Chapter 20: Arianna
What are my parents doing here?
I feel hot and sick and scared and freaked out.
They will call him Dell!
Beck knows him as Hasmund!
So does Donovan!
They all think the baby belongs to both of us!
Mom knows I was never pregnant!
Everything is about to blow up in our faces.
Dell grabs my hand. “It will be all right,” he says.
“No, it won’t!” I hiss.
“Arianna!” my mother says, walking toward me, arms outstretched. She looks like she just came off a runway in a sleek heather gray sheath and killer stilettos. Her hair is perfectly coiffed in a long bob. Chunky jewelry on her neck, wrists, and ears could only have been put together by a stylist.
“What do we do?” I whisper in Dell’s ear.
“Just fake it,” Dell says.
“Darling,” Mom says, leaning forward as if she’ll hug me, but I know better. That would muss her hair. She air-kisses me instead. Can’t wreck the lipstick.
She holds my shoulders as she takes in my blue dress and cardigan. Off the rack. Knockoff. Not her standard.
“You look like you’re fitting in here,” she says.
That’s about the best she can do without insulting me.
She turns to Dell. “And please introduce us.”
Oh, God. How do I do this?
But Dell extends a hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Hart,” he says, avoiding his name. “Arianna speaks so well of you.”
“Bridget, please,” Mom says, watching him with hooded eyes. “I was delighted to hear of your engagement to my daughter.”
“Hey, princess,” Dad says, giving me a proper hug. “Mom saw that picture you posted and realized you were in Alabama. She practically lassoed a plane to get here.”
“Thank goodness we could make it,” Mom says. Her eyes flit between me and Dell. “Who was the woman in the image? Someone local? A babysitter, perhaps?”
Shit shit shit. I stumble, but it’s Beck who saves us this time.
He walks up, extending his hand to Dad as he says, “When I got the call, I could scarcely believe we’d have Cambridge Hart here at our track.”
Theresa comes forward to clasp Mom’s hand. “We arranged for the happy couple to be here as well. You must be so thrilled. We couldn’t get enough of these two at the engagement party last night.”
My mother sends me a side glance. “How lovely for Dell’s family to offer a party. I wish we could have come.”
Theresa tilts her head at the word “Dell.”
I stifle my gasp, my fingers in a death grip on Dell.
He smooths past it with a change of subject. “Please sit near us,” he says to Mom, pulling out a chair.
This breaks up the little party. I notice Donovan near the side wall, stars in his eyes with the presence of my parents. Yeah, they’re probably good contacts to have.
My heart will not stop hammering. This cannot possibly end well.
I tell myself it’s Dell’s secret, the name part. That I shouldn’t worry. But it’s Grace too. And she is mine, even if it isn’t on paper yet. The Duchess can’t be involved. No one can know.
My palms start to sweat.
Each table seats four, so Dell and I sit with my parents.
Theresa and Beck want to hover, I can tell, but they are polite and retreat to their original seats.
The room is a little fuller now with the other couples. Donovan approaches and I don’t see how we can introduce him without messing up the name again.
But Dell has it well in hand. “This is my brother Donovan,” he says. “He just graduated from the University of Texas in International Business. I think we can all agree that Alabama is like a whole ’nother country.”
Everyone laughs. Donovan pulls up a chair, and I lean into Dell.
His face is relaxed, attentive, calm. But I can sense the underlying tension in his body.
Mom turns to me. “So tell me about this party last night.” Like Dell, her face is placid and pleasant. But I can see the falseness in her smile.
“It was a surprise,” I say. “We came down for a nice luncheon with family, but they planned an impromptu event.”
Dell squeezes my hand, and I know I’ve done well. I can avoid names. Skirt issues.
It’s just that she’s my mother. In the end I will probably do no better avoiding what she wants than Dell did for this morning’s breakfast.
Donovan looks at each of us, smoothing his hand along his jaw. He’s picking up on the redirects, the feints.
“Where do you all hang your hat?” he asks my parents.
“Spoken like a born-again Texan,” Dell says. Everyone laughs.
My father answers him. “We are based out of New York, like Dell and Arianna here.”
Donovan’s face flickers at the second mention of this name. “My brother took his sweet time making it back to Alabama,” Donovan says. He’s not saying Dell’s name either. He’s bound to be figuring it out. “But I’ve been in Texas for years myself. I appreciate them coming down while I was visiting. How long are you here for?”
“I’m sure we’ll all head back tomorrow,” Dell says. “Arianna and I are expected in the office. Won’t you come with us?” he asks my parents.
And this is when my show-off attitude from a few days ago bites me in the butt.
“Do you have your private plane here?” Mom asks.
You could have heard a pin drop in the Sky Box.
Donovan speaks first. “You have your own plane, brother?”
“Well, how ’bout that,” Beck says, leaning back in his chair so he can get a better look. “Now that’s a showboat if I ever heard of one.”
“Must be mighty convenient,” Theresa says. “Beck and I dread flying anywhere.”
“I do have it here,” Dell says evenly. “I can send a driver after you in the morning if you’d like to go back with us.”
Mom glances over at Dad with a knowing nod. She seems pleased.
“Your plane rated for that many people?” Dad asks. “My friend Frank Marker can only carry four plus a pilot.”
“It’s a jet,” Dell says simply. “And I can carry ten plus crew.”
The room goes quiet, probably everyone thinking about what it must be like to have your own private plane. Thankfully, the gun fires for the next race, and the rest of the room turns to the windows to watch the greyhounds.
“All right, darling,” Mom says. “We can catch up with details on the flight.” She glances around. “This is quite a large facility.”
Beck leans over again, his hand on the back of my chair. “One of the largest. Opened in 1987. Had its doom-and-gloom years, but we just finished a major renovation.”
“Same ownership all this time?” my father asks, and I don’t miss my mother’s subtle elbow in his gut.
I’m sweating everywhere. I hadn’t corrected my mother’s belief that Dell’s family owned the racecourse. I had no idea this was going to happen.
Beck handles it. “Oh, no. It’s changed hands a few times. Right now it’s a fellow out of Montgomery. We don’t see him much. I’ve been managing it for a couple decades.”
Mom nods politely, but I can see wheels turning, trying to figure out Dell’s family’s position here if not the owner or manager. She turns to Dell. “I’m surprised your family isn’t up here in the box.”
Beck raises his eyebrows at that.
“Oh, they’re around,” Dell says.
“We should meet them!” Mom says. “Is there another club level?”
I can hear in her voice that she hopes so. This one hasn’t impressed her.
“They have a lot of duties on race night,” Dell says. He glances at me. “Your arrival is quite the surprise. We hadn’t planned on seeing my parents tonight.”
I’m panicking. She’s my mother, but her superpower is the ability to judge people and dismiss them faster than traffic court.
I’m in no way ready to have her meet Wynona and, God, Byron. The father who thinks I’m stout. Who nearly came to blows with Dell last night.
This is an unmitigated disaster. The only thing I can hope for is a cyclone to swoop in and take all of Birmingham Race Course with it.