Chapter 11
CHAPTER
Tara
One Year Ago
SUNDAY DINNERS WEREN’T a custom in the Hughes family.
So Tara had to ask herself why she continued to try and turn them into a ritual when no one—her included—enjoyed them? No doubt it had something to do with the hopes and dreams of an orphaned little girl. Dreams that were never fully realized despite the glamorous world she’d been adopted into.
Standing on the front step of the home where she’d spent her teen years, Tara rang the bell and listened to the deep, resonant chime from inside.
She wondered how many other adult children were too intimidated by their parents to simply walk into their childhood homes, but not in a million years would she have taken it upon herself to enter the elegant Victorian mansion unannounced once she’d moved out to attend college.
For one thing, there was the ever-changing door code security. For another, there was her father. Randall Hughes was not a man you wanted to catch unaware.
A moment later the door swung wide. A young woman in a neat gray dress stood back to admit her. “Hello, Miss Hughes. Your mother is still upstairs.”
The scent of furniture polish and fresh flowers hung in the air as Tara stepped onto the marble floor of the foyer.
The bouquet that rested in a massive vase at the base of the curved staircase was changed twice a week.
Today’s flowers were autumn-themed, heavy with golds and reds as canna lilies and sunflowers took center stage.
High ceilings with crown moldings and elaborate woodworking details characterized the home built in the American Gilded Age.
Tara recalled thinking it looked sort of like the Addams Family home when she’d first set eyes on it as a teenager.
With a brighter paint job.
“That’s fine, Callie.” Tara had met the maid for the first time the week before. Tara’s mother enjoyed being waited on, but didn’t keep staff for longer than a few months, so there was always someone new. “I’ll just wait for her in the front room.”
“May I take your wrap?” the woman offered after shutting the front door. “Or can I get you a drink?”
“No, thank you. And I’ll keep my sweater.” The house had never been warm, and it certainly wasn’t because her father couldn’t afford to heat it. Tara had lived in hoodies and slippers growing up, much to her fashionable mother’s disapproval.
She’d been a part of the Hughes family for almost twenty years, and yet she still felt like a guest. For the last year or two since she’d recovered some of her memories through therapy, she’d toyed with the idea of quitting the Sunday dinner ritual all together since her parents wouldn’t miss it.
But tonight, she had questions that only they could answer.
“Tara!” Her name boomed through the house like someone had shouted it through a megaphone, the noise making Callie jump as she walked away. “Come through already.”
Unable to shout to the same effect as her father, Tara merely hurried past the stairs toward the west wing of the house where her father kept an office.
He paced irritably in front of the French doors that led out to a courtyard, his phone attached to his ear, his golf attire his only nod to the weekend.
“—and I wouldn’t have to get involved at all if you put half as much time into making money as you do on spending it.
I’ll be in the office tomorrow and there’d better be answers by the end of day.
” Yanking the phone from his ear, Randall Hughes stabbed a button and then tossed the device on a nearby wingback as he turned to Tara.
He was in his early seventies but had the vitality of a much younger man.
His hair was silvery white, but he’d retained an enviable amount of it.
“This really isn’t a good time for me, Tara. I need to get to the city tonight.”
Before Tara could answer, her mother arrived in a cloud of White Linen perfume, still fastening an earring into place.
“For God’s sake, Randall, you just got here, and you haven’t spent time with Tara in weeks.
” Lauren was almost twenty years younger than her husband, and she was every bit as elegant and intimidating as she’d been when Tara had first met her as a fourteen-year-old.
Lauren’s long dark hair fell in a glossy sheet, and a figure-skimming ivory sheath dress showed off the hours she still spent in the gym.
She spared a smile for Tara. “Hello, darling.”
“Hi Mom.” She approached her mom to hug her, having learned long ago that her mother’s love language amounted to tasteful displays of affection she didn’t necessarily reciprocate.
Lauren Hughes had spent two years in Paris and Milan working as a model but had cut her career short to marry Randall.
For their first date, he’d flown her to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby, where a horse he co-owned had won.
They still travelled to thoroughbred races around the world, one of their few shared interests.
Photos from the Dubai World Cup and Epsom Derby dotted the office walls.
Tara had rarely accompanied them on those trips, relegated to nannies right up until she’d turned seventeen, and her father had deemed her old enough to “man the fort” alone.
She’d really missed the company of a nanny that last summer under this roof before she’d left for college at the Fashion Institute in New York City.
“Evander is going to make a mess of a deal I hand-delivered to him with a goddamn bow,” Randall explained, shutting down the open laptop on his desk before sliding it into a drawer and locking it. He frequently butted heads with the oldest son from his previous marriage. “I can’t stay for dinner.”
Tara’s skin chilled at the mention of her half-brother.
Evander and his full siblings had never been kind to her, openly antagonizing her as much as they could get away with.
Their enmity seemed rooted in events before Tara came into the family, along with a deep resentment at having to share any of their inheritance with her.
Thankfully, she’d never spent much time around them.
Perhaps her mother had glimpsed the tension, because she made an effort to keep Tara apart from them.
“Well that’s a new record for cutting the weekend short,” Lauren remarked mildly. “You’ve been in town for what, thirty hours? Less?”
“I think we both know it was your decision to live so far away from my business and my heir.” Randall’s icy words made Tara want to run from the house and the confrontation.
But she couldn’t hide from tough discussions forever.
“Dad, I had a quick question to ask you before you go.” She shuffled into his path to forestall his exit. “Can I have five minutes?”
It was difficult enough to get an audience with her father, and she’d already invested emotional energy bracing herself for an awkward conversation.
Randall stopped short, huffing out a breath, but his tone was kind once he refocused on her. “Of course. How can I help?”
Her stomach clenched and then her words came out in a rush. “Suppose I wanted a lawyer to help me draft a partnership agreement—”
“Are you thinking about starting a new business?” His blue eyes narrowed. “We should discuss viability—”
“It’s actually for my partnership with Sophie and The Clean Break,” she explained quickly, twisting a ring around her finger before realizing she fidgeted like a teenager. “The podcast.”
Her father swore. “We talked about this a long time ago, Tara. Please don’t tell me that you went into business with that woman—a lawyer with an arbitration license, I might add—without the protection of a partnership agreement.”
“Oh Tara, that was not well done.” Her mother shook her head as she moved closer to join the conversation, the three of them standing just inside the office while the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed the dinner hour.
“Sophie Durand is a shark in high heels. Remember what I told you about the permits she filed to get approval for that nouveau atrocity she calls a home? She pulled a fast one with the zoning committee that was for sure.”
Tara had heard the story about Sophie and the zoning board more than once but never gave it much credence. Still, she could admit she’d been wrong not to listen to her parents’ advice on this.
“I read that it’s never too late to put an agreement in place.
” She’d done a deep dive on the kind of language used in those sorts of documents and realized how helpful it would have been to have something that spelled out participation expectations, dispute resolution, and dissolution arrangements.
At the time, she hadn’t wanted to offend Sophie by bringing it up, figuring their friendship was solid enough to help them navigate any bumps in the road.
“I just wondered if you had any recommendations for an attorney that could help me.”
“Tell me this first.” Her father clapped his hands on Tara’s shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Are you doing this now because you suddenly see the wisdom of an agreement? Or are you really just angling to get out of the partnership?”
“I don’t necessarily want to end things now, but I want to make sure my interest is protected.” In case Luke was right and Sophie was ready to oust her somehow.
“It sure sounds like you’re starting to worry that you can’t trust her,” her mother guessed, rearranging Tara’s hair and frowning a little as if she spotted split ends.
At least Tara had worn an outfit her mother had bought her for her birthday, a sleek red angora sweater dress that was too formal for virtually anything but dinner at her parents.
No matter how much money accumulated in Tara’s personal bank account, she had never morphed into the kind of person who wanted to jet to Fiji or Monaco for long weekends.
She appreciated people more than places.
She also appreciated a work-from-home dress code.