The Set Up (Triplets: Three Aren't One Book 1)

by Dani Haviland

  “I guess this situation is still salvageable, but you’re going to have to do everything I say.” She looked at Grace and saw her cheek was still crimson from being slapped. She hadn’t done that in ages. She didn’t regret it but did feel bad that it would probably leave a mark for more than an hour.

  “Sorry about that,” Victoria said, trying for sincerity but knowing Grace could see right through her. “I kind of lost my cool when I found out you’d been sleeping around. I guess it doesn’t make a difference how many times you’ve done it or with whom. What you need to do now is find a Mr. Right who has a brother. I want you to sleep with both of them. It’d be better if we can find a family with three available brothers.”

  “What are you babbling about?”

  “Three brothers and who cares if one, or even two, are married? As long as one is single so you can marry him. Actually, multiples might be better. Throw in a little family drama and we might get a six-figure buyout. If you’re pregnant, eh? We’ll deal with that later.”

  “I’m not pregnant,” Grace said. “We were careful. And I don’t want to sleep around. I want to marry Du…”

  Grace’s eyes widened, shocked that her mother’s hand was on her face again. This time, it wasn’t a slap, but a firm grip over her mouth to keep her from speaking.

  “You will do as I say,” Victoria said, glaring at her daughter. “I didn’t want to have you to begin with, but you did give me a comfortable existence for the past nineteen years. If you don’t do as I say, I will have your little boyfriend arrested for rape.”

  Grace twisted her head and escaped her mother’s grasp. “I’m eighteen and you know it! He is, too. There’s no way…”

  Humph!

  Grace doubled over with the punch to the gut, then looked up, shocked and amazed at the new level of physical violence her mother had sunk to. “What? Why?” she gasped.

  “Birth certificates are so easy to fake. All I have to do is make a few calls and the police will be out here, looking for the man who raped my seventeen-year-old daughter.”

  “But it wasn’t…”

  Fwap! Thunk!

  Two more punches – one to the face, another to the belly – and Grace was on the floor.

  “Care for a few more?” her mother asked snidely. “If you give in now and do as I say, he won’t be arrested for rape, assault with intent to kill, robbery… Give me a minute and I can think of a few more charges. Looks like I have corroborating evidence on who the culprit was, too.” Victoria grabbed one of the pool cues and lifted up the underwear loaded with DNA samples.

  Grace remained on the carpet to avoid more of her mother’s painful blows, considering her options as she held her pain and rage in check with the slow, steady breathing techniques she had learned in yoga classes.

  If I play along, Dusty will be safe. Whether I have to be the docile daughter for a week, a month, or a year, it’s still better than losing the love of my life to prison. Even if I can convince a judge that it wasn’t rape and he isn’t convicted, just being charged will smear his – our – life with a record.

  Victoria watched as her daughter considered her choices. She knew she had brought up a smart girl who would come to the right conclusion. Still, a few pugilistic blows would show the little rebel that Mother was still bigger, stronger, and more determined to control a situation than she could ever be.

  “Yes, do as I say,” Victoria said using her low and sultry no-nonsense voice, “and both lover boy’s record and your reputation will remain clean. No matter how innocent a girl is when she’s ‘taken advantage of,’ having that event in her life will always be a stigma. You will be marked as that beautiful blonde who allowed herself to be raped.

  “I also want you to consider what this would do to your father and his business if this debacle ever became known. Your name spread all over the newspapers, his clients avoiding the man whose daughter was violated. One look at your pretty little boyfriend, and they’ll think you either lured him in or lied about the rape. Either way, everyone loses.”

  “And your way?” Grace asked, sniffing back her tears, hoping they weren’t visible or were thought to be from the physical pain, not the loss of the life she had hoped for.

  “You target a well-to-do young man and his brother. Or brothers. I’ll help scout out the right ones. All you have to do is be pretty and make yourself available. Once you get one brother’s interest, flirt with the other or others. Figure out which one you want to marry and you’re set. Oh, and I don’t care how ‘careful’ you were, the women in my family are extremely fertile. Unless you went behind my back and got an IUD or are on the pill, you’re probably already pregnant.”

  “Why brothers?” Grace asked, forgoing a conversation on her level of fertility or method of contraception.

  “Why not? Increase your chances of getting a better provider. Oh, and you have to sleep with both of them within the first week or two. It’s leverage for the future. You may not ever need to use that secret against either one of them but consider it an insurance policy. No condoms, either. If you have sex with the brothers in the first month, you’ll be pregnant and guaranteed a hurry-up wedding.”

  Victoria reached her hand out to help Grace from the floor, her fake smile not even beginning to cover her sneer of disgust. “It was bound to happen one way or another. You blew your chance at four years at an Ivy League college, scouting for Mr. Right. You’ll have to settle for four weeks of hoping for a not-too-disgusting Mr. Right Now.”

  Grace rolled to her side and got up from the floor without assistance, ignoring her mother’s hand. “If you don’t mind, I’ll finish cleaning up in here. Then I want to take a shower.”

  “You can scrub until sunset but the stink of messing up your life with a night of legs spread for the wrong man will never leave. We’ll just have to make sure your Mr. Right Now is the same height and coloring as that gardener’s son you’ve been drooling over for the last three years. At least you succumbed to someone of the right color.”

  Grace used every ounce of control – and the recent memory of being pummeled by the woman who claimed to love her – to keep from pivoting in place and spearing her mother with the pool cue she had just picked up. Instead, she bent over and gathered a fallen cube of cue chalk, crushing it between her thumb and fingers before dumping the clumpy blue powder into the trash. One day at a time. One second at a time. Don’t stoop to her level of assaulting from anger. Make a plan and keep to it. Protecting Dusty is worth it.

  Chapter 2

  Surviving the Day

  How could life have been so perfect at three in the morning and not worth living four hours later?

  Grace rinsed the last of the shampoo from her hair, then watched as the bubbles slipped down the drain, disappearing into the blackness of the unknown just like her life. She tapped the stopper with her foot, allowing the tub to start filling. Mother said she wanted to talk when she was done but hadn’t given her a deadline. She’d take every bit of time she could and give herself the full treatment including a hair masque and a few minutes with the jacuzzi. She patted herself gently between her legs. The swelling had gone down, but she was still tender. She’d set the jets on low for now.

  A warm, comforting tingle ran up her spine at the memory of how she had become sore and how she had sprinted into womanhood, sharing her body and soul with the man she had chosen to spend forever with. Her smile and glow suddenly evaporated as a stream of water from the showerhead hit her cheek just wrong. She flinched at the pain, a reminder of her mother’s harsh slap.

  Why had that vile woman who birthed her dash her hopes and plans, sealing her dissertation with a one-two punch and a non-negotiable threat? Was it jealousy at her fading beauty or rage at her own failed marital relationship?

  Grace turned off the shower and let the tub fill from the waterspout, the flow not too hot but warm enough to keep her from getting chilled. She squirted hair conditioner into the palm of her hand and new memories of the
passions of the night before flooded in at the sight of the white creamy fluid. A shudder of mixed emotions – the recall of pleasure with and the despair at the loss of – Dusty overwhelmed her. She mindlessly applied the conditioner to the ends of her long hair, twisting the dark blonde tresses together, pressing the mass close to her scalp. Bending forward, she wrapped the works into a towel turban, letting the warmth of her head seal in the oils and botanicals. The cotton wrap cushioned her head as she lay back, ready for the tub level to rise so she could push the start button and bubble away her problems. For a few minutes, at least.

  Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

  “Are you going to be in there all day?” Victoria hollered.

  “No, just shaving my legs,” Grace lied. She ran her hand up her calf to her thigh, feeling the smoothness she had insured the day before. Had it only been twelve hours since she had primped, shaved, and oiled her body to perfection for her ‘first time’? And less than six hours since she had kissed Dusty goodbye, the two of them talking about their ‘next time’ and a shared forever?

  “I want you downstairs and dressed in ten minutes. We have work to do,” Victoria said, then smacked the door again to punctuate her command.

  “Yes, Mother,” Grace replied dispassionately, then pushed the Jacuzzi pump button, obliterating the chance of hearing anything else from her ruthless parent. She looked at the digital clock on the sink counter, noting the time. “I won’t be late.”

  Sinking down to her towel-wrapped hair, Grace let the water jets work their magic on her tense muscles. “Minute by minute,” she reminded herself, inhaling deeply, recalling the scent of her lover’s musky chest, the feel of two of his five chest hairs as they tickled her nose. Her eyes closed for a moment, then popped open to see the time.

  “Crap!” She scooted down in the tub, ran her fingers through her hair to work out as much conditioner as she could in ten seconds, then stood up, hastily drying as much of her hair and body as she could before grabbing the dressing gown hanging on the hook. Thirty seconds left!

  She rushed downstairs and slowed two steps before the kitchen door, catching her breath and reminding herself to keep her remarks to herself.

  “Is that how you plan on finding a husband?” Victoria sneered, eyeing Grace head to flip-flop shod toes, then taking another drag off her cigarette.

  “You said dressed and I am. I didn’t know it was for an interview. If you’d like, I can go back and change.”

  Victoria flicked invisible ash from the end of her cigarette into the marble ashtray, then picked up her demitasse cup of coffee, pinkie extended. “No. Don’t bother. This is just the first step. We need to peruse these to find one who looks more or less like your little boy toy. I really can’t remember much about him other than he was fair-skinned and as lanky as a two-by-four clothesline. His build had promise with those broad shoulders, but as the son of a groundskeeper, he may as well have been a twenty-year-old garden rake.

  Keep quiet. Don’t comment. Get through this conversation. She’ll wear out eventually. Or she’ll find something else to keep her occupied. Remember, minute by minute.

  Picking up the photo album at her elbow, Victoria opened it to the tab marked ‘B.’ “If you had been accepted – or your father and I had purchased your acceptance – into a top tier college, the ‘A’ list men would have been an option. Not as many to choose from as the ‘B’ list, but their pedigree and net worth are so much more desirable.”

  Grace couldn’t help it. She hissed the harsh words even before they had formed them in her head. “Is that all love and marriage are to you?”

  Undaunted by the context but surprised that Grace had lost her cool so soon after her first ‘attitude adjustment,’ Victoria decided to let this one slide. Her daughter had, after all, been sleep deprived and was still in shock at her new status in life as an adult. “Marriage is a social arrangement; a legal business contract. Love is something that comes and goes; a fondness for a cute puppy that quickly grows into frustration with an uncontrollable, mangy cur. Men are nothing but skirt-chasing, turd-dropping burdens who ruin your holidays.”

  “Oh, so that’s what this is about; you’re mad at Daddy?”

  In a flash, Victoria was on her feet, her diamond-ringed fist clenching Grace’s throat. “You know, it really isn’t too late for more rape injuries to be inflicted. I have a wine bottle or two that could do some real damage.”

  Just as quickly as she had grabbed her, Victoria released her, dropping her hand to her side, settling back into the chair at the table as if nothing had happened, scanning the newspaper clippings of the men on the first page of the ‘B’ candidates.

  Grace was stunned by the sudden assault, the physical result of choking even worse than the emotional distress. She tried to relax her throat muscles, doing everything she could not to puke and humiliate herself further. I gotta get out of here!

  “Oh, and don’t even think about leaving,” Victoria said as if reading her thoughts. “Remember, I know your little boy toy’s daddy. It wouldn’t take much to ruin both of them with the accusation of a father and son rape. After all, some men might like that kind of thing. You know, sharing a woman. Or a girl. After all, you are only seventeen,” she said, then added a sinister smirk.

  Don’t talk. She’s baiting you. You already had this conversation. She wants you to argue. Facts mean nothing. She can manipulate anything.

  “Ah, obedient silence,” Victoria said. “I like that. Keep it up and we’ll get along just fine. Now, come sit next to Mother and point out which ones you think would work for you. Mind the notes in the margin: net worth, location, and height. We’ll have to read through the text to see how many siblings. Those who don’t have any at all are in the ‘C’ list. Let’s hope we don’t have to sink that far.”

  I’ve already sunk that far…

  “How about this one?” Victoria asked.

  Grace turned the binder around and glanced at the society page photo of a man who seemed to be similar in looks to Dusty. The notes said, ‘Stockbroker, two brothers, one possibly gay, the other an architect.

  “Sure. Why not?” Grace said, then sunk back in the chair and looked at the wine chiller, stocked with bottles for the week’s meals. You may become my next best friend.

  Chapter 3

  Setting the Bait

  Victoria picked up her black leather-bound monthly planner, checked the annual calendar on the back page for reference, then switched back and forth to the current month, comparing notes. “Well, it looks like we’re in luck. You’ll have to skip a couple of days of school, but I think we can make it. I’ll just say I forgot to bring our invitations.”

  “Make it to what?” Grace asked, reaching for one of the fresh-baked muffins.

  Victoria smacked her hand. “None of that until we find your Mister Right. If you’re on the skinny side, a man will feel sorry for you and want to take you under his wing and fatten you up.”

  “Like a calf? Lucky me.”

  Victoria’s jaw clenched and her hand flew up, ready to instill an obedience adjustment when she heard the housekeeper shuffling toward the breakfast nook. Her fingers fluttered down, settling harmlessly to the side of her head, pushing some of her perfectly coifed hair behind her ear, her attention back to her social events scheduler.

  The housekeeper looked around, sensing the tension. “What’s the matter, Missy?” she asked, and briefly set her hand on Grace’s shoulder to reassure her. She patted it twice, then brought the platter of muffins closer, setting a clean plate in front of the young woman she had looked after for over a decade. “I baked these just for you this morning. I know how much you love them.” She paused and looked around at the sparsely set table. “Oh, that’s right. You like them with lots of butter. Here, I’ll get some out of the pantry for you.”

  “Oh, don’t bother, Sally,” Grace said. “I’m not ready for breakfast yet. Thanks anyhow. I’m sure they’ll be just as great at lunch.”

  “Ooh,
that does sound good. Maybe with a bit of cream cheese and preserves? Makes me hungry all over again and I already ate two of them.”

  “Good morning, everyone,” Hal said brightly, swatting Sally’s ample rear end playfully with the rolled-up newspaper. “The Times isn’t good for much else,” he said to her, then set the paper on the table. “You’re not going to call sexual harassment on me, are you?” he whispered in her ear.

  “Not as long as you keep giving me those big Christmas bonuses, I won’t,” she said, grabbing a plate for him. “Care to join your family?”

  Hal glanced at Victoria and a chill shot up his spine. She was tenser than usual, her bony shoulders pulled further back, chin higher in the air. She was wearing her iron maiden attitude, ready for battle with whoever was nearby.

  Then he noticed Grace. She was biting her bottom lip, blinking back tears, avoiding looking up at him. He’d seen that look before but not since her Sweet Sixteen party. Victoria had made her miserable, embarrassed her in front of all her friends, then acted like Grace was overreacting when her friends decided they’d better leave early. Apparently, something had just happened between the two. He swallowed hard and looked at Sally to see if she had noticed.

  The robust housekeeper and cook had taken two mini bran muffins and added them to a plate of fresh orange slices. “I made some small ones so I wouldn’t feel too bad if I ate four of them. Try these! I added dried cherries instead of raisins to this batch. It really kicked them up a notch.”

  Grace looked over at her former nanny and a genuine smile emerged. Sally looked back at Hal and gave him one of her all-knowing winks. That woman won’t bedevil your daughter while both of us are here.

  With the wink, Hal scooted back and relaxed into the chair he’d been sitting on the edge of. Sally was a decent cook, a passable housekeeper, but also the most nurturing woman he’d ever encountered. He wasn’t in love with her but was eternally grateful that she was in his life. Or at least, in Grace’s life.