Double

Chapter 1

My Aunt Schemes to Marry Me Off

Tinsley

I waited for my business partner and best friend, Faylise Powell, to return to the office after walking out the potential clients. When she appeared in the doorway, I jumped up from my seat. The two of us twerked together in silence for about forty seconds before bursting into laughter.

“I think we did it,” she said, a huge grin cracking her face.

“Me, too. I think they liked us,” I agreed.

“They liked your proposal, Tinsley. They liked the way you laid everything out. You had an answer for every question.”

“Because of your research and leg work,” I told her.

“This right here is a team effort. Don’t be trying to give me all the credit.

” I crossed the room and hugged my partner in business .

. . and my partner in crime. Faylise had been my bestie since primary school.

There wasn’t anybody on Earth who was closer to me than her.

After we broke the hug, she plopped down on the mint-green settee. I took a seat in the mint-green armchair across from her. Mint green was one of our company’s signature colors. Velvet & Vintage Event Design’s brand colors were mint green, gold, and snowy white.

“What if we get this wedding?” she mused. “It could change everything for Velvet & Vintage.”

She had a good point. This wedding was going to be the event of the year on the island of Iredia.

The marriage between King Cobra and Ellia Promise was liable to send the island’s residents into overload.

King Cobra was, after all, the most popular and financially successful musical artist to come out of the country.

The fact that he was betrothed to Iredia’s sweetheart, a highly sought-after and successful actress in her own right, had the people salivating.

“It would catapult us into the stratosphere,” she continued.

I didn’t want to rain on her parade, but I also didn’t want to get my hopes up too high. “They are looking at other event designers. If they don’t choose us, it’s definitely not because we didn’t give it our all.”

“Facts.”

I checked my watch. “Ugh, it’s getting late. I need to get out of here. I have that dinner at Aunt Gretchen’s house tonight. I’m so tired. I wish I could blow it off. All I want to do is go home and crawl into bed.”

“Tell her something came up,” Faylise suggested as if she didn’t know how Gretchen was.

“Yeah, right. She would just show up at my house, looking around to see exactly what came up. It’s easier to just go and get it over with.”

“She’s lucky you’re her niece and not me. I would’ve been told her off. She’s so freaking pushy and bossy, . . . always acting like she’s your mother. If she wanted somebody to do her bidding and jump every time she said so, she should’ve had her own children.”

“I don’t have that much family, Fay.”

“And Gretchen makes sure to remind you of that every chance she gets.” She threw up her hands. “This loyalty you have to a family that never had loyalty to you is something I’ll never understand.”

I couldn’t help but agree with her statement.

By the time I finished up at university, both of my parents were gone.

Before their deaths, my relationship with both had been cordial, at best. I was an only child, which could cause people to think that my parents and I had a “Three Musketeers” relationship.

It wasn’t like that at all. Our household had been very much every man for himself.

My father gave every bit of himself to the social status of the Campbell family name and the company he inherited from his father.

My family, the Campbells, were well-known on Iredia for owning the country’s premier paper company, Campbell Paper Holdings.

The company supplied 90 percent of the paper for the island of Iredia—even the paper that was used for printing Iredian money.

The Campbell family had been a big deal on the island for generations.

When my grandfather died, he left very explicit instructions in his will.

His children, my father, my aunt, and my uncle were left in positions of power over the company.

They were also given large personal endowments of cash, property, and stocks.

My father, as the eldest child, took the reins as president and grew the company.

Ten years into his leadership, he died suddenly of a heart attack.

Less than two years later, my mother was killed in a car accident.

After my father’s death, it was presumed that my uncle Moses, the second-born son, would take over as president.

In a shocking turn of events, he refused.

The responsibility of running the company then fell to the baby of the bunch, my aunt Gretchen—who proved to be a train wreck as a leader and as a businesswoman in general.

Her ineptitude ran a company that had been profitable for three generations into the ground in five years.

The company was now almost bankrupt. It was a laughingstock on the island, and Gretchen had no money to save it or herself from the embarrassment.

“Having Gretchen is better than having nobody.”

“I don’t know about that, Tins. It’s like you were released from one prison, just to end up in a second one.”

I sighed. She was right again. Though my father had given the vast majority of his attention to Campbell Paper Holdings, that didn’t stop him from controlling my life with an iron fist. Like Faylise said, my life was a prison, where I was only allowed to do and experience the things that my father deemed necessary.

My mother never went against him. He ruled both of our lives. When he passed away, when it was just my mother and me, things were better. Life was much less stressful, and our home was much less tense.

After I lost my mother, Gretchen bulldozed her way into my life, attempting to take over as if I were a child needing motherly guidance.

I was an adult, but it was like Gretchen couldn’t accept that.

She was pushy, opinionated, and controlling.

It took every ounce of energy I had to keep her at bay and out of my business.

“I don’t remember much about my grandfather, but he must’ve been a damn doozy to raise two of the most controlling people I’ve ever encountered in my life.”

“You were a kid when your father was alive and pulling your puppet strings. You’re an adult now. You need to open your mouth and tell Gretchen to back the hell off.”

Faylise was three for three.

I was purposely fashionably late to my aunt’s house for two reasons.

Both reasons were that I didn’t want to be alone with her.

For one thing, I knew she would try to get me to pitch in on the setup.

As an invited guest, and particularly as one who’d worked all day, I didn’t want to be on setup duty.

I wanted to arrive, mingle, eat, and leave—in that order.

For another thing, I didn’t want her asking me questions.

My aunt was a natural-born bully who didn’t understand personal boundaries or subtleties.

She loved to ask inappropriate and invasive questions, especially about my virginity and whether or not I was still holding on to it.

For some reason, she was oddly curious about how long I would remain .

. . untouched. It was one of the things that pissed me off about her the most. I didn’t get why she thought she had a right to be proud of my sexual status.

The fact that I was a virgin had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the fact that I’d grown up being controlled.

My body was the one thing I had autonomy over, growing up.

Initially, that presented itself in my life as the beginnings of an eating disorder.

Eventually, it morphed into me choosing to keep myself to myself simply because I could.

Gretchen answered the door for me when I arrived.

At first, I was surprised, but then I realized that, with all of her money problems, she probably had to let her staff go.

As I thought about it, I wasn’t sure how she’d been able to hold onto the oceanfront mansion that I walked into.

It wasn’t paid for, and I knew the mortgage had to be astronomical.

“Hey, Auntie.” I gave her a hug. I was a bit taller than average for a woman, clocking in at five feet, seven inches. My height clearly came from my father’s side because Gretchen was about an inch taller than me.

She hugged me back, but when we released one another, she hit me with the side-eye. “I told you to arrive at 7:00 p.m. You’re almost thirty minutes late.”

“I worked today. I went home to shower and get dressed.” I gestured up and down the fitted olive-green velvet, mermaid-style dress. “I’m worth the wait. No?”

She sucked her teeth while grabbing me by the hand and pulling me past the entryway. “You’re rude is what you are. I have special guests here waiting to meet you.”

I stopped walking. “Waiting to meet me? Who? Is this a setup, Aunt Gretchen? I’m not looking to be set up.”

“Little girl, nobody’s thinking about what you want and don’t want.” She tugged me by the hand harder.

Gretchen was strong because she made my feet move against my will.

Soon, we were in her great room. There weren’t many people at the dinner party, maybe ten or so.

What made me finally relax was that I spotted my Uncle Moses and Aunt Lianna amongst the crowd.

I ripped my hand from Gretchen’s grasp just as she was releasing me.

Practically jogging, I made my way over to where my aunt and uncle stood.

“Auntie,” I crooned, pulling Lianna into a hug. That was followed with a quick hug for my uncle, my arms going around Moses’s neck.

They both returned the greeting and the hug.

“I’m glad to see you here. Gretchen said something about having people for me to meet.”