Chapter 23 Michelle - Beverly Hills 90210 #2
Melanie arrived the next evening looking the same. Crisp, clean, impossibly trim. And she’d recently had a baby. How? My body was still trying to remember what it looked like before Emma.
She hugged me tight, and for a moment, neither of us spoke.
There were too many words, too many years between us.
In the years since I’d extorted our parents in the study, I’d seen my sister only once.
It was before her marriage, when she’d invited me to brunch at this very hotel.
She’d asked me to be in her wedding, and I’d agreed—until the conditions, dictated by our mother, came out.
No Scott. No Keith. No mention of where I’d been for the past three years.
I had no interest in hiding who I loved, and I turned her down. We hadn’t seen each other in person since. Occasionally we spoke on the phone, but the closeness we’d once shared was gone, replaced by a polite distance that neither of us seemed able to cross.
“I wear tutu?” Emma asked, thrusting her Barney it was triumphant. She’d been waiting years for this.
“That man’s name is Scott,” I snapped. “And he’s my husband.”
“No need to be testy, dear.” Her voice softened into something deceptively tender. “You wouldn’t be hiding out in your father’s hotel if your marriage were intact. And quite honestly, it’s a wonder it took this long.” Mother gestured to a chair. “May I?”
She didn’t wait for permission, instead delicately gliding onto the seat.
“But no matter. These things can be corrected. We’ll get you a quiet divorce; discreet of course.
Then we’ll find you someone suitable—someone from a good family, with money, manners, and enough sense to give you and your children the life you were meant to have. ”
Her smile sharpened. “Thank God there are only two of them. Any more and it might have been… complicated. No man wants to take on another man’s brood.”
I dragged in a breath that burned all the way down.
Mother reached across the table, the movement elegant yet calculated, and glided a manicured hand along my cheek.
“It really is good to see you again, Michelle. Daddy and I have missed you so. We understand now that we pushed you into this. You were young. A mistake we all make. Now we fix it.” Her thumb brushed the corner of my mouth, as if wiping Scott away.
“You’re one of us, Michelle. Carvers never forget who they are.”