Page 84 of All The Way Under
“It feels like so long ago. A dream almost.”
I haven’t spoken to them about my time in Madagascar in depth. I’m afraid of how they’ll react.
“Not a nightmare?” Mom asks, nose wrinkled in disgust.
“How can it be?” I throw up my hands and let them fall on my bed. “I met him.”
“I get that,” Bronwyn says. “You really are okay after enduring…that?”
“I promise I am.”
“You’re just like your father,” Mom says, and I think this may be the nicest thing she’s said yet. “You do what you need to do and keep on moving. Did I tell you we eliminated the threat? Well, your father did, himself. The man who kept trying to break in to get my sweet Roger…it was Jennings’s twenty-year-old son from his mistress! The scandal runs deep. His name was Ryan Smith, and he got a stipend every month from Jennings’s account as hush money. Jennings got locked up, and the payments stopped. Ryan said there was a price on your father’s head, and he needed it to survive once the payments stopped.”
“Eliminated?” Bronwyn asks, voice cracking. “Like Dad killed him?”
Mom groans. “Don’t be so crass, darling. Your father took care of the problem before the problem took care of him.”
She’s an ace at attorney speak.
“So did you get rid of the security team?” I ask, hopeful.
She shakes her head. “Not until the world is less interested in you.”
“I’ll meet Archie for dinner. I’ll go. I’ll smile. I’ll tell the bastard I never want to see him again. We’ll let the paparazzitake the photos. They’ll post them. The world will know Brody and I are finished. Then I’ll go see Brody and try to talk to him. I want to help fix what I can, and this will make them less interested in me. I’ll do it for the family. If I’m marrying Archie, someone everyone expects me to be with, then that can be the end of the interest.”
“Only if you want to,” Mom says. “The photos will disperse quickly.”
My legs are shaky from rotting in bed, but I walk into my bathroom and crank on the hot water.
“I got this,” I toss over my shoulder.
Bronwyn comes in to talk to me when I’m in the shower. The glass is fogged, and she tells me the plan. She tells me how to look and what to say, so the pictures look authentic. When she tells me I have to kiss him, I tell her there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I’ll agree to that.
I wear the sundress. I put on the Givenchy perfume. I strap on red-bottom sandals and the Van Cleef bracelet stack. I play dress up one last time before I can be myself. Before none of this matters.
I’m shaking when I step out of my car, still reeling from sitting with Archie.
I saw the camera flashes from the corner of my eye. Archie didn’t because he’s not observant, and he’s stupid. He actually thought I’d changed my mind and wanted to accept his great, great, grandma’s fourteen-carat diamond and live a life of misery next to him.
I told him I wanted to see him for closure, and that’s all it was. For him. I’d closed that book the second I realized Brody existed.
I rub the hood of my car and feel relieved. It’s the first time I’ve been allowed to drive anywhere. Sure, I was followed, but I also have security. They’re parked along the street, watching me like a hawk.
It doesn’t look like Brody is home. The lights are off, and Grimace isn’t standing on the back of the couch, barking his head off.
Where are you?
Every time I call him, it goes to voicemail. Every time I text, it bounces back as undeliverable. I sit on the front step and decide to wait.
I call him a few more times before I give up. If I lose him like this after what we’ve been through, it will not only be embarrassing, but it will also haunt me.
My stupid life that I don’t identify with anymore ruins my chances for happiness. That’s the headline, I decide.
I fold my arms over my knees and put my head down. The thoughts run so quickly they blur together. The first time I saw him. Our first conversation. The waterfall. The projects we collaborated on so effortlessly. The escape. The elevator. The lake house. It’s a dream that’s interrupted by the roar of a loud engine. I stand. His black truck pulls into the driveway.
He steps out, Grimace in his hands.
“What are you doing here?” he says, cold, emotionless.
