13. Theo #2
Ander has been ignoring me for a week. He texted me after the auction, saying I should have properly apologized to Bianca. When I explained that I did, he told me insincere words don’t count.
He hasn’t called since or picked up when I’ve called.
“Not invited,” Gideon responds. “He knows he wasn’t invited. He’s not happy about it.” Gideon doesn’t look at me. “I haven’t worked out our father’s angle yet for leaving him off the guest list.”
“That’s fucked up.”
His eyes shoot up. “Yeah, it is.”
The doors to the dining room open, and we move in. The senator’s daughter wears pale gold. She’s gracious and funny. I’m polite, but I don’t flirt, and I don’t give her any signs that I’m interested.
The dinner is remarkably uneventful until the final course is complete.
My father sets his fork down and taps the rim of his wineglass once with the side of his knife, and the guests give him their attention.
“Friends.” He smiles. “Now that you’ve enjoyed dessert, I have another treat for you. We are very fortunate tonight to have a young woman whose work some of you may have seen on a more public stage in recent weeks.”
I close my eyes. When I open them, my father has already gestured to one of the staff members, who has gone to the kitchen.
Bianca steps through the kitchen door into the dining room.
She has the chef’s coat buttoned to the throat. She wears a small, polite smile, but her expression shows that she is confused as to what’s happening.
She’s not alone in that. I have no idea what my father has planned.
“Miss Donovan, please. Come in.”
She comes in. The table turns. Every face at this dinner angles toward her, and she has stopped at the head of the table since my father is there, gesturing.
“This,” my father says, “is Miss Bianca Donovan, of Sugar Bloom Bakery. Some of you may recognize her name from the foundation gala unpleasantness. I won’t dwell.
It was a misunderstanding the media has, as is their habit, badly inflated.
The truth, of course,” he opens one hand toward her, palm up, presenting a piece of evidence, “is that we are on such good terms that Miss Donovan is here tonight catering my private dinner party. The very best work, I should add. My chef of fifteen years complimented her talent. Praise he doesn’t give out lightly. ”
He turns to her with the warmest smile he owns. “Miss Donovan. Tell us about the bakery. You inherited it, I believe.”
She finds her inner sunshine, but she’s uncomfortable. “I did. From my mother. It’s a small place in the historic district. We have year-round favorites, and we do a lot of seasonal work. Cinnamon rolls. Tarts. The honey lavender cupcakes are popular.”
“How charming.” My father is still smiling. “Well, I want to truly thank you for being here tonight. It speaks to how thoroughly we have all moved past that little misunderstanding.”
She gives a small bow of her head. “Of course. If you’ll excuse me, I should get back to the kitchen. Enjoy your evening.”
She turns. She doesn’t look at me or at Gideon, whose face has gone blank. She walks out of the dining room.
This was the whole point of the evening. Get her in the house. Put her in front of stakeholders. Not to apologize. Not to make things right. To prove to a roomful of donors that the woman who embarrassed us is now serving us dessert.
The table resumes. The senator says something pleasant about local businesses. The shipping daughter turns toward me and asks, with very good manners, what I think about the new arts wing the city has proposed. I answer her without knowing what I say.
I sit at the table for six more minutes, then I set my napkin beside my plate and excuse myself. I take the long way around the house, through the rear hall, to the other kitchen entrance.
Bianca is there, packing up the remaining desserts. The dinner caterers are working at the far end of the kitchen, finishing the breakdown. Too far to hear us if we keep our voices down, close enough to glance over.
She straightens when I enter, and she doesn’t turn around. “If you’re here to apologize on behalf of your father, don’t. I’m not interested.”
“I’m not here for him.”
“Then why are you here, Theo?”
I close the distance between us. Not all of it. Enough that she can hear me without anybody else hearing our conversation. “I’m here because what he did to you in there was unforgivable. And because I let him.”
She turns then. “Yes. You did. But that’s not a surprise.”
That lands sharply in my gut.
She sets her hand flat on the lid of a tray.
“Your whole family is horrible. The only one of you with a decent bone in his body is Ander, and after tonight, I’m probably going to stop seeing him, too.
Because I want nothing to do with this family.
Ever. Again. Your father brought me here to make himself look good, and to humiliate me. ”
“Bianca, I didn’t know. Gideon didn’t know. He used his own people for the booking. We had no idea.”
She breathes once, slowly. “Even if every word of that is true, Theo, you are just like him. You can’t even apologize for the night of the gala. Not really. The only thing your family knows how to do is to place blame on someone else.”
Fuck.
I’m thirty years old, and I have spent every one of those years being told I am the man who will be the next Charles Sawyer. I’ve been groomed for it. I have been congratulated for it. And the woman in front of me confirmed the thing I have been afraid of my entire adult life.
I am like him.
“You’re right.”
She doesn’t move.
“You’re right,” I say it again, lower. “I’m sorry, Bianca.
I’m so sorry. I should have apologized the night of the gala.
I should have apologized the morning after.
I should have apologized in my office when I almost kissed you and threw you out.
I should have apologized every single time my family tried to ruin you.
And I didn’t, because in our family, you don’t apologize.
You deflect. My father drilled into us that family comes first. And we don’t apologize, because saying sorry means you were wrong. And the Sawyers are never wrong.”
“If you think your dad is wrong, why don’t you stand up to him?” All of her warmth is gone.
And I hate it. I deserve this version of her. But I still hate it.
“Because he has all the power. Everything we have, he can take. The company. The money. The connections. The lifestyle.” I stop. “He’s reminded us of this our whole lives.”