3. Chapter Three #3
"I'm a... I suppose the closest word that fits is security specialist,” she said.
"I've done things that would make Tasha nod and some that would make Mona blush.
Just after the tape of your wedding hit the internet, someone reached out to me, anonymously, through more levels of obfuscation than I'd ever seen before.
They offered me a very large amount of money to perform a single, open-ended task. 'Protect the Avery family'."
Several people leaned forward, interested.
“There's one more thing all of you should hear," Caroline said, "since most of you weren't at the office this morning.
" She looked around the table. "I gave that very large amount of money back. Every cent. The day I decided this family was worth protecting for its own sake, I wired all of it back to sender.”
Maria's fork stopped halfway to her mouth. "You did what?"
"I spent all afternoon trying to prove that was a lie," Mona said, before Caroline could answer. "I couldn't. She burned the kind of money most people would kill for, and we didn’t even ask her to.” Mona rubbed the back of her neck, then shrugged. “I’ve learned to roll with this family’s craziness by now, but that… that’s the wildest thing I’ve heard since Jack called me from the airport and hired me as his new head of PR. ”
Caroline’s voice was quiet. “It stopped being a job for me the first time I entered this house. I’m not doing this for the money.
” She glanced up, swallowing hard. “I’m doing this because of the thing that I still can’t hold myself together enough to speak about in a group of kind, supportive people.
What happened to me is never going to happen to this family.
” She sat up a little straighter. “Not while I’m here. ”
I watched the opinions of the less committed members of the group shift in real time. Caroline’s particular breed of devotion attracted them, I could tell. Especially when it showed how committed she was to the Avery clan.
“How'd you know to get hired at Morning Harbor?” I asked.
"How did you get so good at doing makeup?" Samantha added.
The second question made Caroline smile. "I had a lot of sisters," she said, sharing a look with my babygirl. "As for how I knew about Morning Harbor, that's easy: I didn’t. My contact instructed me to apply for the role. It went so smoothly that I suspected an invisible hand or two was involved."
I blinked. "That's not possible," I protested. “We didn’t know about Morning Harbor until less than a week before Yukiko went out on that stage…”
I trailed off, seeing the look on Mona’s face.
“That… that might be on me, actually,” Mona realized.
Heads turned in her direction.
“I beg your pardon?” Kiki asked.
Mona licked her lips. I could tell she did not like being thrown onto the back foot like this.
“One of the first things I did when Jack agreed to hire me was reach out to a number of press outlets for potential interviews,” she explained.
“This was before the family decided the ‘let it boil over’ approach was the best way to handle the situation—”
“Which didn’t end up working,” Marcie said. “Because people kept bringing it up.”
Mona nodded. “I had something set up with Morning Harbor back then. That’s probably when this person reached out to Caroline and told her to apply for the team.”
“This mysterious, unknown benefactor,” Tasha said, arms crossed beneath her breasts.
“They won’t be unknown forever,” Mona promised with a snort. “I’m already on their trail. Miss Willoughby gave me everything we need. Unless this person hid themselves a lot better than I think they did, I should have something for you all soon.”
Caroline flinched at the mention of her last name. Maybe that’s why my babygirl did what she did next.
“Which brings us to the question of what we should do about you,” Samantha said mildly.
The room went silent. Caroline turned, her eyes wet.
“I don’t… the decision is yours, obviously,” she said, indicating all of us. “I know that it’s complicated—”
“It’s really not,” Samantha said, shaking her head.
“You lied to us. You misrepresented yourself to the Avery Company when you were hired. If it became public knowledge that we allowed someone like that to remain on the corporate payroll after being discovered, our reputation would take a massive hit. It would be insane of us to let you remain in your current role.”
Jesus. Samantha was right, but still…?
I watched her words sink into Caroline like daggers. At first she looked confused, then hurt—by the time my babygirl was done, there were silent tears streaking down her cheeks. She looked absolutely demolished.
“Please,” she whispered. “You… you should read the whole story first. Look up the news, the court records—if you knew what I’d been through, you wouldn’t—”
“Caroline,” Samantha said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. “You are fired from the Avery Company. Effective immediately.”
Gasps filled the room.
Technically, Samantha didn’t have the authority to do all that on her own. But when I glanced over at Mona and saw her grimace, I knew she wasn’t going to stop it from happening. However she might have personally felt about the matter.
Caroline crumpled inward, some of the light leaving her eyes.
Without thinking about it, her hand strayed to one of the crystals hanging from her neck and began stroking it, like she was praying.
Her lips trembled. Hearing this from anyone would have been a blow—from the woman she’d dared call ‘babygirl’, it must have felt like a fist to the gut.
“I… okay,” she managed. “I understand.”
“Good.” Samantha uncrossed her arms. “And now that you’re unemployed, I would like to hire you. Also effective immediately.”
I don’t think I’d ever seen a human being look so shocked.
“I have an interview with Call Your Daddy to finish later this week, and I want to look my absolute best,” my babygirl said, the corner of her mouth curling in a smirk.
“And I’m sure there’ll be plenty of other public appearances in the future, as well.
” She glanced over at Kiki, then Marcie, her grin widening.
“I’d be more than happy to lend you to Daddy’s other wives, when they have events, and you can help the other girls in the group whenever there’s time.
I warn you, though, they’re likely to work you like a freaking dog… ”
Caroline buried her face in her hands and let out a joyous sound. “You…” she said, peering through her fingers at Samantha. “I forget sometimes that you were the Queen Bee of Delta Rho. You terrify me, babygirl—”
“Caroline?”
The makeup artist lowered her hands. “Yes?”
Samantha wasn’t smiling now. “That terrible, awful moment you just experienced when you thought you were being kicked out of our lives forever?” She leaned forward.
“If you ever lie to any of us again, that will feel like a picnic in the park compared to what I’ll do to you.
The Averys give second chances every now and then.
We’re not in the habit of handing out thirds.
” She leaned back, her smile returning. “Don’t you dare make me regret this. ”
“Never,” Caroline promised, putting a fist over her heart. “Never ever.”
“Very good.” Samantha turned to the room. “Anyone have any objections?”
There were none.
“Even better.” She pulled out her phone and handed it to Yukiko. “Here, Kiki. You take this.”
My princess received the phone with a faint frown. “Why are you giving me your phone?”
Samantha sighed. “Because my mother texted me ten minutes ago,” she said, barely noting the shocked glances and gasps around the dinner table.
“And I am really, really not up to reading anything she has to say right now. So can you handle it? And then we can discuss the second fucking bomb that went off in all of our lives today?”
Yukiko nodded. She punched in the passcode—all of my wives knew the lock codes to each other’s phones—and began to read.
I waited.