Chapter 7 #2
“That’s unfortunate. He’s a guest here, and needs to be polite and pleasant to the other guests.
He’s being rude to me when he’s rude to Brad or avoids the rest of us, and you’re being unkind to your sisters.
They’ve been nice to Geoff. But that’s not the issue.
” Gloria’s lips were pursed in a thin line while she listened.
“When we went to Patrick Hughes’s boat on Monday and Geoff stayed here, I have reliable information that a woman appeared minutes after we left, and she spent the day with him, until we came back.
I think that is very concerning behavior.
What was he doing with another woman all day behind your back?
And there was a second incident on Tuesday that several people noticed and so did I.
He was chatting up Daphne’s relief nanny and keeping her from her duties, to the point that Tucker almost drowned while she had her back turned and Geoff was charming her.
I think Geoff has a roving eye, and I want you to take a serious look at that.
The way your relationship is right now, weeks before you marry, is the best it’s ever going to be.
It doesn’t get better than this. And if he’s flirting with other women and cheating on you now, you are in for a lifetime of it, and I don’t want you to go through that. ”
“So what are you telling me?” Gloria said in a nasty tone. “You’re withdrawing your approval and canceling the wedding?”
“This isn’t about the wedding, it’s about the marriage . I want you to take a good look at who you’re marrying, so there are no bad surprises later.”
“The only bad surprise is how badly you’ve treated him since he’s been here. Brad is Sofia’s boyfriend, he’s not her fiancé or her husband, thank God. Geoff is British nobility, he’ll be an earl one day, and I’ll be a countess,” Gloria said grandly.
“Without a penny,” Eugenia couldn’t resist pointing out to her. “And I don’t give a damn about titles. I care about who he is as a human being, and how he treats my daughter.”
“And you’d rather have Sofia married to Brad?” It was a statement of thinly veiled racism, which horrified Eugenia and she didn’t approve of. And Brad was a hundred times the man Geoff was.
“Yes, I would. Brad is a lovely man, he’s wonderful to Sofia, he’s a doctor, he will be able to support her, and I don’t care what color he is. Gloria, I want you to be happy, and I don’t want Geoff cheating on you and breaking your heart.” She went straight to the heart of the issue.
“You’re the one breaking my heart, because you’ve been such a bitch to me and Geoff since we’ve been here.”
Eugenia fought valiantly to control her temper, and succeeded. The issues she was concerned about were real, and she didn’t want to lose focus on them.
“That’s not true,” Eugenia said calmly. “And if I have been, I apologize. What about the woman who spent the day here with Geoff? That was her leaving the property when we returned from the boat, the woman in the red sports car.” She did not say how she knew, and protected her sources.
She kept her promise to the woman he had paid fifty dollars to keep his secret.
“Geoff told me all about her. He was very upset about it.”
“When I asked him about it when we got back, he said he had no idea who she was, that she had just come onto the property, didn’t speak to him, and turned around and left. When in fact she spent the day here, for eight hours. What was he doing with her? And why didn’t he say so then?”
“He was embarrassed,” Gloria said heatedly.
“He said she just showed up, found him alone, and came on to him. He said she practically raped him. He tried to get her to leave and she refused. She wanted him to sleep with her, she begged him, and she threatened to accuse him of rape if he didn’t have sex with her.
He refused all day, and when he told her you were coming back any minute, she finally left.
” Eugenia was stunned by the story, which she didn’t believe for a minute.
Geoff had covered his ass nicely with Gloria, who wanted to believe him innocent, and Eugenia couldn’t prove otherwise, but she was absolutely certain that he had had sex with Natasha, and that she didn’t have to hold him hostage to get him to do it.
“It was that Russian slut who’s married to the oilman from Texas at Daphne’s party,” Gloria said.
He had even revealed her identity to strengthen his story.
And Eugenia had been right. It was Natasha Wylie, even though her husband thought she didn’t drive a car.
It was a tapestry of lies that Geoff had carefully woven in order to convince his future wife.
But Eugenia wasn’t an innocent, and she wasn’t in love with him.
She had no idea why her daughter was. He was pompous and entitled, full of himself, narrow-minded, narcissistic, and prejudiced, and he would live off Gloria as best he could, just as Umberto had with her.
It made Eugenia sad thinking of it. Gloria deserved better than that.
“And what about the nanny?” Eugenia asked her in a calm voice, fighting for every bit of self-control she could muster.
This was not a temper tantrum, it was about whether Geoff was going to be a suitable husband or not.
“Did you see him with that girl? He was standing three inches from her, with her tits nearly touching him. What was he doing even talking to her, let alone from that distance? He had no reason to be in deep conversation with her, while she nearly let Tucker drown.”
“She was hitting on him, he told me so, but he figured you wouldn’t give him a fair shake.
You like Phillip better than Geoff because he’s rich, so you suck up to him.
Maybe you think he’ll support you when your business goes bust and you have nothing left,” Gloria said.
It was a viciously low blow that no child of hers should ever say to her.
“You let my father starve when you divorced him,” she said angrily.
“If you lose your business, it’s what you deserve.
Papa is almost eighty years old, and he has nothing left. ”
Eugenia was in a white-hot rage, which she barely managed to control.
“I gave your father more than half of everything I had when he divorced me, and I had five children to support and get through college. He almost destroyed my business then. And if he has nothing left, it’s because he spends money like water and has never worked an honest day in his life.
He depends on everyone else to support him, which I did lavishly for twenty years.
That’s more than long enough, and what happened between me and your father is none of your business.
But who you marry is mine, and I think Geoff is a cheater and you’re a fool if you marry him with your eyes closed.
Wake up for God’s sake, look at what he’s done, just in the few days he’s been here, right under his mother-in-law’s nose.
He has no respect for anyone, and certainly not for you.
I don’t care how rich Phillip is. All I care about is that he’s a wonderful husband and father.
I hope I can say the same about Geoff one day, but it’s not looking that way to me.
He’s going to break your heart, Gloria. And no, I’m not canceling the wedding.
But maybe you should. Take a long, hard look at him, and ask yourself some questions.
This can’t be the first time he’s done something like this.
You are going to wind up supporting him, and I think he’ll be unfaithful to you.
If you don’t care, that’s up to you, but don’t delude yourself about who he is.
” Eugenia was very serious as she said it, and Gloria answered her immediately, on the defensive.
“He’s a wonderful person, and I love him, and don’t count on seeing a lot of us after the wedding, if you’re going to treat us like this, accusing him of cheating, and if you’re going to fill your house with Sofia’s brats when she marries Brad.”
“I’m ashamed of you, Gloria,” Eugenia said to her, as Gloria stood up.
“And thank you for giving me the opportunity to give you the most expensive wedding imaginable, and telling me not to plan on seeing you after that. Who do you think you are? Who are you? You have a lot of serious thinking to do, about your own values and Geoff’s.
This isn’t how you grew up, small-minded and disrespectful, ungrateful and bigoted. ”
“I’m getting married in three weeks and I don’t care what you think,” Gloria spat at her, stomped down the stairs off the porch, and marched back to the guesthouse, where Geoff was waiting for her.
They were two lone soldiers against the world, which brought them closer to each other.
Gloria believed all of his lies. He was a practiced liar, and Eugenia felt sorry for her.
She was going to have a miserable life until she opened her eyes to who he was.
Eugenia had a heavy heart as she went upstairs to change, thinking of everything Gloria had said.
They were cruel words, the angry words of a nasty, spoiled child, each one designed to hurt, and each one felt like a spear to her heart.
She was stunned by Gloria’s accusations about her father.
She had always favored him, and he must have told her that her mother had left him penniless, which was the biggest lie of all.
He would have left Eugenia bleeding by the roadside if he could, and she had given him far too much, in order to be kind.
He was older, and had never had a job, and she had felt sorry for him.
She realized now that she shouldn’t have bothered.
He probably was out of money, as Gloria said.
But that was his problem now, and no longer hers.
She had no intention of bailing him out again.
She couldn’t anyway, and didn’t want to.