44. Jenna
JENNA
“ Y our tits look fucking amazing in that dress.” Hannah spins me around.
“I’m so jelly.” She tugs at the fabric. “We have to keep this cut in mind for your rehearsal dinner dress. Your wedding dress, though, has to be big, like a ball-gown, lots-of-lace, major-train situation, like all out. You need to tell McCarthy to build a nice wooden pavilion on the island. I don’t want one of those crappy white plastic tents that come in on a barge.
Ooh! Pretties!” She admires the diamonds. “See? McCarthy really does love you.”
“It’s the jewelry I bought. For Sable.” I make a face.
“You have good taste.”
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, being with McCarthy.”
“You kidding? This is a great idea. I’m already planning our bachelorette party to Cabo, and yes, it’s a we because I’m living vicariously through you. Ugh!” Hannah looks over my shoulder. “Cameron is already wasted. Great. One sec.”
There are lots of Prism employees at tonight’s event.
My dad was right—the HopeWorks charity is a one-stop shop for wayward PR charity cases who need their digital reputations polished up.
This is like when the bad kids come in and do community service after getting yelled at.
All the charities are there, desperate to cash in.
McCarthy is the fatted calf. RDC never gives to charity, and they’re sitting on a big pile of cash.
The CEO is a head taller than the people crowded around him. He looks up, searching the throngs for me.
I duck my head and scurry over to the table laden with appetizers and expensive bouquets of flowers to fill up my plate with the mini mozzarella-basil flatbreads. I should be glad that McCarthy’s playing nice with the charity people.
If I actually want to be with him, this is the job—this is the life of a billionaire’s wife, I remind myself. Be a pretty accessory on his arm—at parties, awards shows, corporate events. A billionaire’s wife can’t just be the wallflower next to the snack table.
I’m not sure I’m cut out for that life.
“This guy!” I hear him before I see him—my dad, there, in the middle of the crowd.
The room spins as my worlds collide. Why are my dad and McCarthy acting like they know each other? Devin is hanging on his every word, laughing loudly when McCarthy makes an off-color remark.
“Quite the selection, eh?” Heavy breathing announces Bethany’s husband.
The burgundy dress is too slim cut for me to do more than take little mermaid steps, and I can’t get away fast enough before Stu has me cornered. His breath reeks of alcohol. Sausage fingers clasp my bare arm.
“Such a pretty dress. Bethany can’t wear anything like that right now.”
His wife is with the other Prism higher-ups and hasn’t noticed us.
“You should talk to Bethany. She’s been real difficult to be around lately.” He takes a long sip from the wineglass. “It’s nice to be around a woman who supports a man, who takes care of herself.”
His gaze slides down the V of the neckline.
Maybe making polite small talk while hanging on McCarthy’s arm’s not so bad.
I try to sidestep Stu, but he moves with me, pushing me back against the table.
I concentrate on McCarthy’s blond head as he moves through the crowd, and I can hear his deep voice.
“—like to say a few words if I may,” McCarthy’s saying to the chairwoman, “before we kick off the festivities.”
Air raid sirens go off in my head.
Abort mission!
I try to move.
A sweaty hand grabs my wrist. “I’m just going to shoot my shot here.” Stu chortles. “I wouldn’t be the man I am if I didn’t at least try. Now correct me if I’m wrong, though I never am”—there’s that wet chuckle again—“but I really feel a connection to you.”
“I can’t.”
He catches my gaze as it drifts to McCarthy.
“Him?” The corners of his mouth drop down. “You pulling my leg? Bethany says that man’s not actually in love with you, he’s just sleeping with you. ”
McCarthy’s making his way to the stage.
Stu shifts to cut off my view. “Now, I have to say, when I left my wife for Bethany, she was a much nicer person, but she’s turned bitter and angry.
She doesn’t even rub my feet anymore. But you.
You seem like such a nice girl, Jenna. I can actually take care of you.
That man?” He nods to McCarthy. “Sure, he’s a ten, an alpha male.
The women they marry—well, you’re a nice girl, but they want, you know, an heiress or something, not—”
“I really have to go.” I finally wrench away from him.
“I’m just shooting my shot here.” His expression turns ugly. “You women. You take everything too personally, you know.”
Grabbing the hem of my dress, I try to push my way through the crowd.
I’m too late.
McCarthy is already up on the low stage.
“No, no, no, no. What the hell is he doing?”
Whatever it is? It’s not good.
“Let’s get this party started!” the HopeWorks chairwoman announces into the microphone as my dad claps like a demented seal.
McCarthy is wearing that shit-eating grin on his face as he looks out over the clapping crowd.
I slide, almost banging into a waiter carrying a tray of empty glasses, as I push my way up to the front.
“ McCarthy. ” My hiss is drowned out by the applause from the crowd.
McCarthy puts two hands on the lectern and leans over to the microphone, his gray eyes glittering in the light from the chandelier. “Good evening. ”
McCarthy’s deep voice rumbles through the sound system.
“Thank you for that lovely introduction.” He winks at the foundation director.
“Three weeks, five days, and”—he checks his watch—“five hours ago, I grabbed this worthless little worm on your board and threw him into a fountain.” He points at Joseph.
“And that was widely regarded as a terrible move and made a number of people in this room really upset.”
There are murmurs in the crowd.
“I bet some of you think that I’m standing up here tonight, checkbook and hat in hand, to beg your forgiveness. To that? I say… Fuck. You.”
Gasps from the crowd. There are reporters from the society beats of the local newspapers. They didn’t expect this, and they have phones out recording while they salivate at the big story.
McCarthy slams a stack of papers onto the lectern, making the microphone screech.
“I was fucking right. Every single person here is a goddamn scammer, and I have the evidence to prove it. Rex Montague,” McCarthy bellows. “Do you want to tell these good people why a charity run by your girlfriend’s cat is raking in fifty thousand dollars a quarter from HopeWorks?”
“ Jenna. ” Rex pushes through the crowd, red-faced.
I make a strangled noise.
“You did this. It’s lies from her, all lies! You’re just mad,” the older man blusters, “because that slut you’re with told you stories about me. She came on to me first. She brought up the sex dungeon.”
“Because you can’t have a sex dungeon!” I scream at him .
“Well, well, so that answers the question as to what these payments were for. I do hope everyone was legal and sober. Something to look into.” McCarthy taps his chin. “Oh, and in case anyone here wants to know if Jenna’s the reason I’m blowing the lid off this bucket of shit, the answer is yes.”
I clap my hands to my face, feeling everyone stare at me.
“Jenna introduced me to her loser-of-the-year father, and he kindly handed me everything I needed.”
“No, I—”
“ Jenna. ” My father looks at me with such hatred.
Tears run down my face, mixing with the heavy makeup and burning my eyes.
“He gave me emails, bank records, memos.”
“I didn’t give him anything. He stole it! He stole it from me.”
“Don’t listen to him.” McCarthy smiles at the chairwoman of HopeWorks.
“He’s got terrible judgment. After all, he hired Nathan, here, who abused Jenna and kidnapped her dog and now is sleeping with the wife of Lennie from OmniSoft.
Guess you’re not going to count on those million-dollar donations anymore. ”
Johanna shrieks, “You asshole!” She hits Nathan with her purse.
“Yes,” he says to Nathan’s new girlfriend.
“If he cheats on her with you, pretty soon he’s going to cheat on you with someone else.
Word to the wise…” McCarthy addresses several representatives from the big local tech firms in the room.
“This is why RDC doesn’t invest in charities.
Because none of it’s getting funneled to dog pop-up shops or whatever.
It’s lining the pockets of these people. ”
The big donors are nervously backing away to the door. The chairwoman of the board makes motions to the sound guy to cut off McCarthy.
“Don’t bother,” McCarthy tells her. “I’ve already paid him off. To the Prism CEO, obviously this goes without saying, but I will no longer need your services. If you’re steering people to the HopeWorks charity, that, to me, signals a severe lapse in professional judgment.”
The Prism CEO staggers.
“And if anyone wants it, I have all the evidence cataloged here. There are USBs in Jenna’s purse. She’ll hand them out.”
“There’s what?” I shriek, digging in the bag McCarthy had given me as people crowd around me. Inside in a pocket? USBs. “This motherfucker.”
I yank out the USBs and toss them on the floor for the reporters to scramble for.
I grab the hem of the dress that feels like hands clawing me, dragging me down. Outside, the air is damp and clammy against my bare skin. I clutch my middle, my carefully done hair falling in my face.
I don’t feel like me. I don’t feel like myself, like this body all done up in millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry and clothes is just a puppet, one I never really controlled.
The valet pulls the car around.
There’s a hand on my arm.
“Let’s go home, Cupcake.” McCarthy sounds pleased.
“Home?” I choke out.
McCarthy takes in my tear-and-makeup-stained cheeks, the anger and humiliation on my face.
“I’m not going home with you, not after you ruined everything. ”
“Ruined?” His fingers dig into my arms as he looms over me. “Those men? All of them were stalking you. They were making your life miserable. I tracked them and—”
“ How? ”
“Mirrored your phone. It’s not important.” He’s impatient.
“You went into my phone?”
“I did it to save you.”
“You didn’t do that for me. You did that for yourself, because you just want to win at all costs. You want to be right at all costs.”
“They cannot take you from me. You’re mine, do you understand?” He’s crazy as he shakes me. “I won’t let anyone take you from me. They were trying to take you from me.”
I shake my head silently.
“Yes, they were,” McCarthy snaps. “You’re not that upset about it. You’re not even crying. You like being taken care of, being protected.”
“You ruined me, you crossed every single fucking boundary, and you publicly humiliated me.” I tick the list off on my fingers.
“Public humiliation?” he scoffs. “You were barely collateral damage.”
“I’m going to lose my job.” I’m hyperventilating. “I’m going to be fired and blacklisted.”
“So?”
“So? You ruined me. Don’t you even care? What am I saying?” I wrench away from him. “Of course you don’t care. You never cared about me. I’m just another weapon in your arsenal. No, not even that. I’m just a bullet you throw away after using.”
“You’re so dramatic, Cupcake.” His tone is patronizing .
“Stop calling me that.”
He ignores me. “What does it matter? You’re going to be my wife.
You never have to see any of those people again.
I’ll take care of you, give you anything and everything you need—babies, you can redecorate, host parties, book clubs.
You can even have an island for rescue dogs or hamsters or whatever. ”
I realize as I listen to him talk, listen to his flippant tone, hear the selfishness, that I hate him. I well and truly hate him—more than I hate my dad, more than I hate my stalkers, more than I hate my exes.
I hate him because I actually thought he loved me, actually believed that a man like him loved a girl like me.
“You condescending, patronizing bastard. I am not marrying you.”
“Of course you are. You’re going to choose this over me?” He gestures to the chaos behind us, people streaming out of the venue, faces covered. “I don’t think so.”
Hannah’s on the steps, shocked as she runs after her client. Bethany is pissed. The Prism C-suite is about to collectively have a stroke. Then there’s my father: the man whose love I’ve been chasing my entire life.
“You’re never going to be your dad’s pride and joy,” McCarthy continued.
My god, he’s so cruel.
“You’re not good enough for him.” McCarthy holds out his hand to me. “But to me, you’re perfect. What do you say? Let’s get out of here.”
I take his hand…
He smiles like he’s just won a chess game.
…and I dig my freshly manicured nails into his wrist. “I am always the first one to say ‘I love you.’ It’s actually the on e thing I couldn’t learn to love about myself, my desperate need to be loved.
Then you acted like you cared about me, like I was important to you.
” I wrench the necklace off. “Said you wanted to marry me, and even though I knew better , knew you were lying, I wanted to believe.”
“You love me. Jenna.”
“I don’t even blame you.” The earrings come out next. “It’s all on me. You told me exactly who you were from day one. I was stupid for trusting you. I know men don’t change. Especially not for a woman.”
I take the bracelet off my wrist and slap the knot of jewelry into his palm.
“I am,” McCarthy insists. “I did.”
“You’re lying to me. Or yourself.” I can’t read his expression. “I never want to see you again, McCarthy. Get the fuck out of my life.”