“Guess he didn’t really earn that back tonight. Did he?”
I shrugged. “I wish he would tell his mother to shut up. I understand why he doesn’t. But what I don’t understand is why he wanted me to be subjected to her? And why did he have to bring up something as ridiculous as he did?”
Paige sighed. “You just don’t get it, Elizabeth. He brought you to prove to them he is serious about you, and he took it a step further by illustrating through the ridiculous example he gave that nothing will change his mind even if you came home pregnant by another man.”
Leaning over her, I pulled the top of her dress open a bit and peeked down. She slapped her hand over it and laughed.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for the secret rich people translator you’ve obviously got embedded in your skin somewhere because I sure didn’t get all of that out of his actions or lack thereof. Here I just thought he hated me.”
“Hardly,” Paige said, laughing.
I looked towards the four sets of French doors and tried to guess which one Dale was behind. “What do you think they’re doing to him?”
She shrugged and put her plate on a white iron table. “Who knows? It could be pressuring him to take over Daddy’s company again or just pressuring him period. They don’t really need a reason. They put a lot on Dale’s shoulders. I don’t know how he deals with it. My mother expects nothing from me because she thinks I can’t do anything and it’s still mind wracking. I can’t even imagine having to carry her hopes and dreams.”
“Do you think he’s okay? They’ve had him in there for over an hour. I should make him suffer but even I have a heart.”
Paige sighed. “We should probably go rescue him. Aren’t you feeling a bit tired?” She poked me and I got the hint.
I faked a yawn. “Oh, exhausted.”
She laughed. “Quick study. Shall we get him so you can take him home and kiss everywhere he hurts? Please know that it pained me to say that out loud.”
“Paige, tell me honestly, do you think that Dale and I can seriously work? We’ve had more arguments and tense moments in the last two days than we’ve had in eight years. I hate to say it, but I’m beginning to think people are right—he should find someone more like him, more like what your mother likes and I should find someone more like me.”
“Wow, I can’t believe you just said that. You’re going to let that bitch win? And yes, I just called my mother a bitch. Does Dale know how you’ve been feeling?”
I moved my fork around my empty plate, playing with the remaining white goop in an attempt to avoid looking at her. “Umm, no. I didn’t tell him. It doesn’t really matter.”
She punched me in the arm and it actually hurt. “Don’t you blow this with him! I consider you my best friend, but I will take his side on this, Elizabeth. If you dare hurt him I’ll be pissed.”
I laughed and she hit me again. “What? I’m sorry. Threaten me again and I’ll do my best to keep a straight face.” I bumped her hip with mine and we both laughed.
Rolling her eyes, she turned and grabbed her plate. “Come on. Let’s go save Dale.”
“Let him suffer just a bit more.”
“Shut up, Liz!”
My jaw dropped as I followed her towards the doors. “Did you just call me Liz?”
“Yes, and don’t cross me on this again or I’ll really get angry.”
“You’re like an evil china doll. Tiny but deadly!”
Paige snickered as she opened the doors. We walked down the oversized, empty hallway and headed for the kitchen. I spotted Dale with his back to me again.
The second we heard her mother practically screaming, we stopped.
“You have got to be kidding me! There is no way I want that … that … country bumpkin in my family! She’s nothing like us, Pierce! How can you stand here and tell us this and expect us to be okay with it? I would rather you told me you were joining a monastery. Our family name may stop but at least it wouldn’t have the blood of that ... that ... tramp you insisted on bringing to my home tonight.”
Paige grabbed my hand and held it tight. “Ignore her, Liz. Ignore her.”
I tried. I tried hard. But her words hurt.
“Mother,” Dale said, in the deepest voice I’d ever heard him use. “Never call her that again. Liz is an amazing woman who—”
“Who has you thinking with something other than your head. She’s after your money. Does she know exactly how much you have now and what you stand to gain? Does she, Pierce?”
My hands shook. Who the hell did this woman think she was?
“Mother....”
“Don’t mother me. Did you see the way she smiled and wrapped your father around her finger too, Pierce? Think of how many farm boys she learned to do that on. For all you know, she has six kids living with her momma in the trailer park back home! Are you willing to step up and raise them all too?”
“Margaret! That will be enough. Liz is an extremely pleasant young woman who has been nothing but kind to us and has been close to our son for eight years. Stop treating her as if she’s substandard.”
Substandard.
Hearing the word associated with my name made heat flare through me and my stomach turn.
“Well, she is, Edmond. Or should I call you Eddie. Will it make you hug me too? She isn’t worth the ground we walk on and you know it. Why can’t Pierce be more like you? Find a skirt that catches his fancy, sleep with it, and go home to his real wife? That is what you do, isn’t it? And it is all Liz, as you both love to call her, is good for. Maybe you’d like to have a go at her Eddie when Pierce finally wakes up and realizes it won’t work. You did seem to enjoy your outdoor eating excursion with her. Why stop there, Eddie?”
“That is out of line, Margaret!” Mr. Corbin shouted.
“I don’t think it is. Betsy Gardner was over the other day and she spotted the picture of Dale and that girl you insist on keeping around. She instantly recognized Liz as the girl Charles Baum, from the club, has been seeing for some time now. He’s almost as old as you are.”
“Mother.”
“Did you know about that, Pierce?”
“I recently found out.”
“Recently,” she laughed. “No wonder you make sure her birth control tablets are filled. She’s sleeping with other men while she sleeps with you. Maybe she’ll stop by his place after she leaves here tonight--after all, he only lives two blocks down from us. She’s a real classy girl. I can see why you like her so much.”
“That’s enough, Mother.”
“You can’t honestly tell me you’re fine with her and Baum.”
“What do you want me to say? No. Of course I’m not happy that Liz had a relationship with Baum. In fact, it makes me sick to stomach every time I think about it. But that doesn’t change the way I feel about her.”
“Pierce, really, haven’t you figured out that you can get the same type of girl by the hour and not have to put up with the additional baggage.”
I lost my grip on my plate and watched in slow motion as it crashed to the floor. I bent down fast to clean it up. I piled the pieces of shattered china into my cupped shaky hand. Paige was next to me in an instant, trying desperately to help me to stand up. Glancing up, I found Dale staring down the hallway at me. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
Mr. Corbin appeared behind Dale. His face reddened instantly. “Dammit, Margaret! You had to conduct yourself this way while she was a guest in our home.”
Paige touched my shoulder and I jerked away. “Leave it, Liz. Someone will come and clean it up.”
I nodded, not taking my eyes off Dale, who now had his back to me again. I stood slowly and smoothed my dress down. It was hard to get one foot to move in front of the other but somehow, I managed. The only way out was to go right past them all.
“Let’s go,” Paige said softly.
As I neared Dale and his father, it got harder to breathe. Dale kept his back to me and Mr. Corbin trie
d to take my hand. I pulled it back, letting it wave in the air with no real purpose other than to avoid having it touched.
“Elizabeth, please don’t take what she has to say to heart. She sees her son slipping out of her clutches and she can’t stand it. Margaret, apologize this instant to Liz.”
“Let her go, Edmond. Pierce is better off without her. And if the truth is too much for her to stand, she has no place here. Let her crawl back to the dilapidated shack she came from.”
Paige touched my back lightly. “Stop being such a bitch, Mother!”
“Paige Michelle! How dare you speak to me that way?” Margaret shouted, finally coming into view.
“One of us had to, since Dale seems to have lost his ability to speak.”
Margaret narrowed her eyes on me and wore a smug look. “It appears it is catching.”
She had a point. That alone scared me. Why the hell was I biting my tongue? If she wanted to play, I’d play.
“No. Margaret, I have not lost my ability to speak. I just prefer not to waste my breath on ignorant people who hide behind six hundred dollar dye jobs and at least three facelifts.”
Her eyes widened as her mouth dropped. “How dare you speak to me that way?”
I shrugged. “It’s fairly easy, but you already know that since it’s exactly the way you speak to me, or should I say about me.”
“It’s killing you that Pierce hasn’t said a word in your defense, isn’t it?”
“At this point, Margaret, I would rather Pierce not speak to me or for me. I would, however, very much like to speak to him.”
I looked at Mr. Corbin and smiled. “Excuse me for what I’m about to say. You and Paige are the only two people I’m worried about offending.”
He nodded.
Turning, I glared at the back of Dale’s head. “You stood on your pearly white soapbox preaching about how horrible Charles was, how he was only using me for one thing and how he didn’t care about me. What was it you said, Pierce? Oh, right, he’d only hurt me in the end.” I laughed softly as Paige handed me my handbag. “It is funny how he never did one of those things. You, however, have done all of them and the weekend isn’t even over yet. I would make a comment on how rapidly you changed after everything that has recently taken place, but I believe it was Charles who already summed it up perfectly. So were you angry he came by or angry he told me the truth?”
Margaret tossed her hands in the air. “We do not need to listen to this poor piece of country waste go on and on, do we?”
I smiled at her. “Not that I should have to explain this to you, but I said I grew up on a farm. I never said my father or my mother were farmers. It was an assumption that each and every one of you made. Not that there even is anything wrong with farmers. They work hard for their money, unlike some.” I motioned to her.
Dale moved slightly but didn’t face me.
“My parents are originally from Texas, thus explaining their accents and my tendency to have one as well. My mother is a professor of law. My father retired five years back. He had been head surgeon at a large hospital about an hour from our home. My eldest brother, Nathan, followed in my father’s footsteps and my middle brother, Scott, followed in my mother’s. I, as usual, marched to my own beat. So, while we were in no way filthy rich, we were very, very comfortable. The farm, which I have told Dale about, is a six bedroom, eight bathroom house with an attached four car garage. I’m not sure of the square footage. You’d have to speak with my father about it. And I’m not sure if the guest quarters behind the pool house count or not.”
“Liz?” Paige asked sounding surprised.
“You may be asking yourselves why we had pigs, cows, chickens, and horses. That’s easy. Because I asked my daddy for them and he got them for me. I, like Paige is to Mr. Corbin, am his baby girl. He made a point to make sure I had whatever I wanted. My brothers wanted sports cars, they got them. I wanted animals. I got them. They just sort of grew on the rest of the family to the point Nathan actual owns several stables. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’ve had enough of being treated like an ignorant, barefoot backwoods girl.”
I stopped just short of the door. “Oh, Margaret, I don’t think Dale ever mentioned what it is you do.”
“Pfft. She doesn’t do anything.” Paige laughed as she followed behind me.
“That is not true, Paige. I plan all of your Father’s functions and ... well ... I....”
I smiled. “I don’t mean socially, Margaret. I mean professionally.”
She rubbed just under her neck and looked anxious. “I chose not to work.”
“Oh, I understand. I have a great deal of respect for women who stay home and raise their children.”
“We went to boarding schools,” Paige offered as if I didn’t already know.
“Interesting, Margaret. So, you must have felt very lucky when you snagged yourself a rich husband. And before you make another snide comment, Margaret. Between the two of us, which would still survive financially if the men in our lives walked out?” I tossed my hand in the air and smiled. “Wait, I’ve got this one. Your dear, darling son’s income makes no difference in the way I live because it’s not factored in. I even refused to allow my father to pay for college because I could see the disappointment in his face when I didn’t choose to practice medicine as well. Each time the school system made the recommendation that I be advanced an additional level my father became more and more convinced I was just like him. I did not graduate early to have six babies and live in a trailer. I graduated because I was done and moving on to college. No man has paid my way, Mrs. Corbin. Not Charles. Not even your precious Pierce. Can you say the same?”
I walked past Dale’s father and he patted my shoulder gently. I gave him a tiny nod as I walked out. It was amazingly hard to stay upright when all I wanted to do was collapse.
Paige ran out with me. “Don’t think for a minute that you’re leaving me here with her. And if I have to look at that pathetic excuse for a brother another minute I really will have to gouge my eyes out.”
“Liz, wait!” Dale shouted.
Pressing the button for the elevator, I ignored him.
“Please, I’m sorry. I should have said something.”
“It’s good that you didn’t. I would have kept on believing there might be hope for us.” The elevator door opened and I arched a brow. “Good thing I still have my key.”
“This wasn’t supposed to go this way, Liz. Please, I came to show them something.” Dale walked towards me slowly and it was Paige who snarled at him and accidentally let the doors close again.
I heard the elevator going down a fraction of a second before I hit the button.
Mr. Corbin stepped out and cleared his throat. “Liz, I would greatly appreciate it if you gave Dale just a moment to speak with you alone. Please.”
Sure, he had to toss the please on there.
Sighing, I did my best to look pleasant. “Mr. Corbin ... Eddie. Pierce has nothing to say I want to hear. He allowed your wife to say things about me that no member of my family would ever dream of saying to anyone let alone someone I claimed I cared about.”
“I understand.”
Paige grabbed my arm and I focused on her. “Since we’re all dressed up, you want to go out?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Sure, why not? Where are you thinking?”
“The Vein.”
My eyes widened. That place was always crawling with hot men. “Should we call Megan and Lauren?”
“Would they forgive us if we didn’t?” She looked past me a minute and smiled. “Daddy, could you go back inside now. I’d like to talk to Elizabeth.”
“Sure thing, honey.” He winked, knowing all too well that Paige was a pistol when need be.
Paige waited until her father was inside to continue talking to me. She and I both ignored Dale. “Open your handbag.”
“Huh?”
“Just do it.”
I pulled my lambskin bag open and aimed it
at her. She frowned and dug around in her own pink bag. “Shit, I only have one condom with me and you didn’t bring any. Guess we have to stop at a drug store before we go.”
I smiled so wide on the inside that I almost burst. Paige was a she-devil who was doing her best to make her brother jealous. I decided to play along. He earned it.
“That’s a good idea. Or we could ask Megan to bring some. She always has tons.”
“Liz, you can’t seriously be thinking about going out to hook up with another guy?” Dale stood there, staring at me, his mouth slightly open.
Paige punched me in the arm and it hurt again. She was getting a little too used to doing that to me. “Ooo, didn’t my mother mention that some Charles guy you’ve been seeing lives close?”
I nodded, unable to say anything for fear of laughing.
“Do you think he’d want to come with us? Is he the Mystery Guy? Oh, tell me he is!”
Dale spun me around and stared down at me, his green eyes were livid. “You are not going anywhere with him. Dammit, Liz, I’m not about to let you walk out of here this mad at me. You’ll do something just to spite me. I know you.”
“If you’re lucky, Pierce, you may still be someone I call a friend when this is all said and done. Don’t push it.”
He put his finger up, signaling for me to wait a minute. “Paige, if you have any idea what she means to me, you won’t let her move. Hold on.”
He ran towards his parents’ front door, thrust it open, and stared at me. “Mother, I have been in love with Liz from the moment I laid eyes on her eight years ago. If you don’t get your pampered ass out here and apologize to her this instant I’ll strangle you myself and save Dad the time!”
My eyes widened. Paige gasped.
Margaret began shouting, “Pierce, stop making a scene! I’m not about to—”
He pointed in the door. “No! You stop calling me Pierce and stop being a bitch to the woman I love. And gods willing, the future mother of my children and my wife. If you blew this for me, I will never forgive you. Ever!”
“Did he just call our mother a bitch?” Paige asked, softly before clutching my hand. “Did he just admit he loves you to everyone here? Did he just say he wants to have children with you?”
Executive Decision: A Romance Novel Page 18