by Rachel Hauck
His bold, brash confidence won her over . . . Well, eventually. Corina smiled at the picture of Stephen sitting behind her in a postgraduate leadership class, leaning over her, whispering his questions in her ear. As if he sincerely needed her help. But he was a flirt. An unabashed, charming flirt.
When she relented to his persistent chase and agreed to a date, she lost a piece of herself to him. He became her soul mate, her true love. More than a best friend.
But life decided to have its way with her.
Corina pushed up from the Adirondack, leaving her thoughts on the balcony, and headed inside. Snatching her phone from her handbag, she dialed Daisy, her best friend since junior high, married with two gorgeous little girls.
But she hung up before the first ring. She didn’t feel much like talking. And conversations with Daisy were peppered with dialogue to her daughters.
Tossing her phone onto the bed, Corina walked over to her wardrobe in the corner of the bedroom, cutting through a mysterious, lingering scent of Stephen’s cologne. Or was her imagination playing tricks on her? When he was deployed, she’d keep his pillow case unwashed so she could breathe him in as she drifted off to sleep.
But that was a long time ago. A story from the fairy tales. Corina faced the antique wardrobe that had once belonged to her great-great-grandmother Thurman on her mama’s side, purchased in France in 1910.
Turning on the corner lamp, Corina opened the carved oak doors and shoved aside her sweaters, finding the iron ring on the back panel that let her into a secret compartment. Didn’t she put something in here after her last trip to Brighton? When Stephen had rejected her?
In the muted light, she found the envelope. The one she’d stuffed in there when she came home from Brighton that fateful January over five years ago.
A month before she’d been so happy, anticipating a joyous, happy Christmas at home, her secret of being a married woman adding a bit of private fun to the season.
Presents had been shipped to Carlos in plenty of time. And Corina’s private gifts had gone out to Stephen.
She was to Skype with him in the early hours of Christmas morning. Oh, how buoyant and warm she was with the treasure of their secret. A lovers’ dream.
But the Skype call went unanswered. As well as the family’s call to Carlos.
What seemed perhaps an innocuous, minor thing—after all, they’d missed calls before—became a heinous nightmare from which Corina thought she’d never wake up.
Reaching in, she took the envelope from the compartment and headed to the balcony, thinking she should throw the darn thing in the river. Never mind the water’s edge was about a quarter mile away. The toss would be symbolic. A metaphor for removing the last bit of Stephen from her heart and head.
She drew back her hand, wondering how far she could fling the lightweight envelope. Just her luck, it would get caught in the wind and fall to Mrs. Davenport’s balcony below.
Corina returned to her bed and dumped out the contents.
One greeting card. One newspaper clipping. One soda bottle cap. And one thin, silky red ribbon.
Corina picked up the card, tracing the image of a beautiful, demure 1900s bride wearing a gown with a high neck collar and a long, flowing veil. Her burnished ringlets curled about her porcelain cheek as she smiled at her dazzling, dark-haired groom with blue eyes.
And she slipped into the memory.
“He looks like me.” Stephen said, plucking the card from the rack.
“Yes, but she doesn’t look like me.”
“Perfect, this card is for you. To remember me.” He gathered her to himself and kissed her, passionate and loving, not caring one whit that the shop owner looked on. “I’ll have my own memories of you.” His wicked grin told her exactly what kind of memories he’d treasure, and she blushed.
“Stephen, shhh . . .”
“What? You’re my wife. My memories will carry me through my tour. I love that they’ll be mine, all mine. No one knows to ask, ‘Ow’s the missus?’ When I get a goofy grin on my face, they’ll just think I ate too much succotash.”
“My, my, such high praise. I equate with your love of succotash.” Corina popped his shoulder gently, laughing, blushing. “I’ll have my own private memories too. But I’ll take the card. It’s so lovely. And a souvenir from our Hessenberg wedding night.”
“Sorry we can’t do more, love,” Stephen said. “But when I’m back from my tour, we’ll sort our marriage out with Dad and the Parliament. You’ll select a ring from the royal jewels. Then we’ll have a proper party. Fit for a prince and his princess.”
“Stephen, I don’t care. You know that, don’t you? As long as I’m yours.” She kissed him with ardent love. “Is it real? You’re all mine?”
“Very real. You’ve captured my heart, love, and we’ve our whole lives to make memories.” He blessed her temple with a brush of his lips. “But until then, you have this as a reminder.” Stephen held up the card, walking toward the sales counter.
If the shop owner recognized him, he said not a word. Now Corina opened the card, tears pooling in her eyes as she read the simple verse.
To say I love you is more than mere words.
’Tis a truth in my heart.
I love you, my darling, and you’ve married me.
And we will never be apart.
Beneath the rhyme, they each signed the card. Their signatures represented their final pledge to one another.
Corina tossed the card across the bed. What a crock. It was all a lie. Stephen only loved when it was fun, easy, and convenient. When some mysterious obstacle arose? Bam, he was gone.
She reached for the ribbon and roped it around her ring finger. Since they didn’t exchange wedding rings, Archbishop Caldwell offered Stephen the ribbon to tie around Corina’s finger as he repeated his vows.
Stephen was so apologetic he’d not planned more thoroughly for his proposal. “But I promise . . . any jewel you want when I return.” He’d held her face in his hands and kissed her over and over.
Truth was Corina had her own family heirlooms to bring to their union. Her great-grandmother Del Rey’s diamond engagement ring had once been on display at the Smithsonian. But how Corina loved the ribbon and the tender, sweet, romantic moment it represented. She held up her hand and listened . . .
“I pledge to you my love and fidelity, my honor and trust, to cherish you until death parts us.”
The heiress and the prince. They were meant to be. In love. Forever. They were going to make it, defeat the odds of wealth and power pulling a modern couple apart.
Both of their parents had a loving relationship. Well, hers did until Carlos died.
Corina tucked the ribbon back in the envelope. How could she have been so fooled by him?
The third memento rested inside the envelope. A large color photo of them at the Military Ball, the night of Stephen’s proposal. One of Corina’s friends had taken the shot with her iPhone and texted it to her. “Save to show your grandchildren. The night you danced with a prince.” Oh, little did she know . . .
Corina had printed it out and framed it, setting it by their bed in her flat, treasuring all the image represented.
Now, out of its frame and folded into quarters, Corina smoothed the picture on her bed. The image, bent and creased, caught her in Stephen’s arms, in their element, the emotions of their hearts all over their faces. Relaxed, laughing, in love.
She was surprised the press didn’t catch on that night. But Stephen had a clever and keen way to stay out of the media’s eye.
Lying back on her pillow, Corina held up the photo, allowing some of her sentiment to remind her how she felt that night.
Stephen was striking and swoon worthy in his dress uniform. She looked free and happy, wearing the heck out of the white, feathery Luciano Diamatia. Mama had moved heaven and earth to have the gown made for Corina’s society debut when she turned eighteen, using every wily prowess in her vast arsenal to lure the world’s most e
xclusive and reclusive designer out of hiding to sew her daughter a little ole dress.
But the designer failed to deliver the gown on time for her debut. Mama was fit to be tied. Corina almost wore it in the Miss Georgia contest, but Mama feared it’d start a riot with the other girls.
But five years later, when Corina moved to Brighton to be with Carlos as he trained for the international peace task force, she packed the dress, obeying the still small voice telling her she might need it.
The rare, precious gown was one of Corina’s most prized possessions. Because the first and only time she’d ever worn it, she wed her true love.
Corina lowered the photo and stared at the ceiling. Maybe they had just been caught up in the moment, swept away in the romance, the drama of being able to marry simply because they wanted.
She sat up. But no, when he proposed atop the Braithwaite Tower, Corina had absolutely no reservations or doubts.
“Yes, of course I’ll marry you. Yes!”
In that moment, they were the only two in the world. No media. No rules. No traditions. No two-hundred-year-old laws. No expectations. No aristocratic loyalties on either side of the ocean. No pressure. No deployment. No war. No obligations.
They were free to follow their hearts. And so they did.
She glanced at the photo, staring for another moment. The face smiling at her from the photo paper was hers. But the emotion of that Corina was a lifetime away from this Corina.
And her prince? He was more handsome than ever, confident and full of swagger, his physique rugby-muscled and disciplined.
But that was on the outside. He still carried pain in his eyes. The same look she saw when she flew to Brighton that New Year’s Eve.
“What happened in Torkham, Stephen?”
His crystal blues were dull, lacking life and merriment. Something ate at him deep down. But instead of telling her what it was, he ended their marriage.
Enough. Memory lane was fraught with peril. Returning the picture to the envelope, Corina spied the ferry tickets lodged in the bottom. They’d barely made the last boat to Hessenberg, their feet landing on the deck just as the vessel was about to pull away from the dock.
Laughing, they tripped their way to an inner cabin.
“Are we doing this?”
“We’re doing this.”
“Are you sure, really sure? I can wait—”
His lips covered hers, stealing her breath and her confession. “Corina, I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you. Walking across campus.”
She pressed her hand against his chest. “And I didn’t give you the time of day.”
What was she to do with her unrequited love? The man wanted an annulment.
Corina stuffed the envelope back into the secret compartment of the wardrobe and slammed the door shut. When and if she ever met a man to marry—should God be so kind to her—she’d find the courage to toss that envelope, with all of its treasures, into the river.
SIX
Gigi
Even when she was a girl running barefoot through the hills of her Blue Ridge, Georgia, home, Gigi Beaumont had a nose for news.
She’d collect all the best gossip by sneaking around the wizened mountain women—who had a knack for telling a yarn or two—as they talked in the Mast General or strolled the town square. Then she wrote their stories and mimeographed them on the machine she found in the church basement, producing her first newspaper at the mature age of ten.
When Mama read it, whoa doggies, she gave Gigi a walloping for the ages on account of what she printed about the mayor’s wife. But when it turned out to be true—an affair with the sheriff—Mama became her chief distributor and fact finder.
Forty-six years later, she still crawled around behind the storytellers and gossips, hoping for the scoop. The scandalous story that would turn the world on its ear.
Mercy knows, Beaumont Media needed a break. A big one. Hiring Mark Johnson was just one stealth move to reignite her newspaper’s faltering brand.
Twenty years ago, she was a pioneer in the online news game.
Fifteen years ago, she was the lead dog in the ever-growing pack of Internet news outlets.
Ten years ago, the bigger, old print dogs jumped off the porch with the power and might of their long traditions and stocked bank accounts and edged past her.
Last year, her books ran with red ink.
She was failing. Losing. A place she’d never been in all her adult life. Things were so bad she’d almost, almost, prayed this morning as she showered, dreading the morning meeting with her CFO.
What she needed was a scoop. A big story. Get her back on top in the reality, gossip news business. That’s where Corina was worth her heiress weight in gold.
So were Gigi’s thoughts as she entered the Beaumont offices eight thirty Friday morning, a latte in one hand, a brown bag containing a scone in the other. The place was quiet. The party for Mark ran late last night. When Gigi left River Rock at eleven, most of the staff was still there.
She didn’t mind a quiet Friday as long as everyone got their work done before Monday.
As she crossed the lobby, Jones, still on security, psst her over. Gigi had a good mind to keep going, but she yielded with a telling exhale. “Yes, Jones, good morning. What can I do for you?” Admittedly, he was a great source of information and gossip about the Melbourne staff. Gigi leaned over his security desk, listening with a keen ear. She was suspicious her director of IT was stealing from her. Seems she was signing for an awful lot of new laptops lately.
“I thought you’d like to know that a gentleman met Miss Del Rey in the parking lot last night after you left.”
That’s it? His psst news? “You don’t say? What kind of gentleman?” Corina was a goody-two-shoes. How? Gigi would never know. The girl ran with the likes of Paris Hilton when they were teens and never once got busted for drinking, smoking, or sex taping.
Gigi raised her latte for a sip, already bored with this conversation, just as the edge of her nose twitched. Well, well . . .
“Can’t say what kind of gentleman. He seemed like an all-right dude, though Miss Del Rey appeared a might tense. I called out to her, asking if everything was all right. She assured me it was, but Ms. Beaumont, I think they was arguing about something.”
Gigi gave Jones an approving smile. “Did you hear any of their conversation?” So Corina, what are you hiding?
“No, can’t say as I did, but I’m thinking something serious was going on between them.”
“Thank you, Jones. You’re a good man. Remind me to give you a raise.”
“Yes, ma’am. Anytime.”
He nodded in a way that told Gigi he was more delighted that he knew how to fit into her scheme than over the idea of a raise.
As she turned to walk away, Jones offered an oh-by-the-way. “Did I mention there was another man too? Big and burley, reminded me of my brother-in-law in the Special Forces. He waited for the man by their car. Being in the security business, I knows a bodyguard when I see one.”
“A bodyguard? Are you sure?”
“Would wager that raise you promised.”
“Hmm . . . See what else you can find out, Jones.”
He flashed his large, white grin. “You can count on me.”
At the elevator, Gigi pressed the Up button. How-do, but if the plot didn’t thicken. She’d not planned on working a mental puzzle this early in the morning, but Jones’s news fascinated her.
“Then the roses came.”
Gigi spun toward Jones. “Roses?”
“Up on her desk. A man delivered them at eight this morning. Can you believe that? Eight a.m.”
“Really, Jones?”
“My bet, someone fancies her a great deal.”
“You’d probably win that bet.” A man in love? Gigi rubbed the tip of her nose. Yep, love. She’d bet her fortune on it. “Thank you very much, Jones.”
“Anytime, Ms. Beaumont.”
“I’ll have account
ing put that raise through for you.”
“Why, thank you very much. Very, very much.”
This was how she expanded her empire, won folks over. By paying them what they were worth. Paying them for their knowledge, loyalty, and on occasion silence.
Gigi rode the elevator to the second floor, mulling over this development. Typically, she’d not give a second thought to one of the women talking to a man in the parking lot. But Corina Del Rey was no ordinary woman.
Gigi entered the bull pen, aiming for Corina’s desk, where the most beautiful bouquet of red roses captured the sun falling through the skylight. Two dozen if there was one.
She snapped Melissa’s arm as she slunk past. “Who sent these?”
“You tell me, boss. You’re her lifelong friend.”
“What do you know about Corina’s love life?” Gigi’s nose itched like a flea-bitten dog.
“Uh, that she doesn’t have one?” Melissa leaned across the desk and sniffed the silky flowers. “I’ve never seen roses that shade of red.”
“Get on her Facebook,” Gigi commanded, leaving no room for disagreement. “See if she’s posted anything about a date or an ‘old friend’ coming into town.”
Melissa balked, trying to walk off. “I’m not going to spy on her, Gigi. Even for you.”
“If she posted on Facebook, darling, how is it spying?” Really, she was going to have to break down and join the Facebook generation. She’d be done already if she just surfed the site herself, but this was her MO. Using, rather, working with people. Getting them on her team. Gigi motioned for Mel to sit at her computer. “Just take a quick look. Is she on Instagram? Twitter?”
“I don’t know, but if you want to know, ask her when she comes in.”
“She won’t tell me the truth.”
“Then leave her alone.” Melissa dropped her bag on her desk and sat, waking up her sleeping Mac with a jiggle of the mouse. “And just so you know, she rarely posts on Facebook.”
“Fine, then this exercise should leave you guilt-free. Come on, aren’t you curious?”