Chapter 1 #2
“Well,” he replies, and with an obviously forced attempt at brotherly familiarity, offers me a tight smile as he steps forward to press a perfunctory kiss to my cheek. “You look like you’ve had some sun?”
I glance down at myself. “Oh, some, I suppose. Do you know what’s going on?” I ask a little desperately, careful to keep my voice low so it doesn’t carry. “All Candice told me was that I need to get back here for a family meeting. Has someone died?”
Cedric’s expression tightens. “Come through,” he tells me by way of response. “Everyone is in the living room.” And he turns, retreating through one of the neighboring doorways without a backward glance.
I let my head drop back, permitting myself a silent groan, before I follow.
The living room, which is smaller and less formal than the drawing room, is pretty much the only reliably warm room in the house, apart from enclosed spaces like the bedrooms or my father’s study.
As such, it’s always been a bit of a gathering place for the family when we’re here, allowing us to engage in the closest thing to bonding Porters ever do—sitting in silence while occupied by our own endeavors.
And that’s exactly how I find them as I trail into the room after my brother.
My father, white-haired and stern, is sitting in the largest and most comfortable armchair by the fire with a computer resting in his lap.
Across from him, my mother is posed on the end of the leather couch, absorbed in a book of sample fabric swatches, every one of which appears to be a subtle variation of ivory.
I’ve been told my entire life that I look like her, which is true enough, if you can overlook the decades of cosmetic procedures Mom has undergone to preserve that “natural glow.” We have the same hair, which lies somewhere between red and blonde, the same green eyes and pointed chin.
Comments on our resemblance never fail to make Mom beam, and I consider a head transplant.
In the loveseat is my sister Alba–another lookalike of Mom’s–who also has her laptop open.
Unlike my father, she isn’t looking at it.
Instead, the whole of her attention is focused on the man sitting beside her, her fiancé, James—or, His Grace, the Duke of Fairborne.
They only got engaged a few weeks ago, but neither of them looks especially joyful.
Everyone looks up as Ced and I enter the room. My brother crosses to sit beside our mother, but I hover in the doorway, even more unsettled than I was a minute ago. What the hell happened?
My father breaks the silence.
“Blair,” he greets me, his tone grave, and his lips pulled into a flat, disapproving line. “Good. You’re here.” He closes his laptop and leans forward to set it on the table beside my mother’s many booklets of fabric samples. “I trust your flight was comfortable?”
“Um. Yes. Thank you.” I shift my weight, glancing around at everyone, hoping for a smile or any sign at all of welcome.
My gaze flicks from person to person, and my heart falls further as I’m met with stony expression after stony expression.
We haven’t been all together like this for over a year.
While no one could accuse my family of being a warm bunch, typically, there is some perfunctory display of affection. Not today.
Dad lifts his hand to indicate the last open seat: a straight-backed, wood chair that’s situated between the couch and the loveseat. “Please. Sit.”
I sit, wiping my clammy palms on my skirt.
“Now,” Dad continues, calm and businesslike. “I trust you know why we’ve all come.”
That brings me up short. “Um. No?” It comes out like a question. “Nobody told me.”
Desperate for some guidance, I search their faces again, and my gaze catches on my sister’s, which now appears a little less stern and a little more murderous. She doesn’t speak, though, keeping her lips pinched together as she stares at our father, waiting for him to continue.
The fire rustles quietly in the hearth, and outside, wind buffets the side of the ancient house, rattling a window somewhere nearby.
Dad’s lips curl in a slight, unamused smile. “Perhaps it would be clearer if you picked up your mother’s or my calls from time to time.”
“I didn’t—”
“Oh, do us all a favor and shut up, Blair,” snarls Alba unexpectedly.
My mouth falls open. While my sister and I are hardly what anyone would consider close, she’s rarely outright nasty like this. “What is your problem?”
As if to further signal trouble approaching, at my sister’s side, James winces.
“My problem?” Alba shrieks. “My problem is that I do everything I can to be an asset to this family, while you float through life doing whatever you like.”
I open my mouth, a retort about her being a frigid little stick-in-the-mud on the tip of my tongue, but my father’s cold, commanding voice silences the entire room with a single word.
“Enough.”
With a dark, warning look in my direction, Dad stands, crossing to the desk in the corner. Everyone is silent as he picks something up and returns to the circle of our seated family members, tossing it onto the table without further explanation.
My heart sinks into my belly as I stare down at the magazine cover.
The more sensitive areas of the image are blurred, but not so well that the casual observer would have any doubt what they were looking at.
Which is me, dressed in nothing but a pair of tiny, neon-pink spandex shorts, sequins, and glittery body paint.
I’m perched atop the shoulders of a man—also shirtless and adorned with glitter—with my lips pressed to a bottle of champagne.
Technicolor lights and the blur of hundreds of people are framing us, but none are visible in the frame.
Probably because none of them is a Porter.
“Oh,” I manage, sinking lower in my seat the longer I look at it.
My father’s expression tightens. “Yes. Oh.” As though unable to stand looking at it for even one more second, he reaches out to flip over the magazine. “What on earth were you thinking?” Every word is edged with incredulous disbelief.
My eyes burn. “I—”
“You weren’t thinking,” Dad continues, his jaw rigid. “If you’d exercised even the faintest shadow of judgement, you never would have…” He flicks his wrist toward the magazine, grimacing.
“It looks a lot worse than it is,” I protest weakly, “I was wearing pasties!”
The room plunges into silence, yet again.
“Am I supposed to know what pasties are?” Dad demands incredulously, and with the way he’s looking at me, anyone would think I’ve grown two heads.
Unhelpfully, Alba—who looks even more pissy than she did a moment ago—scoffs.
“They’re sticky patches that go over the nipples of idiotic, self-centered brats who go prancing around topless in public.
To spare their modesty, allegedly,” she informs him, before turning her glower onto me.
“I truly believed you couldn’t be any more selfish, but here you are, proving me wrong.
Honestly, Blair, how could you do this to me? ”
My mouth falls open. “Are you kidding me? How is me being photographed at a party about you, Alba?”
My sister looks as though she may actually throttle me.
“Stelland Says was scheduled to run a two-page spread on our engagement, but decided to bump it, because you running around Ibiza half naked was more interesting.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder and stands, storming from the room without a backward glance.
James, who couldn’t appear less interested in the family drama, lets out a deep, resigned sigh and stands to follow her, leaving me alone with my parents and brother.
“Something needs to be done, Albert,” my mother sniffs, peering frantically at my father. “We can’t just allow her to embarrass the family like this. I don’t know how I’ll ever show my face at the Lady’s Bridge Club again.”
“It isn’t good PR for Porter Capital,” Ced adds gravely, lacing his fingers together as he surveys Dad. “Investors don’t like to see frivolous spending and out-of-control behavior like this from a shareholder. We have a reputation to uphold.”
There is a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, as if I’m driving at top speed, and suddenly realize the brakes don’t work.
It’s no use telling anyone this wasn’t my fault, that I hadn’t asked for the attention, or that I hadn’t known about the article on Alba and James’ engagement.
Something tells me they’d made up their minds before I even arrived.
My father turns his gaze to me, and I feel about six inches tall. “Go to your room, Blair. We’ll discuss what happens next before I leave tomorrow.”