, and Aunt Ida quickly patted her on the shoulder. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, honey! You’re fine for any regular fella, but for a tall glass of water like Terry, I was just expecting more glamour, more sex appeal.” She laughed again before reaching down to retrieve her glass of champagne and taking another sip. “Believe me, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was my nephew, I’d take a slow, long drink from that glass any day!”
“Well,” Leila exclaimed, clapping her hands, “C. J., you probably want to . . . uh . . . start trying on dresses now. Right?”
C. J. nodded, still staring at Aunt Ida. Terrence had warned her that the woman was blunt—but she wasn’t quite prepared for just how candid Aunt Ida would be. “Yeah, sure. Might as well!”
A salesgirl introduced herself and showed C. J. toward the back of th
e shop to one of the dressing rooms. C. J. tried her best to concentrate on choosing a gown but couldn’t. Dress shopping had never been her forte, to even her mother’s great disappointment. The last wedding gown C. J. had worn had been for her last “almost wedding” (she had run out on the groom fifteen minutes before the ceremony) and her mother had chosen the dress. C. J. had only offered her halfhearted input, not particularly excited about the dress or the groom. Even now as the salesgirl fired questions at her, C. J. felt like the young woman was talking to the wrong person. C. J. felt like she was taking a test she hadn’t studied for.
“Were you thinking A-line, ball gown, or mermaid?” the bouncy salesgirl asked, staring at C. J. eagerly as they sat on the plush velvet benches in the dressing room.
“Umm, well . . . I hadn’t really thought about that.”
“Okay,” the woman said, nodding her dark head. Her eager grin stayed in place. “That’s fine. I can pull different silhouettes so you can see how they look and start narrowing down from there. Any particular fabric you had in mind? Were you thinking lace or organza . . . maybe satin?”
“Uh, sure! That . . . that sounds good.”
The salesgirl squinted. “So which one: lace, organza, or satin?”
“Umm . . . all of them?”
The salesgirl lowered her head and laughed. “I’ll pull a few dress in your size and be right back.”
Ten minutes later the salesgirl and her assistant returned with so many gowns that they filled up the walls of the dressing room. C. J. stood in her bra and panties, shell-shocked. She watched as the young women began to open the dress bags and hold up different gowns for her to consider.
There were so many choices. How could she possibly pick just one, let alone the right one?
That’s why Leila, Paulette, and Aunt Ida are here, a little voice reminded her.
Yeah, she thought sardonically as she stepped into one of the dresses and the salesgirl raised the zipper and began to fasten hooks. And I bet they’re gonna be so helpful!
Leila seemed to be making an effort to be kind and accommodating, but she could only imagine what Paulette or Aunt Ida would say once they saw her walk into the main room and stand on the podium. The proverbial knives would be out. Those two could slice her into pieces.