“It’s not the same at all.” We weren’t the same. All this time, I’d thought we were. “And the fact that you think so shows what a cruel bitch you really are.”
She claps her hands together with mock enthusiasm. “We’ve resorted to name-calling now, have we? How fun!” Her expression grows sober. “You can’t fucking be serious.”
“I’m dead serious, Celia. You will end this. And us…” I pause, not because the words are hard to say, but because I want to make sure she hears their emphasis. “We’re over too. I want you out of my life. Don’t call me. Don’t stop by. Do you understand?”
She sneers. For a woman so about grace and appearances, she can sure put on an ugly face. “It’s not that easy to just cut me out of your life, Hudson. Our families—”
And there’s a blessing about the recent disclosure of our baby lie. “I’m not so sure our families will be a problem after today. I’d bet our parents are not going to want to spend much time together from now on.”
The reminder of her parents and the afternoon’s revelation seems to shake her. She regroups quickly. “Well, we run in the same social circles.”
“And you will steer away from me when we show up at the same event. Do I make myself clear?”
Her nostrils fume, her eyes calculating. But she concedes with one word, “Perfectly.”
For good measure I add, “You do not want to make me your enemy.”
“Funny, I thought you’d already made me yours.”
That truth lingers in the air around us, irrefutable. She may mean I made her my enemy when I dropped out of the game with Alayna. Or when I left it three years ago and entered therapy. But I think instead it’s more accurate that she became my foe that summer ten years ago—when I decided to break her heart.
I’d told her she was suffering from karma. Wasn’t I as well?
We’ve arrived at her apartment building. The cab pulls over to the curb. “Farewell, Hudson. This is for good, I suppose. The taxi’s on you.”
She gets out of the car. I don’t watch after her.
I instruct the driver to head back to The Bowery. There’s just enough time to collect my luggage before heading to the airport for my trip to Japan. If it were only the Plexis deal at stake, I’d cancel. But there’s something else now, something more important. It’s time to act on the information that Warren Werner gave me about the vulnerabilities of his company, and that will begin with a source in Japan.
When I return, my energy will be thrown into repairing my relationship with Alayna. There’s been serious damage done on both our parts, but we can move on, I think. I have to believe that. Because without her, there’s no reason for anything else.
Though much is in turmoil about me, I feel oddly at peace as we return to my penthouse. Celia is gone from my life, and there’s a freedom with that knowledge that I hadn’t expected. Like a long-growing tumor has finally been removed. There will be a scar, I know. I’ll rub at it and scratch at phantom aches. But it’s gone, and, with Alayna, we can finally begin the process of healing.
Chapter Twenty
Before
“Why can’t I just ditch tonight after the actual rehearsal? That’s the important part, right?” Chandler had been trying for twenty straight minutes to get out of Mirabelle’s wedding rehearsal dinner.
My mother tested the temperature of the curling iron¸ her mind clearly more on her task than on her son’s complaints. “I don’t understand why you’re so eager to abandon us.”
He’s fifteen, I wanted to tell her. That was reason enough.
“Because it’s boring!” He flung his hands out, exasperated.
“Chandler!” my mother warned, covering my sister’s ears as if she might be offended by the word boring. As if blocking the sound after the fact could undo that it had been heard.
But boring…that I could agree with, even though I hadn’t been fifteen for nine years. The entire family had spent the last week of August at Mabel Shores preparing for Mirabelle’s wedding weekend. Five days of nothing but social interaction. I was close to going insane. At my sister’s insistence, I’d agreed to not bring any work. It was a mistake. With my mind unoccupied on business, my thoughts returned again and again to my other addiction—the game.
Celia and I were between schemes at the moment—part of the reason I was so eager to concoct a new one. Every guest that walked through our house that week, every visitor, was a potential subject. What could I learn from her? I’d ask myself. Or him? Or them?
Somewhere I recognized that my obsession was getting out of hand. Our experiments had grown more and more complex, more intense, more frequent. Often even my work hours were infiltrated with daydreaming about the next project, the next scam. The week away had made me realize just exactly how consumed I’d become. I felt like a junkie who hadn’t scored in a while—jittery, agitated. On edge.
Needing something to occupy my time, I’d resorted to joining Mirabelle in my mother’s room as Sophia made her presentable for the evening’s rehearsal.
Chandler leaned against the doorframe. I could sense he was on the verge of giving up but not quite. “No one will miss me,” he said quietly.
“I’ll miss you.” My mother didn’t even try to make it sound like she meant it.
My brother and I exchanged a glance. I wasn’t close to Chandler—eleven years of separation made it difficult, not to mention I wasn’t the type to bond. But we were still family, and in that we shared the basest parts of our existence. We had the same parents, the same upbringing. We both knew that he could sneak away from the dinner and our mother would never notice.
Mirabelle knew this as well. Having remained quiet for the bulk of the conversation, she spun to face Chandler now. “I’ll miss you! So for one night, Chandler, can you forget about your friends and stay? For me?”
There wasn’t a person in the world who could say no to Mirabelle Amalie Pierce. The subject was dropped. Chandler left the room with a huff, but he’d stay for the night’s extravaganza.
It occurred to me that Mirabelle could have simply asked him to stay from the very beginning and saved the entire debate. I supposed she’d been giving Sophia a chance to be the mother. It was amazing, really, that she continued to do so. I started to wonder what it would take for Mirabelle’s faith to be broken and then caught myself. Those were the kind of thoughts that led to experiments. And no matter how desperate I was for a fix, I wouldn’t play on Mirabelle. I couldn’t.
I forced myself to concentrate on the scene at hand for distraction. Mirabelle sat at the vanity, my mother stood behind her, working on her hair. She was even, near as I could tell, sober. A memory flashed through my mind, or rather a collage of memories. Times that my sister and I had sat around my mother’s feet as she primped in front of that same mirror. She’d sit there for ages, dolling herself up. I’d watch as she applied her rouge, plucked her eyebrows, straightened her hair, and every time, I’d think how beautiful my mother was.
Though it had been a frequent occurrence, I’d seemed to have forgotten. Those had been good moments. There had been good times.
The memory inserted a warmth to the present, like a light had been focused on us, brightening the ordinary moment into something meaningful.
“Good thing your hair only hits your shoulders. We’d never get ready in time otherwise.” Even my mother’s complaining seemed less dreary.