Page 74 of Mistletoe and Mayday
Father clears his throat. The sound practiced to be neither too loud nor too soft. “Your mother arranged for Rebecca to join us tonight, but she had that charity function. The one for... What was it, dear?”
“Endangered owls,” Mother supplies, dabbing her lips with a napkin. No lipstick stain remains. “Always engaged with causes. One of the many things we adore about her.”
Causes my ass. I wonder how many charity cases have shoved their dicks into her.
I choke on my wine, grabbing my napkin to cover the reaction. The vulgar thought burns through my mind, foreign yet fitting. Exactly what Bailey would say if she were here, her green eyes flashing with that unfiltered honesty.
“Sebastian? Are you alright, darling?” Mother’s arched eyebrows knit together.
“Fine.” I take another sip of the Bordeaux, letting the $400-per-bottle vintage wash away words I can’t afford to speak. “Just went down wrong.”
The crystal chandelier fractures light above us, casting precise patterns across the mahogany table that’s been in the family for four generations. Mother continues extolling Rebecca’s virtues. Her charitable nature, her impeccable family connections, her picture-perfect suitability. Each word builds a cage around me, iron bars of expectation I never noticed until now.
The memory of Rebecca with another man hits differently now—less like a knife to the heart, more like watching an actress break character. I’d spent years crafting the perfect relationship with the perfect woman who perfectly fit into this perfect fucking life.Wealthy Family Dining, Early 21st Century. Do Not Touch.
“Did you salvage the ring?” Father asks, cutting through my thoughts. “Your grandfather’s diamond is irreplaceable.”
“The ring,” I repeat, the words hollow in my mouth.
“For Rebecca,” Mother clarifies, as if the trauma of survival might have wiped clean my memory of who I’d been planning to marry. “Such a shame about your little adventure delaying things. But perhaps Valentine’s Day would be just as romantic for a proposal?”
The dining room shrinks around me, walls closing in with their hand-painted silk wallpaper imported from some exclusive atelier in Paris. The crystal chandelier catches the light, splintering it into tiny rainbows across the table.
Bailey would have named each rainbow. Given them backstories and personality quirks, and made me laugh until wine came out of my nose.
“Sebastian?” Mother’s looking at me with that mixture of concern and disapproval she’s perfected over decades. “You’ve hardly touched your food.”
“Not hungry.”
“Well, you must eat. God knows what that pilot fed you in that dreadful cabin.”
My knife scrapes against the Wedgwood china with enough force to make Mother flinch. “Bailey.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Her name is Bailey. Not ‘that pilot.’”
Mother exchanges a look with Father. One of those silent conversations they’ve mastered through forty years of marriage.
“Of course, dear. Bailey.” She says the name like she’s pronouncing a disease she might catch. “Anyway, the important thing is you’re home now. Rebecca was saying she thought the entire experience might have been a blessing in disguise.”
I raise an eyebrow. “A blessing?”
“Well, you know what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder.”
“Rebecca was sleeping with another man,” I announce, the words bursting from me.
The dining room freezes. Mother’s fork hovers halfway to her mouth, a piece of asparagus suspended in the air like time itself has stopped. Father’s hand tightens around his wine glass, knuckles whitening.
“I–I beg your pardon?” Mother’s voice drops to that horrified whisper reserved for social catastrophes.
I lean forward, enunciating every word like separate sentences. “I. Found. Her. In. Bed. With. Another. Man.” My fist slams the table with each word, rattling the Wedgwood china. “I was going to surprise her with a proposal, and instead, I got the fucking surprise of my life.”
Mother recoils like I’ve slapped her.
“Sebastian!” My name comes out as a gasp. In thirty-four years, I’ve never uttered that word in this house.
“Sebastian, are you certain?” Father leans forward, already calculating damage control. “Perhaps you misinterpreted what you saw.”
