Chapter 3
Gwen
The day was clear and beautiful for mid-winter, but Gwen couldn’t bring herself to enjoy it. Not even when she popped out of her taxi and inhaled the fresh air blowing in from a community garden on the other side of the street. She cinched her winter coat closer to her body and entered the unmarked building closely guarded by security personnel posing as uniformed doormen.
Everything about this building, from its high-security apartments and office suites, to its rooftop clubs and restaurants, had been unknown to Gwen before she met James. Back then, she was a poverty-line bartender scraping by with roommates and nothing but a GED in her back pocket. She passed this building every day, assuming it was boring offices for lawyers and rent-controlled apartments. Without a fancy name slapped on the side or ornate architecture to attract the eye, she never had a reason to believe some of the city’s richest and most influential either lived in this building or conducted their social lives within its confines.
Gwen had been here innumerable times over the past seven years. Now, she didn’t think twice about saying hello to security and nodding her head to the well-dressed receptionist rising from his high-tech desk with a practiced smile they still taught at finishing schools around the city. She relayed the name of the café she had reservations at and was permitted into the guarded elevator on the other side of the lobby. The elevator attendant tipped his hat and pressed a polite finger against the number for the top floor.
It didn’t take me long to get used to this, did it? The café was members only, but Gwen had been invited within two years of publicly dating James. That was two years of proving herself as a well-mannered lady – and a good-time friend to the heiresses who found her refreshing and charming. Some women, like Jasmine Cole, struggled to fit in with the raucous group that ran the city from behind the scenes, but Gwen was a natural when it came to socializing and buttering people up. How else did she get good enough at bartending to work at a place James would soon frequent after college? The man didn’t mind getting down and dirty with commoners, but he didn’t exactly hang out at Pat’s Pizzeria and Tavern on Friday nights.
It also helped that James’s closest friends tended to be more easygoing heirs and businessmen who didn’t care about Gwen’s pedigree as long as she could take a joke and dish them back. Which was why it was only natural that she would become somewhat close with heiress Kathryn Alison, the girlfriend of James’s best friend, Ian Mathers.
Kathryn rose from their table as soon as she saw Gwen emerge from the elevator and pass the maître d’s podium. They exchanged kisses to the cheeks and sat down in time for the waiter to approach. Gwen knew exactly what she wanted before she sat down.
“I hear the oysters are to die for this season.” Kathryn handed the one-page menu back to the waiter before refocusing her attention on Gwen. “And the goose, but I’m trying to cut back on my meat consumption. Again.”
She said that with a sigh. Gwen couldn’t help but reply, “I had plenty of goose to last me a lifetime yesterday at Albert’s birthday dinner.”
“Oh, yikes.”
“Tell me about it. If Charlotte and her father hadn’t come to hog some of the conversation, I might’ve jumped out the window.”
“How is she these days? I haven’t seen her in ages.”
“Who, Charlotte?” Gwen shrugged. “She was hopping around Europe for most of twenty-seventeen. Don’t think she got back until last month. You could tell, too. She’s so jetlagged.”
“Jetlagged and boozed up is probably the only way to get through Albert Merange’s birthday dinner.”
Gwen almost choked on her ice water. “You have nooo idea.”
“Go on. Spill. What is that bastard doing to ruin your life now?”
Nobody was more in-the-know on the drama than Kathryn and Ian, who were not only close to Gwen and James, but doubtlessly spent hours gossiping about the knowledge they had and the general, socially elite public didn’t. Everyone by now knew that something shady had gone down to create Patrick Merange – although there were many who refused to believe that James hadn’t cheated and Gwen needed to pack her bags – but only those closest to the family knew exactly what had transpired to irreparably damage familial bonds.
“Jesus.” Kathryn held up her cocktail and shook her head. “That man has got to be one of the biggest narcissists around, and that says so much. No wonder he and Sarah Welsh were meant to be together. She’s the second biggest narcissist in town.”
Gwen let out an unladylike laugh that made her the target of everyone else’s glares. Piss off, princesses. Most of the lunch crowd was made up of matriarchs and their heiress daughters. If someone wasn’t drunk right now, they could still be called a functioning alcoholic outside of the café. Some are better at hiding it than others. There was a reason the menu there was so short – most of the patrons drank their lunches.
Gwen didn’t give a fuck if some half-high heiress found her uncouth. Nor did she care if some businessman’s trophy wife stuck up her nose at Gwen’s presence. Most of them didn’t have any room to talk. Gwen knew how to blend in. Sometimes, though, she didn’t give a shit!
“How are you and James doing?”
Questions like that were what made half the women in the room functioning alcoholics. Gwen certainly wished she had ordered something stronger than iced tea.
“We’re not doing anything.” Sighing, Gwen sat back in her seat, legs properly crossed and handkerchief laying across her lap.
“Still? Damn. Thought that maybe after a year…”
“When your trust in someone is that damaged, it’s difficult to recover.”
“Even when you find out the truth so quickly?”
“It’s not only about James…” Gwen didn’t know how to explain it. Any anger she felt toward James didn’t have to do with him, per se. He was innocent in this, and many women would say it was admirable that he was so adamant about being a father to a boy. “It’s his family. I don’t trust them.”
“Ahh, yes. The Meranges are… ruthless.”
“I know, but they’re not as ruthless as the Welshes, and I’m mixed up with them, too.”
“Have you guys gone to couple’s therapy yet?”
“We’ve tried.” Gwen didn’t want to think about that. “Didn’t really get anywhere.”
Kathryn didn’t say anything, much to Gwen’s relief. So when she opened her mouth to ask another question, Gwen was compelled to interrupt with the crux of her problem.
“I keep thinking that I should cut my losses and leave.”
The silence now simmering at their table was much alike the silences in couple’s therapy. I feel terrible saying that, but it’s the truth. Who else can I tell right now? She had already dropped hints to her friend Charlotte that she was thinking of breaking up with James for good. It didn’t matter how much a woman loved a man. It also sometimes didn’t matter if that man had a good heart and had never hurt her in the seven years they had been together. Sometimes, the powers that be – the ones really pulling the puppet strings in the background – were dark enough that a girl needed to know when to run.
“Leave, huh?” Kathryn’s hands remained wrapped around her cocktail. “I can’t even imagine it. You and James have been together for as long as I can remember.”
“Yeah, well…” Gwen sipped her cold tea. Not enough lemon. Nobody gave her enough lemon slices, even if she asked for two. “Things change. We had a good run, but it’s kinda like a TV show, you know? At some point, everything jumps the shark, and it feels like the writers are putting in outrageous, contrived scenarios to get more ratings. That’s what this whole past year has felt like. While everyone around us is hooking up and getting married, we’re over here falling apart.”
Kathryn cocked her head. Usually, she wore it up in a tight, blond coil that made people ask if it hurt. Today, however, she wore it down and to one side. Luscious, silky locks that were the envy of every brunette heiress in New England. My hair isn’t really blond. I wonder how many people know that? James knew it. Charlotte knew it. Gwen had been dying her light brown hair blond for so many years that not even Amber Mayview, queen of fake blond hair, could hold a candle to Gwen’s layering and highlighting skills.
It ruined the texture of her hair.
“Is it really about the baby, though? And the in-laws?”
Gwen didn’t dare make eye contact with Kathryn as she considered that. “There have always been issues to the undercurrent of our relationship. No relationship is perfect, you know.”
“Don’t I. Being with Ian isn’t a walk in the park, no matter how long you’re with him.”
“I can imagine.” Gwen drummed her fingers against the table. “I love James. Before we were blindsided with a baby, we had issues, but we could deal with them. We were working through them. I can’t deal with those issues and this bullshit. It’s bad enough the whole world knows about what the Welshes did. Now I’m a stepmom? Just like that? It’s way too much. James and I still aren’t even sure where we’re going over the long term. It would’ve been one thing if I got knocked up. Or if he at least had slept with the mother of his child…”
Kathryn couldn’t stand the ensuing silence, could she? “That’s the danger we sign up for committing to men who have… uh, pasts.”
Right. Because Kathryn was the one woman who understood what kind of “past” James had. Ian is probably worse. Gwen had heard all the stories about their frat boy days. “Endless pussy for days, Gwenny. I’m not ashamed to admit your boy here took part in the plunder. Only with the willing, of course. But, you know me… lots of women willing…” He always told those stories with a wink and the kind of charming smile that made it a hilarious anecdote as opposed to, “How many illegitimate children do you have, James?”
Kathryn was not the mothering kind, like Gwen. For Kathryn, she probably worried every day she would have stepmother-hood dropped on her the day one of Ian’s ex-lovers appeared with a kid that looked like him. Well, it had happened to Gwen, but it was all wrong!
“Don’t mind me,” Gwen said. “Musing out loud.”
“You have every right to be…”
Gwen cut her friend off with a gasp. As if God had decided to fuck with her some more, the elevator doors to the members-only café opened to admit a contingency of Welsh women.
No, not the ones from Wales. (Although the Welshes certainly claimed to be… Welsh.) The ones that had set out to destroy Gwen’s life and relationship.
Madam Sarah Walsh walked in first, her trendy trousers sashaying with her legs as she corralled a toy poodle on a leash. Behind her?
Her only child. Cassandra.
Gwen hadn’t seen the oft talked-about woman in months. Seen her pictures? Yes. Heard the outrageous stories? Obviously. Seen her in the flesh, let alone heard that whispery voice that somehow seduced half the men in the world but couldn’t make James Merange bend enough to bed her?
No. Gwen had made sure of that. Yet she supposed she couldn’t completely avoid a wealthy heiress around those parts.
“Wow.” Kathryn drank the last of her cocktail. “Wow.”
Gwen couldn’t take her eyes off the woman who had effectively ruined her life. Cassandra Welsh was one of those effortless beauties who managed to be both wounded deer and strong, independent woman. Gwen had it on good authority – such as Kathryn’s – that Cassandra was a master seductress who could change her appearance like a manipulative chameleon. That’s how she was able to bed men who preferred their women loud and proud, and men who saw themselves as the hero in every girlfriend’s story. She’s got problems. I can’t hold that against her. The truly terrible thing about all this coming out in public discussion was how much of Cassandra’s mental health had been put on trial. Then again, Gwen often mused, no woman went around acting like that without having some sort of issue. Apparently, Cassandra’s was a perpetually broken heart.
Not my fault she can’t seduce James! Gwen had to control her breathing before it fled her body and left her a withered shell.
“What are the odds?” Kathryn asked.
“Pretty good, apparently.” Gwen grabbed her things before the waiter brought her lunch. “I’m sorry, Kathryn. I can’t…”
“I understand.” She put her hand on Gwen’s. “I’ll take care of the bill and have your meal forwarded to your house.”
“Thanks.” Even after seven years, Gwen forgot that was a service the rich relied on, like poor people asking for Styrofoam boxes at the end of a meal. “I’ll make it up to you later this week. Maybe at the gym?”
“Sounds great.”
Gwen intended to leave with dignity. She wouldn’t spare the Welshes a single glance, nor would she try to hide her identity on her way out the door. I don’t care if they never see me. I don’t care if they do see me and are scandalized by my beating heart. Gwen cared if they thought her a coward, instead of a woman making a harsh statement.
Haughty heiresses and their hoity-toity mothers played these games every single day. How many women had scoffed and left a room when Gwen first started coming to these places? Everyone had their petty, petty lines they drew in the metaphorical sand when someone they found displeasing walked into a room.
Gwen had never indulged in that socialite’s right until Cassandra Fucking Welsh.
“Where’s your son?” Gwen wanted to ask her. “Is he with a nanny right now, when he could be with his father? How much do you really care about the man you claim to love?”
Much to Gwen’s chagrin, however, she caught Sarah Welsh’s eye.
“Ms. Mitchell!” she called with that bird-like voice she loved to unleash upon Gwen. “How are you?”
Gwen stopped in her tracks. Half the café put down their utensils and stared at them, ready for the show of the week.
Gwen slowly turned her head, sharp, narrowing eyes glaring at the mastermind behind Operation Baby. You’re the real person I despise in all of this, Welsh. You’re the one who put the diabolical idea in your daughter’s head.
Cassandra wouldn’t spare Gwen a glance. Perhaps it wasn’t because she thought herself so much better than Gwen. If anything, it was probably because she felt at least a little shame for what she had done, which was more shame than Sarah would ever feel.
Narcissists. They flocked together, didn’t they?
“Doing quite well, thank you, Madam Welsh.” Gwen spared her only the slightest smile. More like a smirk than a movement of mirth. “I trust that things are going your way, as usual?”
Sarah threw that smirk right back at her. “Why wouldn’t it be, Ms. Mitchell?”
Gwen was close enough that she didn’t hesitate to flip them a bird on her way out the door. Talk about that for a few weeks, you fucking hags. Not classy, but sometimes she had to put her low-class rearing to work. Anything good enough for a bar was good enough for this prissy café.