Page 91 of Beauty and the Beach

“I suppose it means nothing to you that our marriage has since become real in every sense of the word,” I say. It’s not a question, because I know the answer. But I still have to ask.

My grandmother just snorts. “So you slept with a pretty girl. That doesn’t?—”

“My wife,” I spit out through gritted teeth. “She is mywife.”

“At the moment, perhaps,” Mavis says. Then she leans forward and presses a button on her landline. “Marshana, bring in your candidates, please.” Then she turns her shrewd, pitiless eyes on Holland. “She’s out,” she says. “Certainly unfit for the position of partner to an executive, to say nothing of a CEO.”

A small knock sounds at the door, and then my mother enters, hunched into a half-bow and followed by four young women.

“You seemed to prefer blonde,” Mavis says as she waves in the women—yes, all blonde, all dressed immaculately, all objectively beautiful. “So that’s what your mother looked for.”

I don’t prefer blondes. I prefer Holland.

“You,” I say, jerking my chin at the woman nearest me. She has on a tailored tweed pantsuit and diamond earrings that are either wildly expensive or very fake. “What would you do if I put a dead fish in your mailbox?”

Her jaw drops; the other three look at each other, scandalized.

I nod. “And you,” I say to the woman next to her, this one with her hair pulled into a sleek ponytail. “Would you ever replace the cream in my Oreos with toothpaste?”

From behind me, Holland snorts—like she’s amused all over again by her own prank. But Ponytail’s face just shifts from faintly scandalized to faintly disgusted.

“That’s very childish,” she says.

I nod again, because she’s absolutely right. It’s very childish. And then, for a moment, I stand perfectly still. I listen to my pulse pounding in my ears and I feel the sting of my fingernails digging into my palms. Then I glance around and catch Wyatt’s questioning eye.

I duck my head, answering his silent inquiry.

“Is this your final decision?” I say to Mavis, pulling a still-grinning Holland closer to my side.

Mavis sniffs. “Of course.”

I exhale as a surreal wave of relief crashes over me. “In that case,” I say, and Wyatt hurries forward, presenting me with an envelope, “I’d like to formally tender my resignation. Consider this my two weeks’ notice.” I stride forward and drop the envelope on Mavis’s desk.

And although she barely moves, for the first time, a crack appears in her facade; her ancient face twitches with something like disbelief and anger before returning to its cold mask.

“Don’t be stupid,” she says. She swipes at her desk, pushing the envelope off and sending it to the floor. “I’ll pretend this lapse in judgment never happened.”

“Pretend whatever you’d like,” I say with a shrug as something jubilant and free rises in my chest. “I’m still resigning.” I can feel the adrenaline racing through my veins, the twitch of nervous energy, my fight-or-flight preparing for the precarious, unprecedented situation I’ve put myself in.

“Listen here,” Mavis snaps, and her mask disappears entirely, leaving open anger in its place. “You can’t?—”

“I think you’ll find that I can,” I cut her off. I vaguelynotice the feeling of Holland’s arm looping through mine, an anchor I didn’t realize I needed. “Feel free to email me with any further questions,” I go on. “I’ll swing by HR to start the paperwork.”

When we turn our backs on Mavis, she’s gaping, mouthing wordlessly. When we leave the office, I feel an immense burden falling away from my shoulders.

And when we pass Lawrence and Clarence in the hallway, I could swear I’m taller than I was when I went in.

“So what you’resaying is that the qualifications for being your wife include a tolerance for dead fish and toothpaste-filled Oreos. Did I understand that correctly?” Holland says as soon as she and I and Wyatt enter the elevator.

I don’t let myself smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“And were you ever going to tell me you were quitting?” she goes on, more serious now.

“I was,” I say, looking over at her. “I just wasn’t sure when it would happen, so I held off.” Then, turning to Wyatt, I add, “We’ll look through the house’s security footage tonight.”

“Is there anything else you need to do over here before we go back to Sunset Harbor?” Holland asks after an odd moment of hesitation.

“No,” I say. Then, frowning at the way she’s playing with the ends of her hair, I ask, “Do you?”

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