Page 39 of It Happened Duo
“Pearl, be a dear and leave us to chat.” She motioned with her black designer clutch at my office door.
“Rex, I’ll be at my desk if you need me.” The glares shared between the two women indicated no love lost there.
“Finally, we’re alone,” Marlena smiled with a similar haughtiness Mom always displayed, and plunked down into an office chair.
I rubbed my eyes to get the merged vision of my mother and her as one woman out of my brain. “What do you want?”
“I told you at the party in the Hamptons what I wanted. My trust fund. I have to marry before I turn thirty on Christmas Day, and it’s already early November. I don’t have much time, Rex.”
Oh good. Another reason to hate Christmas. “Not interested. Please leave and find some other sap to marry you.”
From her bag, Marlena produced her phone, swipedthrough some things and placed it before me. Seeing Chelsea in her zombie get up knocking over the lamp sent me reeling. “How’d you get this? Mom and I paid off the photographer to lose the photos.”
“And I paid him more to give them tome.” Her stupid grin made me physically ill.
“Doesn’t matter. You can hardly tell who it is with all the makeup.”
“Hm, true. Except that photos of the zombies that night before the fire show three women having fun working the event all over their social media profiles. It only took me a few clicks to find out who Chelsea is, the woman you were so concerned about getting to safety when the fire broke out, and never gave one glance over your shoulder at me. But don’t worry. I made it out just fine.”
“So, a lamp got knocked over. The fire was an accident.”
“That’s odd. My recollection of events—along with the photographer’s—told the police otherwise. They’re very curious who this perpetrator is who purposely set the room ablaze. And it’ll take one phone call to the police to have her arrested.”
“You wouldn’t.” Evil bitch.
“To get what I want? Yes, I would. There’s two hundred and fifty million dollars wasting away in a trust fund that I want. Now, you’re going to marry me or I’ll turn Chelsea in.”
“Don’t do this.”
“From the look on your face, she obviously means a lot to you. So, marry me, or send her to jail. I’ll need your choiceby the morning because time is wasting and even a small wedding like ours will take time to plan.”
She stood and marched to the door, hesitating only to give me a final warning in her glance.
Karma, that’s what this was. Pure fucking karma. And I deserved it after what I did to Chelsea.
Begging for her hand in marriage so I could remodel a fucking building I hated? Who the hell did that?
Me. I did, and probably ripped her heart to pieces by the look on her face when she passed me the ring back.
My own heart was acting weird, all achy and twisted. It had to be the guilt of what I did eating away at me with every second that passed. And now Marlena’s evil plan was my penance. My choice was obvious. There’s no way I’d let her send Chelsea to jail.
21
JUST A BUG
CHELSEA
A severe headachestarted the moment I woke up Monday, and didn’t stop for three days. “I should have stayed home,” I grumbled to Annie after I yelled at one of my best sandwich makers in the middle of the lunch rush. That wasn’t like me, but Rex’s so-called proposal still weighed heavily.
“Then go home, sweetie. We’ll be fine. You should rest, get rid of this bug you’ve had,” Annie said, a worried, motherly nature in her tone. With her graying hair tucked under a net and her wire-rimmed glasses, she often reminded me of an old picture from a storybook of Old Mother Hubbard.
That’d been my excuse since Rex’s so-called proposal—A bug. Telling anyone I had a bug immediately earned me sympathetic eyes, offers of soup, and reasons to rest. In my case, perfect excuses to roll into a ball on the couch and cry until I had no tears left.
Annie was right. I had no energy for this today, and Icouldn’t even get the energy up to bake something, which usually was my go-to on the rare occasions when life pulled me down.
I looked around at the employees here who’d been so good to me, working so well for me, they’d become like family. I’d asked a lot from them as we grew fast this fall, serving more and more customers, and they had to work harder than the days when Uncle Doug ran things. But I wouldn’t be any good to them unless I took time away to sort myself out.
“You’re right. I think I will take the rest of today off. Call me if you need me.” I patted Annie on the shoulder and waved goodbye to the rest of the crew as I took off my apron, pulled on my blue wool coat, and headed out the door.
