Page 44 of Cinderella Is Faking It

“I know how important it is, asshole. Which is why I’m not discussing it here. Not now.” Maybe it was hypocritical of me to throw that at him when I’d just sent an email about the very same topic to our lawyers. Then again, our lawyers didn’t drag me across the country first thing on a Saturday morning. Actually, our lawyers probably would have objected to us flying out to Raleigh. But Georgia Beckett didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and Julian wouldn’t even try to refuse her. He had yet to recognize that life was easier without her in it.

“At least tell me if you got her to dump that boy yet.”

I rolled my eyes at him and watched the city come into view outside the window. “Yes.”

“Okay, see? That’s progress. I can work with progress.” His chipper grin only soured my mood more. While I could easily ignore him on the flight, being crammed into a rental car for two hours made it a lot harder.

“Any idea what she wants?” I asked before he could keep needling me about my impending engagement.

“I know as much as you do.” I doubted that since he was the one still in contact with our mother. “Just don’t mention her yoga classes to her. They hired a new instructor and she’s on a war path.”

Which meant the instructor would likely be fired by the end of the month. As a bartender-turned-trophy wife, Georgia had always felt like a small fish among sharks when navigating social circles. In prison? Georgia was the shark. Not that you could really call her lodgings a prison. She was in a minimum-security facility lovingly nicknamed ‘Camp Cupcake’ where the inmates lived in group cottages, could spend their time freely on the grounds, and had a shit ton of recreational activities to partake in. Like yoga classes. Julian had pulled the strings to get her relocated there from state prison within her first year of incarceration.

On our way from the airport, he filled me in on the latest Camp Cupcake news, as if our mother’s personal vendetta against her snoring bunk buddy was in any way relevant to me. I hadn’t spoken to Georgia in almost two years, when she’d been hospitalized with pneumonia, and before that it had been three years. Whatever emails she sent were automatically directed into my spam folder.

The visitation center was as inviting as a three-star-hotel lobby. Comfortable enough to spend one or two hours in, if need be, with low sofas and a couple of tables with chairs, all bolted to the floor, but not a place you wanted to stay longer than necessary.

Georgia Beckett looked like someone costuming in prison uniform. Her hair was in a neatly cropped brown pixie cut and by the look of her full lips and wrinkle-free eyes, her last ‘medical leave’ had involved more Botox than usual for a root canal.

“My boys!” She fell around us in a hug that lasted the exact predeterminate five seconds before falling back and running her fingers through my hair, fixing a strand that was certainly not out of place. I wasn’t dumb enough to come here giving her any kind of ammunition. “Look at you Augustus. I keep forgetting how tall you are. You have to come visit more often.”

“Beck,” I replied.

Her faux warm smile dropped instantly. “I named you Augustus when they cut you out of my flesh, and that’s your name until the day I die.” Not legally, not anymore, but that hardly mattered to Georgia.

“Hello mother,” Julian said and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek before settling on one of the sofas. I took the seat next to him and watched Georgia sink into the armchair across from us with all the grace of a snake. Almost 70, seventeen years in prison, and she had not lost a drop of composure.

She folded her hands in her lap, all business.Here we go.“We need to discuss Cordelia Montgomery.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I turned to Julian. Mr.I know as much as you do. “Did the two of you conspire against me?”

“I didn’t say a word.” He held up his hands in defeat but didn’t even try to hide the dirty smirk on his lips.

“He didn’t have to. I keep up with the news.” Sure, and who chose and paid for the gossip magazines and society pages she got in the mail?

“Is this why you wanted us to come?” I asked, staying on track rather than picking a useless fight.

“Yes.” Georgia leaned forward, elbows on her knees, narrowed eyes on me. “It’s a brilliant move in theory, but you’re aging out of being a desirable bachelor and she’s too rich to be complacent arm candy. What’s your play?”

Jesus fuck. This woman couldn’t let go of her manipulations even thousands of miles and many years out of my life. “I can handle her.”

“Three strategies. Go.” Three simple words and I was thrown back to long nights at the dinner table, when Georgia made us go over international politics, historical wars, chess games and celebrity PR campaigns. Anything that required any sort of strategy. We wouldn’t go to bed until we came up with three satisfactory strategies each. The number of nights I slept with my head smacked against the mahogany tabletop probably matched the number of nights I spent in my bed.

“Pregnancy and shotgun wedding,” Julian said, repeating the samestrategyhe’d mentioned to me a while back.

If Georgia had personal feeling on the matter, she pushed them aside. “Contraceptives?”

“Flaxseed or a little food poisoning to make her throw up the pill.”

“Jesus,” I muttered.

“Yes, good thinking.” My mother pointed at me as if I’d just thrown in a valid argument, and I shouldn’t have felt proud like a fucking fifth grader getting a gold star, but old habits died hard. “Is she religious enough to go through with it? Abortion?”

“She’s not the type to get an abortion,” Julian scoffed.

“You would be surprised how many women get an abortion every day, Julius. There’s notype.” She pursed her lips and Julian slid an entire inch lower in his seat.

“Del wants the whole goddamn picket fence dream,” I supplied. Maybe I didn’t want to play this game anymore 30 years later, but this was what I was trained to do. I knew how to play. I knew how to win. I may have spent many nights at the kitchen table, but Julian had spent more. “You don’t need three strategies. You need one strategy. Sternberg’s triangular theory of love proposes three major objectives.”

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