Chapter Eighteen
ALICE
Iwrenched my arm out of her grip and stared at her. I was missing a piece of the puzzle. I didn't know. I had no clue why Lacey hated me so much, but it was becoming very clear that Lacey thought she had a reason.
As far as I’d seen, Lacey didn’t like anyone, but her hatred for me was personal.
“Lacey, I really don't know. If I've done something, if there's some reason you dislike me so much, please, just tell me so I can apologize and we can move on.”
Her laugh was brittle. Sharp. “You think you can just apologize for fucking my husband? That's rich. Maybe wedding vows don't mean anything to you—”
She looked down her nose at me as if I were a piece of trash she'd scraped off her shoe. “—but if you thought you could seduce him into hiring you, fuck him while he signed your paycheck, and no one would blink an eye, then you’re a lot stupider than I thought. Everyone knows what a whore you are. Everyone. Maxwell wasn’t going to leave me for you. I’m his wife.”
The word came out on a hiss, her face less than an inch from mine. I was too stunned to flinch.
What the hell was she talking about? Me? And Maxwell? Was she insane?
She closed a bony hand around my upper arm, shaking me hard enough to make me wobble on my heels. “You’re just another of his sluts. He should have fired you when he was done with you. And now you have your claws in my son? You think I’m going to let that go? You’re trash.”
My mouth fell open in shock. My brain was blank. Later I'd wish I'd had a snappy comeback, but in that moment, I was utterly without words. Why would she think I’d slept with Maxwell? Gross.
Maxwell was an asshole and a letch. He propositioned me once when he hired me. I shut him down, and that was it. End of story.
And what did she mean everyone knows?
Cooper's voice barely penetrated my shock.
“Mom, drop it,” he said, the words falling like stones.
“It’s ancient history. Alice was hardly the first woman Dad seduced, and she sure as hell wasn't the last. It ended almost a decade ago.
It doesn't mean anything. I don't understand why you blame her when you sure as hell don't blame him.”
Horror curdled in my gut.
What the fuck?
Cooper, too? Cooper thought I'd slept with Maxwell? Did everyone think I'd slept with Maxwell?
Oh, my God, that’s what Lacey meant by everyone knows. They all thought I’d slept with Maxwell.
My mind raced, putting it together. I thought back to those first few months at Sinclair. The guys who’d propositioned me. The way Cooper and his brothers had been distant and unfriendly.
Oh, God. They all thought I'd been sleeping with Maxwell. That I’d cheated on my husband with their father.
The rich dinner and glass of champagne turned rancid in my stomach.
Saliva flooded my mouth, and for a terrible moment, I thought I was going to throw up right there in the middle of the wedding reception.
I turned, desperate to flee the crowd, to let this new reality sink in somewhere private.
My world was upside down. In a split second, everything I knew had changed. I was still the same, but the person everyone saw when they looked at me—she was a stranger.
They thought I'd slept my way into the job. That I'd had an affair with my married boss, and now I was sleeping with his son.
I was going to throw up.
Cooper's hand closed around my arm yanking me to a stop. “Where are you going? Don't listen to my mother—”
Pain sliced through my heart. Cooper thought I'd slept with his father. He thought I was capable of showing up to work every day with a smile on my face after spending my nights in his father's bed. That I could so easily betray my husband and ignore his father’s wife. All this time, Cooper thought that’s who I was.
I couldn’t stand it a second longer.
“You think I slept with your father?”
Cooper’s eyes locked on mine as if he were trying to read my soul.
In his own eyes, I saw the absolute truth.
He did. He really did think I'd slept with his father, that I’d betrayed my vows.
That my moral compass was so askew I'd been able to hop from my husband’s bed to his father’s and to my desk without a hitch.
Finally, he said, “Alice, it was a long time ago—”
I wrenched my arm back, but his grip was iron. Deciding something, Cooper turned, striding toward the door and pulling me along with him. Fine. I'd said I didn't want another scene, and I meant it.
I didn't want to think, didn't want to put these pieces together all the way. Didn’t want to understand what this meant.
He came to a stop in the hall outside the ballroom.
Pulling me beside a stack of chairs that had been tucked behind the side curtain, he looked down at me, concern clouding his icy blue eyes.
“Alice, I don’t understand why you're so upset. I know. I've always known. I forgave you a long time ago. I don't care anymore. Like I told my mom, it’s ancient history.”
“Why do you think I slept with Maxwell?” I demanded, cutting him off.
He forgave me?
The presumed generosity—like he was doing me a favor—broke through my shock like shards of glass in an open wound.
Cooper was finally getting that something was wrong because he took a step back and said slowly, “My father told me. When he hired you.”
“What exactly did he say?” I asked, my words clipped and quiet.
Cooper shifted, crossing his arms over his chest. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it for a moment, appearing to reorder his thoughts before he said simply, “That he was sleeping with you when he hired you, and a few months after that, he said it was over.”
Yeah, right. I knew Maxwell. I’d worked with him for four years before he'd disappeared. I was absolutely sure whatever Maxwell had said about me hadn't been that generous or appropriate.
Considering the names Lacey had called me, and knowing Maxwell's vocabulary, I could only imagine what he’d told his son.
Bile rose in my throat. My heart thumped in my chest, bruised and aching. I couldn't look at Cooper, couldn't see that forgiveness for my sins in his eyes.
My chest so tight I could barely draw a breath, my words came out propelled by little more than sheer will. Looking past him at the wall, I said, “It would have been nice if someone had asked me. I never slept with your father, Cooper.”
“Alice—” Cooper reached for me, but I dodged to the side, looking over my shoulder and seeing the door to the ladies’ room.
“Just… Give me a minute, Cooper. I just need a minute, okay?”
I lurched across the hall, pushing through the door, barely hearing him say, “I'll be right here,” before it shut behind me.
Women crowded the generous space, sitting at the vanity tables touching up their hair and makeup, gossiping about the other guests. No one spared me a glance. I was a nobody.
Heartsick and numb with shock, I wove through the crowd, taking the large handicapped stall at the end and locking the door behind me. I closed the seat on the toilet and sat, bracing my elbows on my knees, holding my head in my hands.
I couldn’t go back out there, couldn’t look Cooper in the eye. Forget about the rest of them. Axel, Evers, Knox. Emma. Oh, God, did Emma think I’d slept with Maxwell?
Everyone knows.
My heart turned to ice at the thought. They’d all believed Maxwell’s story. I couldn’t go back out there. Not now. Maybe not ever. All I wanted was escape. To hide. To get away from the ugly truth I’d never suspected.
The moment that thought surfaced, I knew what I had to do.
Run.
Run fast and far, before Cooper could figure out what I’d done. Once I was alone, really alone, I could stop and think about what to do next.
I sat up, pushing aside my pain and humiliation, forcing myself to think. And then I saw it.
My one stroke of good luck.
The bathroom had a window. And I had my way out.