22. Eloise
22
ELOISE
“ D amn, girl,” Moon cat calls when he sees me in my silk champagne slip dress.
The dress is stunning. It has a slit that runs dangerously high up my thigh, but its length and the way it conservatively hugs my body in all the right places is elegance personified. Moon drinks me in from head to toe as Cal and I join him beside the bar.
“Watch it,” Cal says, snaking his arm around my waist.
“Please tell me you have a sister,” he asks hopefully.
“No sisters. I only have a brother, and he’s taken.”
Moon shakes his head. “Damn.” He takes a swig of his beer. “Where’s Dash? Last we talked, he was planning on making it tonight.”
“He’s coming. This is his last hurrah before he leaves for an assignment.”
He flicks his head to the event space. “Not too bad for a last-minute party.”
I chuckle as I look around the tent the Bronsons had put up to host the charity gala at their home at the last minute after they lost the venue space they’d booked over a year ago. When they booked the location, they hadn’t planned for it to conflict with conference finals. The gala was supposed to be held at a hotel in downtown Toronto but seeing how the Kings have continued to advance in the post-season, the gala fell on the same night as their last game in round two of the playoffs. So here we are with an impromptu event space in the backyard of the Bronson Estate. You wouldn’t know this was all thrown together at the last minute by looking around. The tent is picturesque. It seems as though every detail was poured over for months. The tent’s roof is draped with sheer fabric and lights, giving the illusion you’re outside looking at a starry night sky. Apart from the lights twinkling in the canopy, the entire tent is lit from the ground up, save for the candle lights adorning every surface. It’s fanciful and creates a memorable experience for the guests.
“Hey.” Cal squeezes my hip. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, why do you ask?”
“You’re quiet. I wasn’t sure if your nerves were starting to get the best of you knowing everyone here will soon see your painting.”
“No, I’m not nervous.” Well, maybe a little, but I wouldn’t tell him that. This is a big night for him. I don’t need him worrying about me. “I’m simply taking it all in. This is very nice. When I heard the event location had to be moved on the fly, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t this.”
“Yes, another reason I don’t mind Tipper’s help with the charity. His wife and her friends love to decorate. When we lost the hotel reservation, they all flew into action, and this was born,” he says, letting his eyes wander around the space. Our shared admiration of the details is short-lived as we both stiffen when Blair and Austin enter the venue. His lips are on my temple. “Don’t let them ruin this. Let’s forget about all this for one night.”
“That’s easier said than done, but I’ll try. I can’t make any promises. You know how she likes to provoke me.”
“I’m aware.” He hands me a martini.
I told him I was going to order one on the way here. Wine wasn’t going to cut it if I’m to survive the night. Not only will I be sharing artwork I never intended to reveal to the world, but I knew I’d see her. I’ve seen her from a distance at a few of the games. The woman loves to frequent the boxes and rub elbows, but we haven’t had any close contact since I threatened her at lunch. I take a big sip of my drink, anxious for the contents to warm my veins and relieve the tension the sight of her brought upon me. Blair Wyndham is a bully, a title that’s synonymous with fear for most people, but that’s not what this is. I don’t fear Blair, but she does make me feel vulnerable. It doesn’t sit well with me believing she knows something I don’t. I don’t have the upper hand, and the way she’s crossing the room now with no qualms about sidling up to the bar I’m currently standing beside sends a message. It further underscores her, knowing she has something—something big that I don’t.
“Maybe we should go find our table,” Cal says, collecting his drink off the bar.
“Yeah, let’s do that.” My chances of ignoring her are better if there’s more space separating us, but our plan of avoidance is ill-timed because the second we leave the bar, Austin and Blair are there, stepping into our path.
“Callum,” Blair carols his name before flatly greeting me, “Eloiseee,” she draws out my name as she drags her eyes down my dress with a look of disdain. Bitch.
“I see you found your story.” Cal claps back with an underhanded greeting worthy of her scowl, and I try to keep my face in check. After all, he was the one who requested we ignore them tonight. Maybe it’s Austin’s smug look as he stands beside Blair like she’s a trophy after he deceived his team into believing nothing was going on between them, or perhaps it was the look of disgust written across Blair’s face as she sourly greeted me. Whatever his reasons might be, I don’t challenge them. We’ve taken the high road long enough.
“Give it a rest, Balfour. We’re here to support your charity, not to make a scene.”
“Your charity?” Blair’s eyes narrow slightly on Cal’s. “I thought the Hope Foundation was Mr. Bronson’s event.”
I turn my eyes upward. She probably thought there was favor to be gained coming tonight. Finding out Cal is the brains behind this event indeed knocked her ego down a few notches.
“No. Callum is the founder,” Austin answers.
She quirks a perfectly manicured dark brow. “Interesting. I suppose that makes sense, given what happened to your mother.”
I don’t like her tone, and something inside of me snaps. “What is your problem? Are you seriously going to stoop that low?” Out of anyone here, she’s more than well aware of what happened to Cal’s mom. Were she not dead, her aunt wouldn’t be married to Lucas Balfour. There was no need to add that comment. If any words were given, they should have been condolences, not vengeful spite. First, she hit below the belt, commenting on my son at the charity lunch, and now my man. “We both know you didn’t show up here tonight to support a charity of any kind. You came to be a vile bitch and I?—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Cal says, holding his arm out in front of me, making me cognizant of the fact I’ve taken a step toward her. “Leave it. We’re not doing this now or ever. Blair, whatever feud you insist on fueling, you need to let it go. If you’re working with my father, I suggest you stop. You’re nothing more than a tool, one he’ll dispose of when he’s through. There are no secrets between Eloise and me. Go make someone else’s life miserable.”
She chuckles. “Oh, there are always secrets. Even when we think we know everything, we don’t.”
“What do you think you have, Blair? Now’s your chance to share it with the world. Whatever unrevealed truth you have, let’s hear it. Unless, of course, you don’t really have one.”
“That’s your problem. It’s always about you. You think I’ve been out to get you all these years as if I don’t have better shit to do than to carry this torch of hate.”
“How else am I supposed to make sense of the vile shit you do?”
“That’s just it.” She smiles but not in a kind way. It’s contemptuous. “Not everything has to make sense. Some people are just wicked to the core.”
Her perpetual mocking, gossip, and manipulation have reached their breaking point with me.
“I slapped the fuck out of you once. What makes you think I won’t do it again?”
This time, Callum grabs me around the waist before I lunge. “Come on, blondie. She’s not worth it.”
“Toodles.” She waves with her fingers as Cal pulls me away.
“I hate her. I hate her. I hate her,” I chant as Cal guides me through the tent toward one of the tables up front by the stage. “I’m going to kill her.”
“Not tonight, you aren’t,” he says, pulling out a chair for me to sit. Once we’re seated, I down my martini. I’m actually impressed it’s still in my hand and not on her. “When were you planning on telling me you slapped Blair?”
I shrug. “It didn’t seem relevant. Our son’s name came out of her mouth, and I took care of it.” His fist rests heavily on the table, garnering the attention of a few of the guests seated across from us. “Don’t worry. I don’t think she’d actually bring him into this drama. She was trying to get under my skin, and I ensured she knew her place.”
He speaks low, but his tone is firm. “If someone threatens my family, you tell me. Period.” His hand slides down to my thigh and squeezes it hard. “Do you understand?”
My mouth pops open in surprise, and I meet his eyes. He’s pissed, but I know the place his anger is rooted in. It’s the place mine has been for the past six years. He doesn’t want to hurt me. He wants to protect his family. “Yes, I’ll tell you. I’m sorry.”
His mouth finds my ear. “Don’t be sorry. I was already turned on by that little show you put on back there, but finding out you slapped Blair”—he pulls my hand into his lap and places it over his crotch—“has me completely hard.”
The adrenaline coursing through my body quickly morphs from fight or flight to the physiological connection Cal and I share. We faced Blair as a team, and even if we’re no closer to knowing her game, it doesn’t matter because we’re still standing. His lips graze over the shell of my ear, and my skin pebbles with awareness.
“But don’t ever pull that shit again. You have me. I’m your family and I protect what’s mine.” He nips my lobe before placing a kiss on my cheek. “We don’t fight battles alone. We’re a team. If someone comes after you, they come after me.”
“Callum, Eloise, it’s so good to see you again,” Sherry says, pulling up a chair to Cal’s right.
Cal removes my hand from his hard length and laces our fingers together, moving them to rest on the table. I can tell by how he acts around Sherry that she’s special to him.
“Sherry.” He smiles sweetly. “Is Ron here tonight?”
“He is. I put him to work and sent him to go fetch our drinks. I’m exhausted. I needed to rest my feet.”
I lean in so she can hear me. “This place looks incredible. You guys must have worked around the clock straight for the past three days.”
“Oh, we did?—”
“Balfour,” Roe interrupts, squeezing Cal’s shoulders. “Mr. Bronson is requesting your help with the auction items. I think he wants you to be the gofer.”
Cal turns to me. “You going to be okay if I leave you? I’m sure I can find something for you to do.”
“I’ll keep her company,” Sherry interjects.
Cal’s lips thin as though he doesn’t love the idea of leaving me with her. He nods to the stage. “You’d look better up there anyway. We’d probably get top dollar for every item presented,” he says with a wink.
“I’m fine. I’d rather not be on stage.” He purses his lips and hesitates. “If you’re worried about earlier, don’t be. I’m done with Blair. I don’t even care anymore. It’s like you said… there are no secrets between us, so whatever she has is moot. I promise I’ll be good.”
He anxiously taps his thumb on the table, thinking it through, leading me to believe his hesitance isn’t related to Blair but something else.
I’m just about to reassure him again when he gets up and kisses my forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I say.
He gives me one last look and heads over to the side of the tent, where I see Mr. Bronson speaking with the MC and pointing toward the stage.
The second he’s up, Sherry scoots over and claims his chair. “He’s probably just worried about me bending your ear and spilling all his secrets.”
“Oh, is that so?” I say with a smile as I rest my forearms on the table.
“It’s what all men worry about, isn’t it? The gossip we women tell when they’re not around. I meant to ask you the other day. How is your mother? Is she doing well?”
“I didn’t realize you knew my mother.” I lace my fingers together. I thought her words were fruitless small talk, but maybe I underestimated the entanglement of her friendship and history with Cal.
“Oh yes, before we all started having children. I’d meet her and Virginia for lunch almost every Saturday.”
“Wait, you said her and Virginia. Do you mean Cal’s mother?”
Her eyebrows draw together. “Of course, dear. Who else would I mean? Virginia and your mother, Ada, were best friends.”
My eyes stay pinned on hers as a million thoughts war for my focus.
“Cal never mentioned it?”
My eyes widen as they flick toward the stage. “No, it hasn’t come up.”
That feels like something that should have come up over the past ten years. I knew my mother was friends with his stepmother, Keely, years ago, but I never knew she was friends with Virginia. How did I not know this, or better yet, if Cal knew, why wouldn’t he tell me?
“Oh well, it’s hard for him to talk about his mother. I’m sure that’s why it never came up.” She dismisses the topic easily as though she didn’t just drop a huge truth bomb on me. “Anyway, she’d be so pleased to see the two of you together. Virginia and your mother tried to get pregnant at the same time so that their babies would be best friends just like them. The goal was girls, little mini-mes to shop and get mani-pedis, but when Virginia found out Callum was a boy, the dream changed. Ada would have a girl and the two of you would get married.”
My breaths become shallow as a pit forms in my stomach. Did Cal know about this plan? My mind quickly zips back to the day we met. I thought it was organic, but what if it wasn’t? The day we had lunch at the Bronson Estate, he even joked that not catching the football was part of his strategy. He planned on meeting me. My phone lights up on the table, and I see it’s from my brother.
Iverson: I cracked the file…
I pick up my phone and swipe open the screen to read the rest of the text.
Iverson: It’s Pandora’s box. We can talk tonight when you get home, but you were right. There is a money trail. Mom wrote two checks to Lucas Balfour for substantial sums. One the year after you were born. The second was the year Adler was born.
My hands shake as I rack my brain, trying to pull together everything we uncovered over the past few weeks and what I know about my family’s past, but nothing makes any sense. Why would my mother give Lucas anything, but specifically the year after I was born? Sherry told me that Virginia’s dream was for Cal and me to marry. Was my mom seeing to it that it didn’t happen? Why would she do that?
Iverson: Mom and Virginia were best friends. She helped Virginia draw up the terms of Cal’s trust, which is set to pay out next month on Cal’s birthday. Oh yeah, and her name is listed as the successor executor.
Time was always running out. Everything that’s happening now was always going to happen, but why? I look toward the stage and the man I love, but my eyes and mind can’t focus. Nothing makes sense. My mother… Cal’s mother… the trust. What am I not seeing? That’s when Lucas’s words from all those years ago come back to haunt me.
“Dear, are you all right? You look like you’re going to be sick,” Sherry says beside me.
All this time, I thought the key to my future was untangling the web of secrets that cursed our pasts. What I didn’t account for is no matter how careful you are, secrets and lies kill relationships. You can run from them, but you can’t outrun them. In the end, they’ll always catch up with you. My heart beats out of sync as my ears begin to ring, and suddenly, it’s hard to breathe.
“I have to get out of here.”