Chapter 33- Grant
F ools rush in.
“Why are you staring at me like that, Culver? Our wives will start to wonder if there’s something going on between us,” I’d told Dean that evening at Jameson’s cabin.
“That wall around your heart seems to be missing. However this marriage came about, you’ve fallen for your lovely wife,” he’d answered, smugly.
“You know that wasn’t the arrangement I made with her.”
“Arrangements can change.”
“Daisy told me early on she didn’t want to be dependent on a man.”
“Being financially dependent on someone and being in love with them aren’t the same thing.”
“I don’t know her feelings, only mine.”
“Well, I’ve been watching you both this evening and I know what I see.”
“You love being the older, wiser one, don’t you? I’ll bet Liam finds you insufferable.”
“It’s a younger brother’s lot in life. Speaking of relatives though, are you sure about taking her into the belly of the beast? You and I know first-hand what a first-class shit Lincoln can be, especially when he’s got an ax to grind.”
“Much as I might’ve daydreamed about getting revenge on my second cousin as a boy, I didn’t know Emilia was his fiancée when I slept with her.”
“Of course not. Still doesn’t change how he probably feels about it… even if he made the choice to go ahead and marry her.”
I’ve often wondered why Lincoln decided to follow through and marry Emilia. Probably because she had the right last name, the right connections, and the right amount of money to pool together with his own. It’s what would be expected of a Barclay. It’s almost comical when I realize I chose Daisy for absolutely none of those reasons. I chose her because she was there but also because I wanted her.
As for Emilia, I know I was a means to an end, a way to wound the man who’d wounded her after some stupid argument. Emilia is all about over-the-top reactions.
Finding me on my own during that fateful ski trip… it was my thirtieth birthday and I had no one special to share it with. It wasn’t very hard for her to get me into her bed. Another reason for me to be careful around alcohol. And, to be careful around Emilia in general.
I don’t like the way she acts overly familiar when we’re together, as if that weekend was more significant than casual sex. It wasn’t. But, she keeps twisting the screws every time I come near her and her husband like it’s some sick game between them that I want no part of.
I don’t like the way she stares at my wife or that she’s stolen her away from my side tonight either but it’s a party and she’s hosting and Daisy is capable of standing on her own two feet and making friends with anyone. I have faith in that.
Reluctantly, I allow Lincoln to pull me into a card game with some more of my distant cousins. The stuffy little room is full of cigar smoke and business talk. I’d rather be playing Pictionary with my partners and their ladies again. I’m closer to them than any of these people.
I always wanted to live up to being a Barclay, thought I had something to prove to my grandfather and all of them, that I had to be the opposite of my father. It’s true, I’m not my father, but I realize that the rest of it just isn’t important to me anymore.
I miss home tonight. Despite wanting to protect it for my mother’s memory, I never expected I’d want to live on the estate again. Yet now, it’s become exactly where I want to be. Because Daisy is there. I’d love to usher in the new year by feeding Daisy grapes in bed, watching her paint and allowing her to lead me down the paths of the hedge maze with only the moonlight to guide us. I’d rather battle a crazy swan for her, follow her around the duck pond or a million other little things than be here.
I’m preparing to cut out on the hand being dealt and go find my wife when Great Aunt Imogen enters the room, her nose held high with her two sisters following in her wake. I can feel my aggravation mounting before they even speak. Daisy thinks they’re harmless old ladies and they are my grandfather’s sisters but they have some rotten past behavior to atone for that they probably never will.
“There you are. Would you please explain this business with your wife to us, Grant?”
“What do you mean?”
“We knew Linus put you in a difficult spot but, I must say, we never expected you to act so rashly,” Great Aunt Isabelle says, fanning herself as if she may faint. “Did you ever consider the scandal of it?”
“What scandal?”
“Between who his mother was and his father’s example, I suppose it couldn’t be helped,” Great Aunt Ida sniffs. “But this foolishness is beyond the-”
“Get to the fucking point.” The three of them gasp in unison so I temper my words just a bit. “What are you saying?”
“Is it true you married a maid?” Imogen asks. “Because that’s what we’ve heard.”
“A janitor, sister. That’s what they’re saying.”
“Heavens, I hope it’s not true. A Barclay marrying a servant? It would be unheard of.”
“But, that’s not the worst of it. How could you marry a… a street person?”
“How could you sully the fine estate our grandfather built by bringing someone like that under your roof?”
A street person. Someone like that. As if she’s not a human being worthy of the same concern and respect any other person is. My annoyance is quickly shifting into rage.
The day I married her, I didn’t know nearly enough about Daisy. I saw a solution to my quandary and, deep down, part of me wanted to claim her as mine even if I fooled myself into believing it would remain a paper marriage.
By the time I learned the truth, I was already completely besotted with my wife. Far from being ashamed of her past, I was ashamed of who I’d been before her and how I’d treated her. The truth only made me fall harder and faster than I would’ve thought possible for Granite Grant with a heart made of stone.
I don’t know who has been spilling Daisy’s past, though I have a good idea, but I realize it doesn’t matter. They want me to feel ashamed of who my wife is. I’m ashamed of them instead. Ashamed that this is my so-called family. And, staring at my three great aunts, I realize that, old age or not, these bridges are about to burn.
“You want the truth about Daisy?” I ask, letting my voice be heard throughout the room.
My aunts nod, several partygoers stare and I catch Lincoln’s eye. Bastard . He enjoyed taunting me with that term, never realizing what an asshole he’s always made of himself.
“The truth is my wife worked as a janitor at my company and I had planned to hire her as a maid the day we met. The truth is she didn’t have a home when she came into mine.”
“So, you actually married a common tramp?”
“Don’t you dare use that term in reference to my wife. Daisy is a lovely, kind, talented woman with a generous spirit. Regardless of what job she held or where she lived before she became Mrs. Grant Barclay, she was always a lady in the truest sense of the word. I’m proud to call her mine… and none of you are fit to wipe her shoes or even kiss her ass.”
“Really, Grant!”
“Canadian winters are beautiful, aunts. Enjoy yours. Now, if you’ll all kindly fuck off, I think it’s time for us to go.”
Their melodramatic gasps make me chuckle as I leave the card room’s occupants behind.
I’m not chuckling as much when I notice all the furtive glances thrown my way and can’t find my wife. These vultures. I never should’ve brought her near any of them. No wonder my mother reached a point of never attending parties or leaving the estate.
“Grant, I’m so sorry. I told Lincoln he should just let things lie,” Emilia says, wrapping one of her tentacles around my arm.
I shake her off, still trying to spy Daisy. “Whatever bullshit story you’re trying to feed me, save it. You and Lincoln absolutely deserve each other. I’m finding my wife and we’re leaving.”
“Yes, I suspected you would. She went upstairs with your driver just now. I think she wanted comforting.”
That stops me dead in my tracks as the possessive beast within joins my rage. “What do you mean Daisy went upstairs with my driver?”
∞∞∞
“It was not my finest moment. It was the very opposite of my finest moment.”
“I’d say so. Do I need to find you an attorney?” Dean asks with a sigh when he picks me up from the airport late the following morning.
“I don’t want a divorce.”
“I meant because of what you did to the driver.”
I never knew I could feel that level of anger, hurt and betrayal at once. I’d punched Anders. Then, I’d fired him. Then, I’d made a complete ass of myself.
I arranged a separate flight for Daisy and called Paul, the other driver I’d hired, to come fetch her this morning and take her home. Taking a later flight for myself, I called my friend to pick me up.
“I saw him kissing her and I lost my mind, Dean.”
“Sounds like it.”
“I leapt to the worst conclusion without hearing her out.” All my insecurities and fears about love, about falling in love and losing at love came pouring out in one pathetic accusation and cowardly retreat. “I’m a fucking fool.”
“Yes, but you’ll be an even bigger one if you don’t go talk to her.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to me and I can’t blame her.”
I’d stewed in silence, convincing myself I was right while Daisy had packed her things. On the inside, I was sure I was dying from the way her eyes glistened with tears.
Meanwhile, the news about me marrying my maid was rapidly being picked up by every society and gossipy news outlet in the country, in two countries actually. “A family member is being cited as the anonymous source,” Dean says.
“Lincoln. I bet he used Anders to find out more.”
“Probably. I’ve tried what I could to possibly keep the wolves at bay in the Bay Area and Samuel reached out to his own Wolfes in media but…”
“It’s too juicy to resist.”
“Yeah, probably so. You know they’ll only be interested for a short while until the next big thing comes up. Just because it was a marriage of convenience…”
“A marriage of convenience,” I huff. “This marriage stopped being convenient when I fell in love with my wife.”
“At least you’re admitting it.”
I should’ve admitted it sooner. A hundred times by now. To her.
I shouldn’t have allowed my jealousy over Anders to blind me. When I’d stormed downstairs with my own suitcase, I’d seen Lincoln’s smug look. “How does it feel?” he’d asked and I knew. I’d fallen for a stupid scheme and severely wounded Daisy with my doubts. I’m no more suitable to be a husband than my father was.
We pull out of the airport and Dean takes the turn leading toward Napa Valley. “I’m taking you home to talk to your wife,” my friend informs me. “Don’t argue with me.”
“I’m not arguing.”
I’m afraid it won’t do me much good now but I’m not arguing. My family acts as though I stooped so low by marrying her but I never deserved Daisy, not even in a paper marriage. How could I possibly be worthy of her kind heart?