Page 3 of Now & Forever
Chapter 1
Gwen
There wasn’t enough wine in the world to get Gwen through this dinner.
She was on her second glass already, and it was only the first course of Albert Merange’s birthday dinner.So many better ways to spend a Sunday night.Sunday nights were Gwen’s favorite times to put on her pajamas and stare at the TV until bedtime. Preferably while in the arms of her partner, James. Not that they had indulged in much cuddling in the past year.
Gwen stared at the bottom of her empty wineglass while a servant took away the bits of her salad she would rather not put into her mouth.Suppose I should hold off on drinking more until I’ve had something more substantial to eat.She looked up and met Albert’s eyes from the end of the dining table. He quickly looked away. Gwen wanted more wine. Or a cocktail, preferably. Maybe some straight vodka.
James’s father always maintained a tenuous respect for the woman who might one day be his daughter-in-law, but Gwen had often suspected that he only tolerated her because he thought her a fancy, flash-in-the-pan love affair that might last three years at the most. James and Gwen had been in their early twenties when they first got together. The Meranges had told their only child that he could sow all the wild oats he wanted – as long as he sterilized those oats, first.
But Gwen hadn’t been a temporary girlfriend. She graduated to James’s domestic partner and was now as synonymous with his name as he was with hers. Over seven years, Gwen Mitchell had integrated herself into her boyfriend’s high-society life. She had heiresses for friends. Memberships at invitation-only clubs. (Perhaps not all of them, but the ones she had been invited to were satisfactory enough for her commoner background.) A contract that said, should she and James break up, she would receive whatever she required to start her life over again elsewhere. Many out-of-towners were shocked to find out that Gwen wasn’t an heiress. Blending in with the lot of neurotic, spoiled assholes had been easy enough.
One of her closest friends was Charlotte Williams, one such heiress who had been the first to take Gwen by the hand and show her how to make the most of her station if she insisted on falling in love with a multimillionaire (in his own right) like James Merange. Charlotte, whose family was close friends with the Meranges, had come to tonight’s birthday dinner at Gwen’s request.I don’t want to be alone with these people.Bad enough Gwen had to sit next to James’s mother. At least she could see Charlotte across from her, helping her ailing father with his uncut potatoes as the main course came out for them to enjoy.
“Is this roasted goose?” Mr. Williams asked the birthday boy, a sparkle in his eye. “How did you manage to snag some at this time of year?”
“You know I have my connections.” Albert accepted his second glass of wine as the sommelier made the rounds of the table. Gwen exhibited great decorum when she turned down a third glass and instead sucked on her ice water.Dessert. I will have a third glass at dessert.She would really need it if the birthday dessert was Albert’s favorite cherry pie. Blech.
Mrs. Ophelia Merange had her wineglass topped up before leaning in toward the Williamses. “My husband humbles himself on his birthday, you see. He managed to catch not one, buttwogeese last hunting season. Really was a magnificent bit of skill, wasn’t it, darling?”
Albert did not blush, but he propped himself up in his seat and said, “Skill and luck often go hand-in-hand. We had the first goose for Christmas, and the second for tonight. Hopefully, my grandson will be old enough this year to enjoy it for the first time. A love for well-roasted fowl is built into our bloodline.” He turned to his son, sitting between himself and Gwen. “Isn’t it, James?”
He, like his girlfriend Gwen, had been quiet for most of the dinner. But when his own father asked him a question, he couldn’t simply sit in silence. Even when one of those words had made a shudder go down both his and Gwen’s spines.
“Don’t have much of a taste for duck anymore,” he attempted to say with humor. “But I do love a good turkey.”
The goose had been carved in the kitchen, unlike the mess back at Christmas when Albert insisted on cutting open the bird at the table in front of everyone, including his infant grandson. Patrick had wailed to see the golden goose split open like one of his stuffed toys. His mother had ushered him out of the room and didn’t come back to eat until the child had been put down for a nap.
“You should see the boy,” Albert continued, speaking to his friend Mr. Williams. “Still a bit on the small side, but so was his father when he was his age.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “I remember telling his mother that we would have to find him a wet nurse to make sure he was good and fed.”
“Albert, dear…” Mrs. Ophelia Merange held in her exasperation with considerable taste. “Mr. Williams and his daughter don’t want to hear about that.”
“Look! Right here!” Albert showed a picture on his phone to his friend. “Have you ever seen such an adorable little boy? Gives me hope that the best of our genes are really plowing through the generations.”
Mr. Williams adjusted his glasses. Charlotte politely poked at her dinner. Mrs. Merange studied her son’s face, gauging his reaction.
James and Gwen both reached for their wineglasses. James drank the rest of his while Gwen was sorely reminded that she hadn’t opted for the refill.
“Oh, my…” Mr. Williams looked across the table, to James, a grin touching his wrinkled cheeks. “He really does have your nose. Isn’t that remarkable?”
James forced a smile of acknowledgment. “I suppose so.”
He took Gwen’s hand beneath the table. She placed her napkin next to her plate of goose and potatoes and excused herself to the bathroom.
That was what she had dreaded the most when she agreed to come to Albert’s birthday dinner. The man wassosmitten with his grandson, that he couldn’t help but shove the boy in everyone’s faces. Especially Gwen’s.
Because he’s not my son.He belonged to some other woman, a bastard sanctioned by both the Merange’s and their oldest friends, the Welshes.
Gwen would never forget that horrifying night one year ago, at a gala before Christmas, when Cassandra Welsh waltzed into town with a baby on her hip. The whisper in high society was that one of her many,manylovers was the father, and the reason she skipped down wasn’t because of a mental meltdown, but because she was pregnant with a bastard baby. James, the man who once called Cassandra his best childhood friend, had been his usual mix of concerned for her well-being and utterly delighted by the shitstorm brewing in town. There was no one more invested in gossip and “hot messes” than James Merange.
Until this one bit him in the ass.
The baby was his. Even a DNA test proved that. That night – that long ago, far away night that almost ruined their lives – Gwen ran the gamut of emotions that went fromThe Bastard Cheated on MetoThe Welshes Did WHAT?
James had not, in fact, cheated on his partner of seven years. Instead, semen that he had preemptively stored in a bank upon reaching adulthood had been pilfered by the Welshes, because they were desperate for an heir, and Cassandra would only settle for having James’s baby. The worst part? James was never allowed any say in it. His father had signed off on the release of the genetic material for Cassandra to use in a sterile doctor’s office. Apparently, it had worked.
How could Gwen be angry at the man she loved for something beyond his control? How was he supposed to know that his parents still carried certain powers he never anticipated? And how could he face his sudden fatherhood alone? Gwen couldn’t leave him. Not when he was innocent. Not when they still loved each other.
