Chapter 12
Skyler
I’m driving away from a house that smells like lasagna, toward a club that smells like chlorine, expensive laundry detergent, and the quiet, high-frequency hum of old money.
My phone is sitting in the cup holder, a black slab of potential disaster.
Every time it vibrates, it feels like a small electric shock to my thigh.
Harley. It has to be Harley. Or maybe Steven, calling to tell me what a monumental idiot I am.
I don’t need the reminder. After all, my stomach is already a knot of tension that no amount of deep breathing can untie.
Arriving at the country club, I pull under the portico. The valet, a boy who looks like he’s eighteen but carries the practiced subservience of a career butler, opens my door. I hand him the keys without looking him in the eye.
Because I’m already checking my cuffs, straightening my blazer, and putting on the mask. It’s a physical sensation, the way the Thompson skin slides back over my own. It’s cooler, tighter, and infinitely more durable.
The lobby’s air conditioning hits me like a wall of ice, instantly drying the sweat on the back of my neck.
It’s a specific kind of cold—the kind that costs money to maintain in July.
Knowing exactly where they’ll be, I head to table seven.
The corner table with the unobstructed view of the eighteenth green.
It’s the table my father has occupied for thirty years.
We’ve made multi-million-dollar deals at that table.
I see them before they see me.
Father is leaning back, a gin and tonic already in his hand, looking every bit the patriarch in his cream-colored linen suit. Meanwhile, my mother, Elaine, is the picture of architectural precision.
And then there are the Davises. Bill Davis is leaning in, laughing at something my father said.
He’s a man built of steak and golf, a silent partner in the Henderson deal and a loud presence in every room he enters.
His wife, Cynthia, is nodding along, her smile as fixed and glittering as the diamonds on her fingers.
But it’s the woman sitting between my mother and my empty chair that makes my heart skip a beat for all the wrong reasons.
Amanda Davis.
She looks perfect—and that’s the problem with Amanda.
She never looks anything less than a high-fashion editorial.
Right now, she’s wearing a sleeveless red dress that clings to her in a way that suggests she knows exactly how many eyes are on her.
Color of a warning sign, and I’m walking straight toward it.
My mother glances my way as I approach. “There he is,” she says, her voice carrying just enough to let the surrounding tables know the guest of honor has arrived. “We were thinking the traffic from the…outskirts was worse than we thought.”
The outskirts. A jab at the Matthews’ neighborhood. I feel the burn of it in my chest, but I don’t let it reach my face. Truthfully, I like Jake and his lifestyle—not that my parents would approve of such things.
Funny how I spent years working toward independence and winning at it—new woman, apartment, finances separate from the official Thompson name—only for a bit of mold to destroy it.
And now I’m stuck. Back to where I started.
Including with Amanda.
“Traffic was fine, Mother,” I say, my voice smooth and modulated. I greet my father with a nod, shake Bill Davis’s hand, and offer a polite smile to Cynthia. Then I turn to my ex-fiancée. “Amanda, I didn’t know you’d be joining us.”
“A happy surprise,” my mother interjects before Amanda can speak. “We’re all family, after all.”
I take my seat. It’s a narrow space, wedged between my mother and Amanda. Elaine has orchestrated this seating chart with the tactical brilliance of a five-star general. I am pinned.
“Hi, Skyler,” Amanda says. Her voice is a low, melodic purr I used to find comforting back when we opted for PB it’s about the legacy we’re building.
Talks of gardens and weeds is utter nonsense.
Let your mother handle the details so you can focus on the Henderson project—that’s where your energy belongs. ”
My throat tightens. It’s a physical sensation, like a hand slowly closing around my windpipe. I take a shallow breath.
The server arrives with the first course—poached salmon on a bed of green beans.
A bit heavy for brunch, but that’s the way.
It’s beautiful, expensive, and entirely tasteless.
Embarrassed at being called out, I pick up my fork and begin the slow, methodical process of eating, while Amanda continues to smile beside me, her presence a constant, suffocating weight against my side.
I am exactly where my mother wants me to be, and for the first time in my life, I don’t know how to find the exit.
Throughout our meal, we talk business. Though my attention floats between willing my body to stand and storm out and placating my parents to make it stop.