Chapter 31 Dogfight
DOGFIGHT
Simone
“So, I have to know. How on earth did you snag The Black Prince?”
To the pair of chestnut-haired women with painted faces that barely seemed to move when they talked, I offered a sheepish smile around a mouthful of shrimp.
Using food to keep myself from speaking had been my tactic all evening to bypass variations of the same question: what the heck did a girl like you do to catch the biggest fish in the pond?
From the sound of it, some of these girls had been fishing for over a decade. And they were just as interested in how to kick me out of the boat too.
As soon as Mr. Black finished his speech, Brendan and I had been invited to dance with the crowd to what they said was our “song” (that we had connected over Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely?
” was news to me), and then we had listened to approximately a hundred and forty more toasts in our honor.
Then, as if the Gilded Age mansion and its opulent grounds weren’t intimidating enough (I wasn’t sure just how many car-sized chandeliers one house needed, but in the walk through the grand foyer, I had spotted at least four), Brendan was spirited away by investors, board members, and plenty of scary-looking business people.
That was when my pseudo-engagement party turned into an interview with every socialite on the eastern seaboard.
And let me tell you, these girls were brutal.
“Patrice!” squealed the woman to her friend. “How can you even ask her that? Do you want to know the size of his parts too?”
“Pretty sure we got that information from Danica Edwards in Miami, 2014, remember?”
The two of them burst into giggles, and I took the opportunity to grab another shrimp from a passing waiter to avoid answering the question. They’d been getting increasingly more…personal as the night progressed, along with the amount of champagne that had been imbibed.
“Oh, please, Camille,” Patrice said. “Like you don’t want to know. You chased him for the better half of last year.”
Camille rolled her eyes. “Much good it did me. The man is a monk. Except with present company, apparently.”
They both turned to me with more giggles, clearly awaiting my response.
This time, unfortunately, I was caught without a shrimp in sight.
“We just…connected,” I said with a shrug. “There’s really not much more to it than that.”
“‘Connected.’ Right.” Patrice winked with her spidery lashes. “So is it true? Is he as much of a devil in the bedroom as out? Or maybe it’s you who’s the real temptress, since you got him to put a ring on it, huh?”
“Um…” I fumbled, then nabbed a cheese puff off a passing tray and popped it into my mouth with another awkward smile.
Patrice and Camille both tittered, as if on command.
God, what time was it? Kate had insisted watches were not appropriate with evening gowns, so I was left feeling as if I’d been sucked into a time warp.
Several hours must have passed. At what point was my duty served?
How many of these people, most of whom were completely smashed, would even notice if I disappeared for the night?
The other truth was that I was finding it harder to lie.
Not just about being in a fake relationship, but also about the fact that part of me wanted to know the answers to these sorts of questions as badly as the other women.
Brendan’s kisses still tingled on my lips, and the imprint of his hands on my waist burned.
And every so often, I would catch his glance from the other side of the pool, looking like a ship lost at sea, searching for a safe port in a storm.
Looking at me like I was the lighthouse sent to guide him home.
I constantly had to remind myself that the yearning looks, the lingering touches, the gentle kisses were all in service of our charade.
And so, I made a decision.
“I’m going to find the ladies’ room,” I told Patrice and Camille, then slipped around the catering table so I could duck out of the party without being stopped for the two hundredth time and find a quiet corner to myself inside the house.
“House,” of course, was a vast understatement, I thought as I wove through a wave of caterers emerging from the kitchens.
Plural. The Blacks’ Newport residence included enough art and land and buildings to fill a small country.
It was the size of a hotel and could have fit an airplane under the fifty-foot ceilings of the great hall entrance.
Being here, among their peers, made me realize this kind of wealth bred not just confidence but a sort of nasty entitlement. You could see that most of them simply thought they deserved their wealth, that they deserved to have this much excess while so much of the world struggled.
It was why I hadn’t been able to stop myself before Mr. Black’s speech.
I knew it was a mistake correcting Brendan’s family on their perceptions of him, but the mere suggestion that no one would want Brendan for anything other than his money made my blood boil. I couldn’t have done anything else but defend him.
Even though the look in his eyes after had confused me even more than before.
The longing I’d seen.
The desire.
The knowledge that it was undoubtedly reflected in my own expression when I popped up to kiss him for everyone to see.
The fact that in that moment, I hadn’t been faking anything I’d said or done at all.
I crossed through one of the living rooms that held two more chandeliers along with three living rooms worth of furniture and went searching for the southern grand staircase (yes, there were multiple in this house) that would lead to the residence wing of the mansion.
Brendan had told me that his suite was the third door from the top.
I turned out of the main foyer down a corridor I thought would take me in the right direction, only to find Brendan in deep discussion with Shea and Ronan at the far end.
And by the looks on all of their faces, I doubted they wanted to be disturbed.
Instinct guided me into a doorframe behind a large ficus, where I wouldn’t be seen.
“I mean, she’s fine, definitely. You polished your penny up real nice, man,” Ronan was saying. “But she’s just a piece of ass. No reason to marry her.”
I scowled. None of Brendan’s siblings would win any courtesy awards, but Ronan was a real piece of work. I had lost count of how many creative ways he had managed to insult my background. Others were clearly charmed by his floppy curls and dashing smile, but I thought he was a jerk.
“Did you really think Daddy was going to hand you the company because you got engaged?” asked Brendan’s sister, Shea, whom I’d still barely interacted with. “He didn’t say that to me when I got proposals from Ryan Vanderbilt and two Kushner cousins last year.”
“That’s because no one wants their grandchild to look like a Kushner,” Ronan told her. “They all look like thumbs.”
“Thumbs who marry supermodels.”
“It’s not like that,” Brendan said. “You make it sound like some kind of dirty scheme, and it’s not. We’re engaged. It had nothing to do with Dad’s speech.”
There was a long pause. One long enough to let me know that Brendan was as disappointed as I thought about his father’s announcement, but also that his siblings didn’t believe him.
I didn’t know Mr. Black, but it had been obvious from the beginning of that speech that he was toying with his children. Brendan undoubtedly knew it too, but clearly, he still hadn’t managed to keep his expectations low.
I hated that he still had hope in such a loathsome person. At the same time, I understood it.
“So, then what’s the problem?” Ronan asked. “You’re doing what he wants, aren’t you? You heard him before the speech—he’s fucking over the moon for you and Bed Pan Barbie.”
“Ronan, I swear to God, I’m going to knock out your goddamn teeth if you make one more crack about her. Ask Owen. He already got a shiner once.”
“I’m just saying that speech was a test. For you.
For all of us. But you’re already the top of the class.
You walk down the aisle with your little bride and start pumping out babies, I’m sure the crown will be yours in no time.
The rest of us don’t stand a chance.” Ronan couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of his jokes this time.
Still, Brendan didn’t seem consoled. “You don’t understand. I can’t—I don’t want to put Simone through this. Dad’s games. The parties, the speeches. Being paraded around like a fuckin’ trophy. It’s beneath her.”
Behind the ficus, I frowned. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d hired me to do? Why doubt our purpose now when it was achieving his goals?
“Yeah, but you know what happens if you two don’t play Daddy’s games,” Shea said. “You saw what happened to me when I stopped.”
I listened curiously. What exactly did she mean by that?
“You mean the way you went to a different school from the rest of us?” Ronan asked. “Big rebel, this one.”
“Shut up, Ronan. You don’t know what I’ve done. You’re too busy getting STIs in Vegas to notice.”
“I’ll have you know I keep that shit double-bagged when I’m whoring around, sis.”
The two of them continued to bicker while Brendan stayed quiet. I could easily imagine the expression on his face, the one where he was mentally searching for an exit but hadn’t come up with one yet.
I almost stepped out from behind the ficus to provide that exit when he spoke again:
“Maybe I don’t want to play his games anymore either.”
Immediately, Ronan and Shea stopped their squabble.
“What does that even mean?” For the first time I’d heard, Ronan didn’t sound like he was joking. “You want out? Right when you’re about the get the crown?”
Another long silence. I found myself touching the pendant hovering over my heart. The one shaped like a teardrop.
Brendan’s voice was so quiet, I barely heard him. “I don’t know anymore.”