by Lula Baxter
Sarah and Eric have moved in together. I guess she never caught him sucking face with one of his best friends. I have it on good authority that pretty soon there will be a ring. I doubt it will be as overcompensatingly large as mine.
“You know the old story, I saw her from across the room and had to ask my buddy who she was,” Bruce says, looking at me with just the right amount of adoration.
It was Conrad I was talking to at the time. He was explaining to me exactly what the foie gras was. I had only asked him as an excuse to talk to him because I thought he was so cute. The irony is astounding. I feel the giggles bubble up from my stomach like a pot that’s about to boil over. I somehow manage to turn them into the innocent titters of a blushing bride-to-be.
Play the game.
Bruce’s hand pumping mine twice reminds me that this is no laughing matter.
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Bonnie says, gushing at him just a tad too long. She turns to me. “And you, Astrid, was it an instant attraction for you?”
“I was like a deer in the headlights. I mean, just look at him,” I say, for once being truthful. At the time, I couldn’t imagine why a boy like Bruce Campbell would be into a girl like me with absolutely no family connections only and moderate wealth. Not even enough to be considered New Money.
“Indeed,” Bonnie says, perfectly willing to take me up on my suggestion as she lets her eyes roam over Bruce. Does she not know about the photos on Twitter? I know for a fact that the Campbells absolutely forbade any discussion about that. What the hell kind of journalist is she?
“So, I understand there will be a party to make the official announcement, complete with the date of the wedding, but can our readers get some hints as to what it will be like? Maybe the theme of the wedding? Perhaps even the colors?” Now, she’s finally looking my way, as though I have any say in how this wedding will be. I doubt I’ll even be able to pick out the shade of lipstick I’m going to wear.
“My lips are sealed,” I say in a teasing manner to cover my tracks.
“Trust me, Bonnie, it will be a wedding to remember,” Bruce adds.
And a completely forgettable marriage.
“Oh, I understand. Firmly under wraps,” she says with a knowing smile. “How about the honeymoon?”
Honeymoon? I hadn’t even thought of that amid the complete and utter disaster that this engagement has been so far. As if by reflex, I pull my hand away from Bruce’s. He’s too quick for me and, harder than ever, squeezes it tight.
I stare at Bonnie completely unsure of what to say and that’s when I see it: the slight gleam in her eye. She’s been summarily corralled by the Campbells with regard to certain scandalous photographs that are still circulating around the web. That doesn’t mean she can’t dig a tunnel underneath the fence to give her readers a taste of the salacious truth.
Perhaps she isn’t as inept a journalist as I thought.
“That’s another one your readers will have to wait for, Bonnie,” Bruce says. “Gotta save something for the engagement party. After all, we need a reason for people to actually come.”
They both laugh in that manufactured, but almost believable, way.
Play the game.
“Well, I hope you’ll at least give the Boston Register first dibs on the highlights when you return,” she suggests. I note the hint of “or else” in her voice and my respect for her rises just an inch. Despite being relegated to the fluff section of the paper, she’s happy to dig into a juicy story when she’s got front row seats to it.
I’m reminded of that song by Don Henley. I only know it because my Dad is a huge Eagles fan and played everything by all the band members ad nauseam while I was growing up.
Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybody's pie
“Of course, Bonnie,” I say amicably. Just like the perfect little wife-in-training. Bruce gives me a nice pump of the hand.
This is what my life will be. Saying the perfect thing. Doing the perfect thing. Wearing the perfect thing. Always checking with Bruce or some other Campbell, who is sure to be lurking nearby, just to make sure I’ve done it properly.
“I plan on holding you to that, future Mrs. Campbell,” she teases. At least I think she’s teasing.
We all join in a laugh that sounds so fake you could play it in the background of some cheesy 80s sitcom. I want to claw both my eyes and ears out.
“So, no wedding details or honeymoon details,” she continues. It sounds like a pleasant segue to the next topic, but anyone in the room would have to be deaf not to notice the acrimony. Bonnie is not pleased. “Let’s bring this back around to the happy couple.”
Bruce shifts on the sofa next to me as Bonnie homes right in on me.
“Astrid, how does it feel knowing that you will soon be a part of Boston royalty?”
“Royalty?” That’s a new one. I feel that lead ball in my stomach get heavier.
“Well, the Campbells are one of the oldest families in New England. You two could be the next Kennedys.”
Before I can stop myself, I cough out a laugh. The Kennedys? Has she forgotten the tragic end to that little trek into Camelot? It’s an ending which even I wouldn’t wish on Bruce. Besides, at least John cheated on Jaqueline with a woman.
Play the game.
“Well, Bruce does make me feel like a queen,” I say, trying to recover from that faux pas as I stare up adoringly at Bruce.
It’s all wrong, but I can’t figure out why at first.
Bonnie clears her throat.
The photographer hiccups a soft laugh.
Bruce shoots barely contained daggers at me with his eyes.
Queen.
Fuck.
Then silly little Astrid just goes and makes things worse by backtracking. “Oh…I didn’t mean. What I mean is, Bruce—”
“What my lovely fiancé is trying to explain is that we Campbells hardly think of ourselves as royalty. After all, my own ancestors fought to put an end to that sort of thing on this side of the pond.”
“Right,” I say quickly as he squeezes my hand harder than ever. “I’m not a queen, I’m just….”
I stop suddenly, staring at Bonnie as I sit there in a sort of stasis.
Every woman deserves to feel like a queen when she’s with a man.
Bruce has never made me feel like a queen.
I remember that night, seeing him with Conrad. The way he looked at him.
I’m not his queen.
There’s only one man who’s ever made me feel like one.
“I just…I can’t.”
The silence in the room is deafening, like a buzz of electricity in the air that has everyone’s hair on end right before the thunder claps. And oh what a shitstorm rains down after that.
“I’m sorry, can you clarify that statement?” Bonnie asks, leaning in like a jaguar ready to pounce on a helpless deer. Again, Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry wafts through my brain.
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry
“What she means is—” Bruce begins.
“No,” I say so softly that everyone has to shut up to hear it. I turn to Bruce, who is so enraged, he’s forgotten he should be holding my hand in a vice grip. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Bruce.”
I ease my hand out of his while he’s still stunned into neglect. I replace it with the ring I’ve just slid off my finger.
“Does this mean the engagement is officially off?” Bonnie asks, actually stunned.
I turn to her and nod solemnly. “Yes.”
That stunned look gradually morphs into one of barely contained, wicked glee. If Bonnie walked out of this house and found a bag filled with one million dollars, she wouldn’t have this much excitement in her eyes. I can already see the headlines. The perfect dirty laundry on one of the most well-known families in Boston.
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down….
You know those old, mid-century movie reels of atomic bomb tests out in the desert? The ones where the government actually took the time to set up little houses with imaginary families. With one push of the button, those families were nothing more than shadows of themselves. Everything was blown away by the eruption of the large mushroom cloud that devoured them.
Those atomic blasts had nothing on the fallout that spread from the bomb I dropped.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alexandre
“Is this what the Americans call scorched earth?”
Gabrielle and I are poring over the research reports on both the Hawthornes and Campbells. It’s only been a week since someone by the name of CrossBro leaked the photos of Bruce Campbell and Conrad Donovan on Twitter letting the world know about the two of them.
When I sent them to Astrid’s parents, Bruce, and Astrid herself, my only intent was to end the engagement. The hope was that one of those interested parties would either come to their senses or wake some sense up in Astrid herself.
Apparently, she needed little urging.
“I wasn’t the one to scorch the earth,” I say to Gabrielle, still looking at the report in my hands.
“No, you were just the one responsible for lighting the match,” she says with an amused taunt in her voice. “Or are you pretending you didn’t know what would happen?”
I raise my eyes to look at her. “People make their own choices in life.”
“One person in particular,” she replies. I duly note the subtle hint of resentment in her voice. It’s replaced with a gloat she doesn’t bother to hide. “How is our little petal faring in the aftermath?”
I don’t respond, instead bringing my eyes back to the report I’ve been focused on since our research team brought everything to my office this morning. There isn’t much to this one in particular, but I’m an expert at reading between the lines.
Astrid Hawthorne has been in seclusion at her parents’ home since the news hit that she had ended her engagement to Bruce Campbell. It wasn’t the Boston Register that ran the story, of course, despite one of their very own reporters being eyewitness to the break-up. No legitimate newspaper in that city would have dared be the first to splash that headline. A society page break-up, even with the added flair of a homosexual affair, certainly isn’t worth making enemies of the Campbells.
Which left the tabloids, and they certainly had a field day with it. I have personally found “yellow journalism” to be both the best source of breaking news and at the same time, the best place to leak such news. Despite their tendency to heavily color the truth, there’s always a factual nugget to be found underneath all the spin.
Of course, there was no need to spin what happened in the past week. It seems the poor broken-hearted Bruce is also in seclusion at an undisclosed location, far outside the sphere of Boston. Conrad Donovan has suddenly decided that U.C. Berkeley is a better choice for law school than Harvard, where, coincidentally enough, both he and Bruce had already been accepted.
The annual charity auction for the Sharon Dobay Scholarship, named in honor of Helen Hawthorne’s mother, has suddenly had an inordinate number of cancellations. That, combined with the fact that the Sumner House, where it was to be held, has discovered a sudden conflict on the chosen date, means the event may very well be canceled altogether.
Then there is Hawthorne Pharmaceuticals. The file on this is the thickest of all. Once a rising star in the world of pharmaceuticals, it has recently found obstacles in every direction. Suddenly, the FDA isn’t so quick to give the green light to several of its newest products. Suddenly, there are articles in a number of respected medical and business journals about the soundness of the company and its products. Suddenly, it doesn’t have the nearly fifty-million dollars in funding from private investment firms and banks that seemed so certain at one point. The effect has not only had a chilling effect on any hopes of expansion, but may very well cause drastic downsizing.
The Campbells are even more vindictive and powerful than I suspected. But two can play at that game.
“At any rate, it certainly made Hawthorne Pharmaceuticals ripe for the eating, as they say,” Gabrielle says, as though reading my mind.
“Picking. Ripe for the picking,” I correct, then raise my head to find her twisting her lips. Gabrielle and I have always been competitive, even long before we became casual lovers. She hates it when I correct her English phrases, especially since my French usage is flawless in return.
I give her a cordial smile. “But yes, it is delightfully ripe. I think fifty-million should land it in our hands.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Fifty-million of our own money? You are still on this silly idea of actually sharing ownership?”
“It’s a profitable investment.”
“It’s not what we do.”
“We do what I say we do,” I reply in a cool voice.
This time she doesn’t back down. Her eyes turn to ice as she glares at me. “I do own half the company, Alex.”
“Forty-nine percent,” I remind her.
“Don’t you dare use that number against me,” she hisses. “We’ve always agreed to—”
“Except when we haven’t,” I say calmly.
She settles back in her chair with practiced ease. I know the look. It’s the one she uses when she’s about to use her feminine wiles on me. It never works, but in the past, it has lead to a rather enjoyable detour.
“This company is everything you despise, Alex. The very reason why Papa started this company. We’re supposed to destroy companies like this.”
I think about that for only a brief moment. Once upon a time, I thought meeting Astrid, taking her out on my boat, was a mistake. Doing what I do, I’ve schmoozed and cozied up to potential targets, getting to know them, ingratiating them with my charm, perhaps even coming to admire some of them. Even when such interactions ended between the sheets, it was still business. Meeting Astrid, taking her on my boat, inviting her family to dinner, taking her virginity, that made it personal. Watching the Hawthorne’s downfall has made it personal.
I suddenly realize I’ve become what I’ve fought against, an instrument of destruction.
“Perhaps it’s time we evolved,” I say, looking at Gabrielle thoughtfully. “We’ve succeeded in halting the expansion and the resulting focus on profits over doing good. Right now the company is still in an altruistic stage. With our financing, we can keep it that way and still mold it into something profitable.”
“Is it the company you want to mold, or perhaps a girl?”
“What did I say about jealousy, Gabrielle?” I admonish, raising an eyebrow.
“It isn’t what’s between my legs that I’m concerned for, Alexandre. It’s what’s between your ears. I think your brain is suffering.”
“Perhaps I should be wondering the same about you. I know you enjoy the hunt and eventual kill as much as I do when a company deserves it. Still, you are usually able to focus on the bottom line. What makes this company different?”
“You tell me.”
“Nothing. Hawthorne Pharmaceuticals is a target. As with any target, we chose the best method of conquest possible. I’ve made the decision.”
“And I’m challenging you on it.”
We stare at each other like two predators, fangs and claws exposed, each one waiting for the other to pounce. Once upon a time, this was our foreplay, the adrenaline of anger pulsing through our veins. We’d tear at each other like wild tigers, ripping clothes, pulling hair, scratching backs. Today I find it strangely tempered by une fille, as Gabrielle put it. Gabrielle’s fiery temper pales in comparison to Astrid’s timid sexual curiosity.
“I’m going to Boston,” I say finally. “We’re buying into Hawthorne Pharmaceuticals. Fifty-million dollars.”
It’s a dismissal. I see the fire turn to ice in her eyes. For once, our heated exchange won’t land us on top of my desk.
“You’re making a mistake, Alexandre,
” she warns.
I return a level gaze. “No, Gabrielle, I’m not.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Astrid
There’s a knock on the door and I stare at it wondering which of my parents it’s going to be. Will it be Mom with her careful fawning as she suggests something to eat or a “fun” activity? Or will it be Dad with some interesting topic of discussion to take my mind off my troubles?
Correction, our troubles.
I thought I was done playing the game when I broke the engagement with Bruce. I thought maybe there’d be a brief period of public shunning, a slap on the wrist, whose sting would eventually fade. I should have known better. In Boston of all places, with as many professional sports teams as there are, I should have realized that the stakes only get higher when the clock runs out and there’s no clear winner. Playing against a team that demands defeat at all costs, the Hawthornes were bound to be decimated when the game went into overtime. And no one knows how to win during sudden death better than the Campbells.
My parents have been fastidious in hiding their personal scars from me, but like all children, I’m aware of more than they think. I was here when Mom came back early from the Boston Ladies Auxiliary Board, dressed in her Chanel suit and pearls as usual. I saw the look of utter humiliation on her face before she quickly replaced it with a bright smile as she caught sight of me.
The internet is the only co-conspirator I need to know what’s going on with Dad’s company. I had to stop reading after one day of my eyes glossing over words like “questionable quality” and “FDA concerns” and “struggling” and “layoffs.”
Neither of my parents has said an admonishing word about what I’ve done and how it’s negatively affected them. In fact, it’s been nothing but words to the effect of “you go girl!” which only serves to tighten the chains of guilt that have a hold of me.