Chapter 23
“You could wear it today. To cover up your wrist tattoo.”
Such a simple line, so much hidden meaning.
To cover up, to conceal. To hide from view.
I fully understand his parents and grandparents are super rich; would the idea that someone permanently decorated their skin with ink be so heinous?
Mason has tattoos on his torso. Several, in fact.
But his are hidden under his shirt and vest most days.
Not even the V-neck of one of his luxurious polo shirts would reveal a whisper of ink.
He chose areas that no one will see unless he’s shirtless on a yacht in the Bahamas with me.
Or perhaps the cuff cover-up speaks more to the misogyny of men being able to do a hell of a lot more than women can and not attract half the criticism.
Either way, I swapped my watch to the other wrist and slid the cuff into place. To conceal.
During the hour-long drive out to the sprawling family estate where Mason was raised, he offers facts about his family, along with multiple warnings and instructions not to divulge anything unless asked directly. What the fuck? I don’t want them to think I’m rude.
The regal family of more money than they will ever need, of miners and media trailblazers, and he’s worried about my conversational abilities?
If the cuff was the first blow, his edict to stay mute unless asked a direct question is an almost knockout punch.
The animosity radiates off him like a fever, and most of it is directed at his mother, Alice.
The same woman whom style vloggers crave to emulate, and charities survive but only by the generosity of her full and pure heart.
The homeless, the poor, children with acute illnesses and learning difficulties.
I thought briefly about talking to her about Caitlin’s predicament and raising awareness for Coats’ disease.
The way Mason describes her and his grandfather makes me want to avoid them like a rampaging plague.
As a guest of their meticulously manicured estate, I’m not sure how much avoiding I will manage, especially with a photographer in session to capture the event.
The car pulls up to a set of elaborate iron gates as high as the windows in the penthouse, and almost as wide.
While Mason waits for the scanner to read his license plate and allow us entry, I crane my neck and still can’t see the house.
Clusters of trees spring up from sections in the expansive snow-dusted lawn, the sealed driveway more of a country lane.
The security vehicles pull off to a separate shoulder, and we continue past elms and aspens, oaks and pines, boughs draped in a recent snowfall and offering a magical glimpse into what I assume the English countryside would look like.
As the house, sorry, manor comes into view behind rows of trellised roses pruned so that they might burst forward with new growth again after the thaw, my jaw slackens. This is where Mason grew up?
Architectural columns shoot skyward, supporting sprawling wings and multiple stories.
I can almost picture a swing set jutting haphazardly from a cluster of elm trees before I remember this is the Mercer mansion and there were no doubt more entertaining options for children than swings.
More security appear on foot, this time not even bothering to conceal their weapons.
Dressed head to toe in black and carrying rifles at the ready, I’m concerned we’re entering a war zone rather than a family home.
“Come.” Mason offers his hand as I step from the Bugatti, placing one spiked Gucci heel down, then another. We walk together, side by side but not touching, as per his instructional brief, into a building that shaped the formative years of the Mercer children and ultimately changed my life.
“Is Alice in the conservatory?” Mason asks an older uniformed gentleman I assume is the butler. He opens the door and takes our coats. And why the use of her first name? If I called my mother Molly, she would whip me with a rolled-up dish towel.
“Yes, sir.”
“Of course she is. Come on.” His frustrated tone makes no sense. Can’t his mother enjoy a little alone time? Why so much hostility?
Mason sets off through the grand foyer and another room whose function I can’t name.
Perhaps it’s one of those reception rooms from older times.
Mom would refer to it as a useless room that requires more furniture and additional cleaning.
Cleaning this room would be enough for several people.
We continue down a long corridor with a study and a smaller living room with a fireplace already burning.
The scent of the logs yielding to the flame provides a homely comfort absent in this austere void.
A sunken atrium comes into view just as Mason slows his steps.
“This,” he says, arms wide, “is the conservatory.” He announces with clear disdain. “Home to horrendous memories, and oh look, there is Malice herself.”
Did he just say Malice? He pushes the door open with more force than necessary and guides me through.
Then he slams it hard enough to rattle the glass.
Alice Mercer is tending to a potted plant, a branch of it cradled between her gloved fingers.
On noticing the noise, her head tips up before she regards us as the intruders we are.
Slowly she releases the branch and removes her gardening gloves.
One at a time, her elegant fingers are revealed, adorned with glittering gems and bands of gold and platinum.
“Mother, I thought it best to capture you in your native environment. Please meet Sabrina Broe, the guest you were informed would accompany me to this Thanksgiving spectacle. I’m going to need an exact ETA on the food, and we’ll meet you in the dining room.
” His callous word vomit has my pulse racing.
Who speaks to their mom like this? I smile to mask my unease.
Alice glides regally over in her loafers, scrutinizing me with every step.
Her gaze lands on the wrist cuff, and I’m thankful she doesn’t possess x-ray vision.
She stops in front of her son while he regards her with as much animosity, if not more.
Here I was thinking she’d plant a kiss on his cheek the way rich people do, embrace me and ask how we met.
Absolutely not. This is buying a ticket to a fun-loving rom com only to sit in the theater and find out it’s a horror.
A horror I have a cameo role in. Where is the elegant style icon from the Christmas shoot and the gold carpet?
“Thank you for inviting me. Your home is lovely,” I blurt, desperate for sound to cleave through the icy silence.
I expect my gushing praise to be accompanied by puffs of air, given the vista beyond the glass.
Only, it’s warm here. It must be heated somehow for the plants to thrive like this.
Tropical flowers and exotic leaves, all carrying on with life as if they weren’t plucked from a rainforest and potted in a Connecticut conservatory.
“I didn’t invite you,” she snaps. “My son did. And food? 12:20. As it is every year, Mason,” she spits, and the blood just about freezes in my arteries. The snow outside is more temperate than the woman before us.
“Fine,” Mason replies before we are speeding back toward that precarious glass door and out of the conservatory.
The photographer has a tripod set up in the corner of the opulent dining room.
The walls are paneled wainscoting, giving way to rich textural wallpapers and windows with sentinel drapery and gilded tassels.
Everything is a deep, dark red, from the walls and the burgundy and gold curtains, to the opulent table polished to a high sheen.
Mahogany, just like the desk in Mason’s office.
There are three chandeliers, all identical, dropping from the ornate ceiling like acrobats witnessing the theater.
I feel like the kid who got lost on an excursion to the museum, picked up and deposited at the back of the line of another school I don't know. The faces are unfriendly; the moods are far from buoyant and thankful; they’re thunderous and detached.
Only Monica and Frazer and their children provide any thaw to the icicles consuming everything in their path.
“Hey, Bri! It is Bri, isn’t it?” Monica queries while staying as far as possible from the big prey on the Serengeti. Her radiant smile is the first set of teeth I’ve seen since arriving. It’s a welcome relief from the sneers and scowls.
“I don’t understand. Did something happen?”
“No, not really. This is reality. This is us. The magical Mercer family in all its glory. Now you know why I married and took my husband’s name.
That, and I bucked the trend of those wretched M names for good.
No one, and I mean no one, wants that reminder.
That’s why I insist on Nic,” she supplies, her brevity welcomed.
“That, and that it pisses off every sexist asshole here.” This time, she hides her smile behind her wine glass.
My fingers play with the cuff. I rotate it and then bring it back to where it was before.
I want to pinch myself and see if I wake up from this nightmare.
When Thanksgiving was listed as one of Mason’s five mandatory required days, I thought that it underscored the importance of connection and family.
These people clearly despise each other.
Some parts of the family may be in alliances against others, but that would take closer inspection, and I’m not sure I have the fortitude.
Slowly, snippets of Trystan’s words come back to me with hazy edges.
A memory of Alice sporting an impressive hair clip for the Christmas shoot.
“So beautiful,” I’d said, admiring how effortlessly radiant and put-together she was.
“The clip, yes, the wearer, well, let Mason introduce you. Then you can make up your mind.”