Chapter 45
WINNIE
“It’s not fair,” I sob on my bed next to Carolina.
She tries to mop my face with a wet washcloth. It just smears my ruined makeup.
“We don’t know that’s what’s happening. Maybe she’s trying to get with one of his brothers.”
Fidget pads into the room, carrying a bottle of wine.
“Good girl, Fidget.” Carolina struggles to pull the cork out of the bottle and tips it to my mouth.
I take a swig from the bottle. “This is how it always goes. If she was doing it on purpose, like, that would be one thing, but she’s not.
She’s just existing as perfect Kathy, and men just fall all over themselves for her,” I wail.
“I never even had a chance. I was so delusional. I mean, what was I thinking? Fitz was never going to fall in love with me. I was cheap entertainment.”
“Technically, you were free entertainment.”
I chug the wine. “Oh, we’re just going to drink—okay, the wine is gone. Fidget, go get another bottle.” I burp.
“I can’t imagine why Fitz isn’t collapsing to his knees in front of you.”
“I’m a mess,” I blubber. “My life is a mess. Why do I keep trusting these horrible, emotionally unstable men? I should add ‘billionaires’ to my list of men I’m not dating.”
“I mean, to be fair, all men are on the list of men you aren’t dating.”
My phone chimes. I fumble for it in the rumpled bedspread. Maybe it’s Fitz.
“Ugh.” I flop back down on the bed.
Carolina grabs my phone, reading, “‘You have a new connection! Message Bruno now to find love.’ Maybe this is the start of your happily ever—Nope, he just is texting you swimsuit photos he found of Kathy.”
Bruno: This you?
“He can’t even write correctly.”
“They all want Kathy.” I sniff.
Carolina makes a face and dumps a wad of tissues on me before I can wipe my nose on the bedsheet.
“I wish I was the pretty sister, not the smart sister,” I cough out.
“To be fair, both of you ended up in the exact same place, literally. So you’d just be crying in the other bedroom.”
“I need to block him on everything, right?”
“I really think you’re being a little hasty. I’ve always wanted a friend who has a boyfriend with a yacht. I think you could overlook this at least through the summer of next year. I mean, I bet he has a ski chalet. We could really live it up this winter too. Just lower your expectations.”
“I wanted him to marry me and give me children.”
The doorbell rings.
“Oh, Fidget, bless you.” The dog comes up, tail slowly wagging, her jaw clamped around a pizza box. “And you ordered supreme. Did you get garlic sauce?” Carolina asks the dog.
Fidget disappears.
“Dad must have plugged the Alexa back in. He likes to listen to it when he spends forty-five minutes in the bathroom at six a.m. Fuck my life. Where did I go wrong?”
“Well, your dog daughter did get garlic sauce after all,” Carolina says happily as Fidget dumps a plastic bag of sauces, parmesan packets, and chili-flake packets on the bed. “So you did something right.”
“I’m never going to have children,” I sob.
Fidget whines. “You’re still her baby,” Carolina assures the dog and tosses her a pepperoni slice.
I sadly select a piece of pizza.
“Oh my god,” Carolina exclaims as I’m crying on my pizza slice. “Ugh. Why is Loony Laura in all the drama?”
Laura: Don’t mean to start anything.
Laura: But I saw Kathy and Fitz at Vellum restaurant.
Laura: They look awfully snuggly.
Laura: Does Winnie know?
“There’s a picture.” Carolina is scandalized.
I hate myself, so I look. Fitz and Kathy look even more cozy and in love inside the restaurant. Laura’s taken the photo from inside, and she and Fitz are laughing at something.
Carolina makes a face. “Part of me really was trying to give Fitz the benefit of the doubt, but this is pretty incriminating.”
“I never stood a chance,” I sniffle sadly. “Never.”
The sound of someone being brutally murdered downstairs wakes me up from a fever dream. I blink up blearily at the ceiling as my dad lets out another rib-shattering sneeze.
“Man, that was a big one.”
Creedence Clearwater blares over the Alexa as he and Fidget sing along loudly and off-key and off-beat.
“Kill me,” I mumble and pull a pillow over my head to block the morning—well, afternoon, really—sun. I’m hungover and heartbroken, and there’s pepperoni and cheese glued to my face.
I can’t believe I was so stupid.
I’m too dehydrated and ate too much salt too late at night to even cry.
I’m just deeply sad. And embarrassed. And humiliated.
What was I thinking? That I was someone else, someone who a guy like Fitz would want to be with?
I’m delusional. Forget the fact that he’s one of the richest men on the West Coast, but he’s also hot.
And really cool. He owns sports teams and restaurants and shit.
Like, he’s the ultimate cool guy. They want women who make them look good. They want fun girls, chill girls.
“Maybe I should have been nicer, shouldn’t have been so critical. Maybe my mom is right and I am too bossy.”
Please, let’s be honest though. Even if I was sweet as pie, I’d be no match for Kathy.
There are excited screams from downstairs. I know my family is doing something that I’m not going to like, and I need to go down there and nip it in the bud before it turns into a disaster.
But I don’t have the energy.
“You’re awake, Winnie.” My mom pokes her head in. “Oh, you need to go take a shower.”
“Why are you making all this noise?” I groan. “I need coffee.”
“Your hair, Winnie.”
“Might want to wash her sheets too. She didn’t shower after her sexcapade. That’s not cheese in her hair,” Gran adds. “I know old semen when I see it.”
“Winnie!” Mom grabs my pillow and swats me with it. “What’s gotten into you? It’s lunchtime, for God’s sake.”
“Is there more pizza left?”
“Maybe you could eat a salad.”
“There were onions and green peppers on the pizza.” I stumble downstairs.
“Winnie!” Kathy is bouncing in her shoes. She’s so excited.
I can barely look at her.
“I have really good news! First,” she says seriously, “I’m really sorry about Knox.”
“It was high school,” I say dully. “I’m over it.”
“I mean, no wonder you don’t like me.”
“Kathy, of course I like you. You’re my little sister. That’s just high school shit. I’ve moved on.” I rub my eyes.
“You see, Kathy?” Mom fusses over my little sister. “Winnie’s not mad.”
I sip my coffee and try to keep the room from spinning. “I’m going back to sleep.”
“I know you have an awesome life,” Kathy gushes, “and I don’t. So I talked to Fitz and—”
“Fitz bought Kathy a house!” my mom screams.
Kathy’s gleeful, and she and my mom hug and jump around the kitchen. My kitchen that I had to basically kill myself for a decade in private equity to afford because I don’t have a man in my life who just buys me a house.
“He bought you a—”
“You should have told him to buy me a house,” Gran complains.
“It has an in-law suite,” Kathy says, showing photos of the house on her phone. It’s gorgeous.
I had to buy a bit of a fixer-upper and tear out the bad ’70s renovations. This is a huge house, bigger than my house, a beautiful, fancy three-story Craftsman with a carriage house and a pretty garden, a better view, and all the historical pieces still there.
“Whoo!” Gran whoops. “My own digs.”
“We’re just a ten-minute walk away,” Dad says. “So your mom and I can still drop by and take care of your garden. I think you have rats living back there. Isn’t this great news!” My dad hugs me.
“Isn’t Kathy so amazing, getting Fitz to buy her a house?” Mom swoons. “Oh, I can’t wait to decorate.”
“Us a house,” Kathy says modestly.
“You okay, Winnie?” she asks in concern. “I thought you’d be happy. I mean, Fitz is so amazing. He’s, like, the perfect man. He’s thoughtful, and kind, and funny, and—”
“Yeah, he’s something, all right.” I rub my eyes. “So you’re moving out?”
“Yeah! It has some furniture in it already,” Kathy says happily. “We’re all going to go see it. But Fitz is giving us an interior-decorating budget.”
“So we might be living with you a little while longer,” Mom tells me.
“Er, no. He says we can stay in a hotel if there are renovations, but the house is in such good shape it doesn’t need anything.” Kathy gives a pained smile.
Of course it doesn’t. Because people just hand Kathy nice things, and I have to work for them.
“You go.” I wave them away. “I need to shower. Answer emails. I’ll come over later.”
“She’s hungover from alcohol and sex,” Gran says, herding my family out. “Give her a second for her vag to reset.”
I numbly climb the stairs up to my bedroom. Turn on the shower till it’s scalding hot.
A small part of me wanted to believe that it was a big misunderstanding.
I could go confront him, make a scene, but that’s just heaping humiliation on top of humiliation.
I just want to ghost him.
Never see him again.
I don’t want to listen to him lie to me or give some excuse about why he bought my sister a freaking house.
Get yourself together. I wipe my eyes. You’re supposed to be the ruthless businesswoman.
Fitz is just one more chore on my to-do list.
I never should have trusted that he had my back.
I broke my own rules.
Wrapping myself in the terry-cloth bathrobe, I pull the sheets off the bed and collect the empty wine bottles and pizza boxes.
I’m done. I’m done with men. If Fitz wants to buy Kathy a house, let him. It gets my family out of my hair, finally. And I’m alone again, finally.
Just how I like it.
Without the background noise of my parents, the house feels oddly empty.
I can hear the water dripping in the kitchen from the dishes piled in the sink.
I stack them in the dishwasher and set it to run.
Then wander through my blessedly empty house.
I hear the front door open, and Fidget woofs happily.
“Mom,” I call, weirdly a little happy that my family’s back. “How does the house look? When are you thinking of moving out? Are you going to do any reno—oh.”
“Winnie!” Fitz spreads his arms wide. One hand holds a huge bouquet of flowers.
“Are you kidding me?” I hiss at him, summoning anger so I don’t have to cry in front of him. “You can’t just barge into my house.”
“Okay.” He seems taken aback. “You seem extra prickly today. I thought you’d be a little nicer.”
The anger pulses behind my eyeballs. “You thought I should be nicer to you? Should just suck up to you like all the other women in your life? Guess what? They’re just nice to you because they want something. I don’t need anything from you.”
“Oh, you don’t?” he scoffs. “Then how come the only reason your parents aren’t tearing up your house right now is because of me? How come the only reason you’re not kidnapped by the freakshow stalking you is because of me? You do need me. And I need you.” He tries to hug me.
But I’m not falling for it. I’m not stupid. “I know you were out with Kathy.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Not even going to deny it?”
He shrugs.
It makes me furious.
“Is that what this is about? You jealous of Kathy? Guess I really overestimated you. I’m not even going to bother explaining what I was doing with her. You clearly just want to start a fight. I’ll leave you alone until you calm down.”
“Condescending asshole.”
“What, did you want me to propose marriage to you?”
“No, of course not,” I scoff, because no way am I going to admit that yeah, I did kind of want him to want to marry me. “I just expect a little commitment. God, I can’t believe I thought—whatever.” I straighten up. “Never mind. You’re so self-absorbed.”
“This is about Knox, isn’t it?” he snarls, throwing the flowers on the floor. “You’re still in love with him.”
“The fuck I am!”
“You were at his house. Your stuff is at his house. You’re always around him. He’s apparently your first love, and I said okay. I took it at face value. I trusted you,” he argues. “Even though all the evidence points to you getting back together with him.”
“No, it doesn’t. I would never,” I sputter. “You know what? I’m done. I never want to see you again.”
“You are not allowed to just break up with me.” He grabs my arm.
I throw him off, and he slams me against the wall, making the picture frames rattle.
“Uh, yeah, I can.”
“You’re mine. You belong to me.” The baritone deepens into a growl.
“Get away from me.” I struggle. He doesn’t let me up.
“You want to know what I think?” he sneers.
“Not really.”
“You like being independent because it’s a control thing. No, don’t try to argue with me. My dad was the same way.”
“Seriously? You’re comparing me to your shitty-ass father?”
“I’m just saying, I lived under his control for my entire childhood, and you need to chill out. Let other people do things for you for once.”
“I’m not overwhelmed. I can handle this,” I spit. “I’m not going to let you do things for me just because I’m helpless.”
“You’re not letting me do anything.” Fitz sounds frustrated. “I’m going to do it because I can and because I want to, because I care about you. I’m allowed to like you, and I’m allowed to think you’re pretty.”
“Bullshit. You just want to win. It’s like with the café.
You just throw your money and power around to get what you want.
” I shove at him. “The only reason you were interested in me at all was because I said no to you, and no one ever says no to you. You just go through life getting everything you want.”
He steps back.
“Yeah,” he says coldly. “I do. And I’m not giving you up. You’re going to be mine whether you want it or not.”