Chapter 11
LILA
Earlier
“Look at you,” I exclaim as Keira walks out of my bathroom, wearing makeup. “It looks great on you.”
She smiles.
“My dress? The makeup?”
“Both.”
“Hopefully my face won’t melt off,” she says, sliding her lipstick into her bag.
“We’ll be fine. See, it wasn’t that bad,” I add, picking up my purse from a chair. “Actually,” I say. “We can leave these here. We won’t need them.”
“What about our phones? My dress doesn’t have a pocket.”
“Mine doesn’t have one either, but there’s no one to call me, so I’ll leave mine here.”
“I’ll take it with me. You never know when I get an important call.”
I laugh.
“Sure. Whatever. Who’d call you so late on a Saturday evening?”
She checks the time on her phone.
“For your information is not that late. And one of your future boyfriends might call me.”
I huff, dismissing her with a clipped gesture.
“Please.”
Her focus sharpens as she looks at me.
“We’re still doing this, right?”
“What?” I ask, a bit distracted.
“Finding someone to get laid this summer. Who knows? We might be both married next year and full of regrets that we haven’t used this time for ourselves.”
She shakes her head as she speaks with humor, making me laugh.
“We’ll both be married with children,’ I sneer. “Let’s get going. I can’t wait to taste the delicious food. No one will pay attention to us.”
I don’t know what I have in mind as I’m saying that.
I hope it’s true, though.
We both exit my room and walk down the corridor.
Keira’s quiet exclamations keep us company.
She’s in awe of the decor. The walls, the fresh flowers, the polished floors, and the one-of-a-kind curved wall tables.
“It’s a nice house,” she murmurs when I notice a blue cobalt silhouette heading straight to Damon’s bedroom at the other end of the hallway.
I pull Keira back, and we hide behind a tall vase.
My forefinger presses to my lips while her eyes widen with some pressing question.
“What happened?” she whispers.
“It’s Henrietta,” I say, just as the woman pushes the door open and walks into his bedroom.
My chest tightens at the sight of her entering it without a smidgen of hesitation.
I turn to Keira.
“There’s a second flight of stairs over there.” I point across from the corridor. “Go downstairs and wait for me. I’ll be there in a moment. I need to find out what she’s up to.”
“Okay,” she says and quickly pulls away.
I watch her vanish around the corner and move swiftly toward Damon’s bedroom.
Once I reach the door, I glance around, making sure no one’s watching.
Thankfully, all the staff and the guests are downstairs.
Smooth like a cat, I lean forward, shift, and press my ear to the door.
It doesn’t even cross my mind that someone might suddenly open the door.
Oh. How awkward that would be.
Their conversation is somewhat muffled, but my name is not, as it surely comes up.
Um… What?
Yeah. I heard that correctly. Lila Skye. She’s talking to him about me?
And then my heart stops.
Someone saw me at the club?
She’s questioning him, so what am I supposed to do next?
Should I be running away? Or should I just open the door and participate in their conversation?
I don’t know what he’s saying in response as I can’t hear all the words, but snippets of their exchange still drift to me.
It’s something about my swimming last night.
I straighten at once as the memory of last night comes to me.
He asked me to go back to my room, change my clothes, and swim.
He doctored some recording for her, didn’t he?
He also must’ve known that I had swum before.
He probably knows I’m standing here like a clown with my ear pressed to his door right now.
Or he’ll become aware of it at some point.
I’m tempted to look up and wave, so he knows that I know that I’ve been watched.
He’s never made a secret out of it.
Jealousy?
Did he just say she’s doing something out of jealousy?
I miss several of their next words before I hear her say that she’s not jealous and only wants her money.
Her only wanting her money is hardly news for anyone in the house.
Only my poor father had believed that she was a divine gift––his second chance at reliving his youth.
He would’ve never in his life gotten the attention of someone like her if he hadn’t made a lot of money in the casino business.
My mother had warned him it wasn’t a good business to be in, and she wasn’t talking about the money he could make.
He could’ve started a construction company or bought a farm. She was of the belief that every line of work puts certain people into your life, and she was right.
The casino business brought Henrietta to him.
Henrietta is not jealous? How come? She is in the room, questioning him. Rightfully so, I might add, but then she’s talking about the money.
I only want my money.
Meaning she no longer has a problem with me being at the club?
How does she know I was there?
Who told her I was in the club?
Their conversation goes quiet, and I can’t make a word they’re saying before her heels ring behind the door and I spin around, not knowing which way to go.
I dash back and run down the same stairs I’ve advised Keira to take.
Panting, I stop at the bottom of the stairs.
I even drink a glass of water from a server’s tray before I spot Keira, put a smile on my face, and join her.
Seconds later, we both walk toward the crowd. I notice Henrietta, who surely must’ve seen me.
I can tell.
She looks like she’s sucked on sour bonbons for the past few minutes, and she’s simply ignoring me.
Then, I feel the heat of a stare on my back and step to the side and look up. Without making a secret out of the fact that he’s staring at me, Damon West studies me, his eyes telling me he’s thinking about me as much as I’m thinking about him.
He won’t peel his stare away, so if I want to break free from him, I’ll need to do it myself.
I look a little longer when Keira touches my arm.
“Who is that?” she murmurs, in awe.
“That’s Henrietta’s husband.”
“The bitch,” she says softly, laughing.
I break my eyes away from him and smile at her.
“The man is nothing like my father.”
“He’s nothing like anyone I know. I didn’t know he was that hot.”
“I didn’t know either.”
She loops her arm through mine as we turn our backs to the house and inch closer to the food table.
“Why was he staring at you like that?”
“I have no idea. He probably wants to piss off his wife.”
“That’s it?”
“What else? Look at her,” I suggest as we move closer to where she speaks.
“She doesn’t seem preoccupied with him. What’s their deal?” Keira asks.
“I wish I knew. Something is off about these two. Not off as in how it was with my father and her.”
A tinge of sadness slides through my voice.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I truly am.”
I shrug.
“It was what it was. He was an adult. And he was obsessed with her.”
“I can see why.”
Keira studies Henrietta.
“I wish I were more like her, just not a snake like her.”
“She’s a woman with clout. And she has no problem using her looks to achieve what she wants. You can’t blame her.”
“You can’t. I can. How come her new husband isn’t mesmerized with her?”
“I wish I knew that, too. Maybe he’s not the type who gets easily obsessed with a woman.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“He owns a club. I don’t know much else about him.”
Keira glances around when I hear her speak again.
She squeezes my hand gently.
“There he is.”
I follow the direction of her stare and watch Damon West join a group of men and women.
This time he doesn’t look at me, and I brace myself for more of the same happening this evening.
LILA
The party wraps up after eleven.
I thought it would last longer than that, but then again, this was a different type of party.
Besides, Damon West is expected at the club.
Keira and I enter the kitchen, looking for what’s left of the delicious white chocolate cranberry cake.
I walk in, convinced that the staff and Livia are here, and Damon and Henrietta are gone, when Keira’s phone rings.
Her expression changes as soon as she picks up the call and glances over my shoulder.
I flick my eyes to the kitchen island and spot Damon. He watches us with a frozen expression.
His suit jacket is open. His elbows rest on the counter. His neckline is open, too.
His eyes meet mine with surgical precision.
They shift quickly to my left as a soft rustle clues me in that his wife is right behind me.
I slide to the side while Henrietta walks to him, turns around to face Keira and me, and blocks my view of him.
I can still see his face, and he looks pissed.
Keira presses her phone to her chest and looks at me.
“Frankie’s at the bar tonight. What about we go there to meet him?”
Her question is for me, yet her eyes move behind me.
I look in that direction and watch Damon shake his head behind his wife as if he has a say in this.
Oblivious to his signaling to me, Henrietta stares at me.
I can’t keep looking at Damon, so I shift my focus to her.
“Which Frankie?” she asks, as if it’s her business.
“Keira’s friend,” I say before she has the chance to answer.
Irritated by the entire conversation, I look at Keira.
“We’ll be there,” I say.
I expect Damon to ask a question, but Henrietta speaks instead.
“Where is there?”
If you didn’t know anything about us, you’d think we’re a loving family, and she’s my overly concerned mother.
My mother never asked questions like this.
The barstool at the kitchen island scrapes back as Damon rises to his feet and buttons his suit jacket.
He looks dark when he walks past me.
Keira gives Henrietta a casual answer, and I’m sure he catches that, although he probably knows the place.
There aren’t many bars in town. Not many are open late either.
I watch him walk away as if I watch my good fortune vanish. Something doesn’t feel right as his shoulders seem tense like stones.
We haven’t exchanged a word the entire evening.
We haven’t had the chance to run into each other the entire evening.
He was surrounded by people most of the time, and although Henrietta rarely stood by his side, she was always nearby.
She didn’t talk to me either. For most of the time, she behaved as if I wasn’t there.
Not much different than how things were when she was married to my father.
She never filled my mother’s shoes. She never behaved like a stepmother. She looked like someone who hadn’t planned to stick around.
No one could anticipate that my father would unexpectedly pass, yet she behaved as if she wanted that to happen.
She waited for the first opportunity to get out.
There was no love lost between us.
I never expressed my animosity toward her out of respect for my father, but I never liked that she’d taken advantage of him.
What I find strange is that she seems powerless next to Damon, which wasn’t the case when she was married to my father.
She ran the house. Her wishes were his command.
Those days are gone, and yet… She could’ve been with someone like my father.
Let him cherish her.
Why Damon?
She’s fading like a wilted flower in her husband’s presence, and they don’t share a bed.
“All right, girls,” Henrietta says, noticing that Damon’s already gone.
She quickly picks up her purse from the counter.
“Enjoy the rest of the evening, and don’t wait up,” she adds, the last few words addressed to me.
That was malicious and unwarranted.
No one will ever wait up for her.