Chapter Seventeen
Huxley
Pink cherry petals float in the air over the riverbank, the cloudless sky a brilliant blue. The man drops to his knee, and the camera focuses on a small black velvet box. It zooms in as he opens the lid, showing an impeccably cut clear diamond surrounded by round blue diamonds. Cut to show the woman’s face. The subtle lighting changes brighten her face as surprise, joy and love glow in her blue eyes.
The third attempt is romantic, with the right color scheme—lots of white, gold, silver and blue. The model was selected specifically for a particular type of ethereal beauty, so popular in Asia. But now I wish we had chosen someone with green or brown eyes. The cornflower blue reminds me of Grace. Her eyes are more beautiful than the model’s. Larger, more expressive and even bluer. Every time she blinks, her long, thick lashes flutter like butterfly wings.
Stop thinking about her. I tried to keep her out of my mind all weekend, at home, at Noah’s wedding, and afterward. But she keeps invading my head, and it doesn’t help that Sebastian‘s wife Lucie is also currently pregnant. It’s too early for her to show, but she’s often nauseated and can’t eat.
Is Grace okay? Is she constantly nauseated? Throwing up, perhaps?
Sierra seemed fine when she was with Griffin’s triplets, but the woman is so sunny and optimistic she makes Pollyanna look depressed by comparison.
The fact that I’m worrying about Grace at all is irritating. She lied to me, trapped me in a marriage and turned me into a laughingstock in my family and with the Webbers. Who cares if she isn’t feeling well? She should be racked with guilt, texting and calling to explain herself.
But she hasn’t made a single attempt.
The only thing she has done is get her OB-GYN to send a paternity test kit to my office. It’s a cotton swab to get some DNA from my inner cheek. I can’t quite pinpoint what I felt when the kit fell out of the discreet padded envelope and into my palm. She must be damn sure the baby’s mine. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be so eager to have the test done.
A small part of me wonders if I was too harsh. But I shake off that niggling guilt.
I am not feeling bad for her. My concern is for the baby . The child, at least, is innocent. It deserves better.
Grace, on the other hand, deserves whatever treatment I hand out. If she hadn’t lied, I would’ve shown her honesty and kindness. It galls me not to have seen through her deception. She seemed so sweet, funny and intelligent, with an admirable backbone. She’s the only woman I’ve ever met who sparked an interest beyond simple lust.
Forget her. You have work to do.
The Sebastian Peery collaboration needs a new campaign for their spring collection that’s going to be sold exclusively through Hae Min Department Stores in Korea. Lucie wants romantic, sweet and luxurious. So far, the campaign has romantic and sweet down, but I’m not feeling the luxurious , despite all the sparkling diamonds. Cherry blossoms are a nice touch, since they symbolize spring in Korea, but there needs to be more oomph—a visceral appeal. I make some notes for the team.
“Your ten o’clock is here,” comes Madison’s voice through the intercom.
“Bring him in, please.”
A moment later, my door opens. Bryce is in a three-piece suit, of course—every male Huxley wears a three-piece suit when they’re working—with perfectly polished, strait-laced shoes. Presentation is half the battle. He inherited the best features from his parents—midnight-black eyebrows that slant slightly above keen, dark eyes, and straight, dark hair that rarely looks messy even when he doesn’t do anything to it, even though he prefers to style it so it lies slicked back. His skin is always golden, and he never burns. Mom often complains it isn’t fair because she and Uncle Prescott turn scarlet with only ten minutes of sun.
“Anything to drink, sir?” Madison asks, her gaze briefly on Bryce, then shifting to me.
“Iced Americano,” Bryce says.
“Nothing for me.”
She nods and disappears, closing the door behind her.
“The prenup you asked for,” Bryce says, handing me a thick document before taking a seat. “Jeremiah isn’t happy about my handling it.”
“Thank you, but you could’ve couriered it,” I say, ignoring the part about my mother. She’s not getting anywhere near my personal legal affairs again. “I’m not paying your hourly rate for the delivery.”
He snorts. “That isn’t why I’m here. Have you talked to Grace since the dinner?”
“About what?” My voice is too casual.
“About the wedding. And the terms in the document.” Bryce jerks his chin at the prenup.
“No. She already knows we have to get married, especially with a baby on the way. And nothing in the contract should come as a shock to her.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “She’s going to fight. You specified you were not giving her a penny, that if she wants to spend money, she needs to earn it herself.”
“I’m not an ATM.”
“Yes, but she’s going to be your wife .”
“Precisely. And that’s more than she deserves after she fucked me over.” Bryce is the only one on the Huxley side who knows the humiliating truth behind Grace’s and my engagement. You don’t hide things from your lawyer if you want good advice, and I want the absolute best out of Bryce.
“And the mother of your child,” he adds, like that makes a difference.
“I’ll arrange for the baby. But that doesn’t mean she gets to use my money for herself.”
Bryce looks at me. “Do you honestly think she’ll just hand the baby over?”
“You mean the meal ticket?”
Even after I quietly divorce her after a few years, the child will always be between us, and she’ll do everything in her power to use it to squeeze what she can out of me. I doubt she’ll downsize her spending after burning twenty-five thousand bucks a month for years. But in order for her to use the baby to get me to cough up the cash, she needs to be around to groom it into a tool of manipulation. And I know how far some women can go.
I was an unwitting participant in the toxic drama between Uncle Prescott’s ex-wife Zoe when she became upset that she couldn’t bend him to her selfish whims during their divorce proceedings. That psycho decided to abduct their children, probably trying to use them to get more alimony or something. I’m not going to let anything like that involve the baby. “If she doesn’t agree to it, I’ll fight her to the death. What’s the baby going to learn if it grows up with a mother like her?”
The only thing my father did right with us is that he never tried to raise us himself. If he had, we would’ve turned into Ted Laskers—self-centered, irresponsible, inappropriate megalomaniacs. Grace as a mother would produce the same outcome.
Madison enters the office with coffee for Bryce, then pauses and looks at me for a beat before leaving. He takes a sip, then scrunches his face. “Nasty stuff.”
“So why are you drinking it?”
“Because you don’t have decent green tea.”
“I told you last time you came by that I got matcha from Japan.”
“Yeah, but you can’t brew it for shit.” He’s particular about green tea, probably influenced by Aunt Akiko.
I roll my eyes. He complains about the lack of acceptable tea, but still never fails to ask for coffee every time he comes over. It’s almost like he has a crush on Madison, but he does this with everyone. The man simply can’t say no to free caffeine. “Fine. Finish your shitty coffee and get out.”
“Ever the gracious host. How you manage to charm so many clients is beyond me. But I’ll be nice to you—after all, you’re about to get a shitty father-in-law.” He snorts a laugh and takes a sip, then makes a face again. “Nelson is an asshole. Never liked him. My brothers don’t either. Ares openly tries to humiliate him.”
“Ares cuts everyone down.” Not to mention he hates everybody and trusts no one. His mother messed him up by kidnapping him and keeping him in a shed in an isolated wooded area when her divorce didn’t go the way she wanted. He almost died when a wildfire started in the area because his mother forgot she’d stashed her son out there.
I’m grateful he doesn’t blame me for what happened. Zoe asked me to invite Ares, Bryce and Josh over to share some cookies she’d bought, and I was the na?ve kid who made the call. I knew Uncle Prescott and Zoe were separated, but didn’t think much about it. It turned out she wanted to kidnap all four of the children, but failed because Ares put up a fight. He was worthy of his name even as an eight-year-old.
Still, every time I see the burn scars on him, guilt wells up. Even though logic says I was only seven and couldn’t have known better, my heart feels what it feels.
“You’re either just like your family or the opposite,” Bryce says. “You saw how Vivienne treated Grace, and what her family was like. Your fiancée looked surprised and a little flustered at the dinner.”
“She’s a damn good actress.”
He shrugs. “Or maybe she really was flustered. Not everyone in this town wants to get into movies. You just think like that because it’s how Ted sees the world.”
I bristle at the comparison. “That’s low.” He knows how much I hate being told I’m in any way like Dad.
Bryce shows zero sympathy as he chugs down the coffee. “Truth hurts, man. Give her a chance. That way, if she turns out to be the bitch you think she is, at least you can claim the moral high ground. If she’s actually an unwitting participant in all of this, you can avoid being an asshole to an innocent woman.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you are driven, maybe too much so. When you set your sights on something, you don’t care what or who you trample over to get it. One of these days, that’s going to come back to bite you in the ass. As your cousin—and your lawyer— I’d hate to see you suffer. By the way, this advice is free. You’re welcome.”
“Did Grandma ask you to say this to me?” My voice hardens at possible betrayal. My cousins always supported my decision to pursue my own thing and thought Grandma was too controlling.
“No. I side with my clients, and she isn’t one. I just don’t want you to regret anything. Grandma won’t live forever.”
“She’ll outlive us all,” I mutter, but I don’t make a point of it. Bryce lost his Japanese grandmother a month ago, and he’s taken it harder than his mother. Which is odd, since he wasn’t that close to the woman.
“She’s old, Hux. She loves you and wants the best for you, in her own way. She’ll be gone soon, and then it will be too late.” He shakes his head. “By the time you learn the truth, it’s always too late.”
Only the scent of coffee lingers after he leaves. I stare at the prenup. If Bryce stopped by in person to advise restraint, he probably thinks I’m being too harsh. When I asked him to draft me a prenup, the only thing I thought of was how to destroy and humiliate Grace. But…
Sebastian also said I should tread carefully, just in case.
Fine. I’ll give her a chance to explain. I’m not too proud or stupid to ignore well-meaning advice from smart people who care about me.
I get on the intercom. “Madison, do I have any lunch appointments this week?”
“No. Would you like me to make one for you?” she asks, attentive as usual.
“No, thanks.” Grace and I aren’t going anywhere that requires a reservation.
I pick up my phone. I’ll give my fiancée one more chance.