24. NEGOTIATIONS
CHLOE
Before we got on the plane, Bryce called Dale again. “We’ll be there in an hour. Don’t let anyone in or out.”
He turned to me. “I’m calling Hazel.”
He put the maid on speakerphone. “Are you with Noah?”
“Yes, Mr. Windsor.” There were loud noises in the background, some kind of music mixed with the dog barking. “We’re keeping ourselves entertained.”
“What are you doing? And are you safe?”
“We’re quite safe, I can assure you,” Hazel said. “All of the staff, Chef included, are watching young Mr. Burke’s room. Midge and the other girls are camped outside. And we are inside, teaching the dog to roll over and playing some sort of game.”
The sound became muffled for a moment. “Noah—what’s this called again? Ah, yes. We’re playing Fortnite. Unfortunately, I’m quite awful at it.”
“You’re not that bad, Hazel!” Noah piped up. “I mean, you’ve died, like, seven thousand times, but at least you’re not giving up. You know who’s really awful at video games? Bryce. He sucks!”
“All right, all right,” Bryce said, but he was laughing. “Stay with him, Hazel. There’s no one I trust more than you.”
“Mr. Windsor… Thank you.” She sounded genuinely touched.
“If anyone needs a raise, it’s probably Hazel,” I said when he hung up.
“You know what? You’re right.”
We were quiet on the quick plane ride. The city lights from Boston dimmed, and the northern New England states were dark and sleepy beneath us. Maine was peaceful and quiet as we landed, the land hushed around us as we drove through the dark mountains to Northeast Harbor.
My phone pinged with a text. Click here for a secure link.
I swallowed hard. “I think your father knows I’m not where I’m not in Boston anymore. He just sent me a message.”
Bryce’s expression turned stormy. “Open it.”
I clicked on the link with shaking hands, petrified that someone on the board had already ratted us out. Instead, there were several pictures of the primary-suite bathroom at Bryce’s house on Beacon Hill. “What the hell?”
I clicked through them, then clutched my stomach.
The final picture was of the inside of the wastepaper basket. It was my discarded pregnancy test, two pink lines clearly showing. “Oh my God.”
This is never going to happen, read the caption below the last picture. That was all Gene wrote.
I clutched the phone to my chest and curled in on myself.
“What the hell did he say?” Bryce sounded on the verge of exploding.
“Bryce… I need to tell you something.”
He put his face in his hands.
“It’s nothing bad. I mean, I don’t think it’s bad,” I babbled. “I’m… I’m pregnant.”
“What?” He sat up straight. “What did you just say?”
“I’m pregnant. As in, I am carrying your baby in my stomach. I think? Or am I carrying it in my uterus…?” It had been some time since I’d attended health class.
“Oh my God. Chloe, I can’t. I… What? Wow.” His eyes brightened until he saw my hands still curled around my phone. “What the hell did my father say?”
“He knows somehow. Someone at the house must’ve gone through my trash—they sent him a picture.”
“Let me see it.” His voice was ice.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea—”
He wrenched the phone from my hands, scrolling through the pictures until he reached the end.
I could tell when he’d read the caption because it looked like smoke might pour out of his ears.
Bryce’s expression changed several times as he processed what Gene had said.
It went from rage to disbelief to disgust.
“I can’t believe he’s my father.”
“Bryce…” I took a deep breath. “I’m the last person who’d defend him, but he’s had everything taken from him. Of course he’s lashing out. He knows that his life isn’t ever going to be the same, he’s desperate.”
“Good.” My husband stared straight ahead. “He deserves everything that’s coming to him.”
I sighed and sat back against the seat. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I just took the test—I’ve been in shock. With everything else going on, it really threw me for a loop.”
“Are you…” He hesitated. “Are you okay with it?”
“What? I’m—Bryce, I’m thrilled.” I blinked at him. “How do you feel?”
“Are you kidding me?” His face opened up into a grin, and it was like the sun coming out. “I’m the happiest man in the world. Except for the fact that my father’s trying to destroy my family.”
“About that. There are some other people involved, too. It’s not just Daphne.”
Again, it looked like smoke was about to pour out of Bryce’s ears. “Tell me everything. We have ten minutes until we get to the dock.”
I took a deep breath. “First of all, like I said, we have several new people on the payroll. My stepmother’s one of them.”
“Lydia? We just gave her money! What the hell does she want now?”
“More. And I promised her more. Like, a lot more,” I admitted.
“Why did we do that?”
At least Bryce said ‘we.’ That meant he couldn’t be completely mad at me!
“Because someone else was paying her—actually, two different people were—and I had to offer more.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Who? Tell me everything.”
I sighed. “Your father, and also, Mimi Jones.”
“What? Why the hell is Mimi Jones blackmailing Lydia?”
“She wasn’t blackmailing her, she was trying to get her to do things.
Like bring a local news crew to the townhouse and embarrass me.
” I shook my head. “Mimi thinks I should be ashamed of my father and Lydia, and so does your father. And I am ashamed of them, but not for the reasons you might think.”
“It’s because of how they treated you and Noah,” Bryce said.
“Right.” I shrugged. “I don’t care that Lydia chain-smokes and has a giant tattoo of a lion’s face on her thigh. If she was a nice person, I’d be all for it. But she’s not. She’s not a nice person, and I offered her a lot of money not to talk. I mean, a lot.”
Bryce waved his hand. “We’ll worry about that later. What else? Tell me more about Mimi. I don’t understand how she’s involved in all of this.”
“Ugh, there is more. She hates our family. She’s so bitter about what happened with Michael and Daphne that she’s taking it out on us.
And the fact that you and Felicia didn’t work out doesn’t help matters.
But really, she hates me .” I shivered.
“I never should’ve gone after Felicia at the wedding.
That was your father’s idea to make me look bad. ”
“I freaking knew it —”
“It doesn’t matter. Because not only did I embarrass myself, I humiliated the Jones family. And I think Mimi was already humiliated enough—that pushed her over the edge.”
I blew out a deep breath. “Mimi was disgusted that she wasn’t able to keep that out of the news, and now the most famous picture of her precious American-heiress daughter is the one of her getting her ass kicked by Nobody Chloe Windsor.
Who’s an escort. Who’s stepmother is East Boston trash with an accent and a huge thigh tattoo. ”
“Jesus Christ.” Bryce looked appalled. “Mimi needs to get a life.”
“She knows about AccommoDating, Bryce. She told Lydia about it. Your father knows, too.”
I paused for a beat, letting that sink in. Our enemies knew the truth about us. What on earth were we going to do about that ?
“I guess she hired a private investigator to dig up my past and whoever it was, they did good work,” I continued. “Oh, that’s the other thing—Mimi’s the one who hired Tate to go after your brother. Tate’s an escort, too. She’s been threatening me ever since she got to the island.”
“What the hell ? I’m going to have security pack her shit and throw her out—”
“No, no you can’t do that!” I interrupted.
“Tate’s on the payroll, too. I told her to lie to Mimi and keep things on an even keel while we figure out our next move.
She’s not that bad, actually. I feel sorry for her, she was living on the streets before she started working as an escort. And she really likes Colby.”
Bryce looked at me as though I had three heads.
“What?”
“You seem to empathize with my father, even though he’s been torturing you. You feel sorry for Tate, even though she threatened you. You don’t even sound like you hate Mimi, and she’s trying to blow your life up.” His brow furrowed. “How do you do that?”
“How do I do what?”
“Stay good. How do you stay so good, huh?”
I shook my head. “I’m not good. But enough people have tried to do bad things to me since I married you, I don’t know… I guess I see it from a different perspective. Like, why sink to their level? Although I’m all about the payoffs, and I learned that from watching them .”
I laughed. “But I just figure, why can’t the good guys win for once? We— you —have a ton of money, just like your dad and Mimi. Why can’t we throw some of that around and come out on top?”
“We can, Mrs. Windsor. We absolutely can.” He grinned at me. “But we have some serious ass to kick first. Are you with me?”
I laced my fingers through his. I was still afraid—afraid for my brother, afraid for Bryce and his position with the company, fearful of all of it—but for the first time in a long time, I felt lighter.
For better or for worse, I’d told my secrets. What was it my mother used to say? Sunlight is the best disinfectant. I felt better—cleaner—for telling him the truth.
“I’m with you. There’s no place I’d rather be.”
Now I just had to pray for more time.