Page 4 of Fragile Twisted Vows
The boy got expelled. Damien’s charges got dropped and I got pregnant. And when Megan and Damien split up only months later, my parents decided to split from me too. And then eventually, so did my unborn baby. I didn’t last a full trimester before the pregnancy terminated on its own.
I was a grieving mother, trauma victim, alone, scared and a college dropout.
Jenni was the only one that helped me and to be honest, she’s the only one that’s ever helped me in my entire life. Although my parents were both rich and famous, my life was hell. I never fit their mold to begin with. Megan was clean, well put together, thin and proper. She went to school for law and found a job that pairs well with the family image. Her hair was dark like my mother’s, cut and trimmed neatly right at her shoulders. Her makeup was clean. Her nails always bore the same, perfect French tip manicure and she only ate a few almonds and leafy salads at major dinners. Or really at all.
I was wild, joyous, curious and innocent. I didn’t want to deal with dirty people or dirty money. I wanted to be good. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to eat every bit of delicious food I could find, soak in every culture and experience. I wanted to live life fully. The mousy brown haired, curvy, eager girl could never fit into the shadowy family she was born into. They were waiting my entire life to cut me off. To be rid of me.
And now, after today, I wish I could be rid of myself as well.
“Of course he would show up today of all days,” I growl as I start to walk down the busy Manhattan street, cursing the man that has plagued my thoughts and made me question my morals for years.
“Fucking Damien Reed.”
two
Damien
I watch Lucille Fairchild walk out of Fleur de Femme wearing a tight fitting wrap dress that has my mind traveling to a million places.
One of those places is back to her sister, who is supposed to be meeting with my lawyer and I to go over the finalization of our divorce papers. And the other place…is forbidden.
She filed the papers three years ago and since then, it’s been a battle of back and forth. Partly because I’ve had more important matters to tend to, mostly because she only filed them for attention. To get a rise out of me I suppose. Our relationship had been dead for so long that I wonder if it had ever been alive in the first place.
But Lucille…she is very much alive. Alive and much more of a woman than I remember her to be. The once meek and quiet girl with constant smiles that were forever shut down by her family has now morphed into a very…interesting adult. A nervous adult. A woman shrouded in poverty which is confusing because I know the family that she comes from.
A family of power. Of wealth and greed and an intricate list of connections that I was lucky to have in my back pocket for so long.
“Mr. Reed, did you hear me?” Allison Mayfield asks.
I turn to her and nod quietly, grabbing her hand to shake it gently.
“I did, miss, thank you. I’ll be in contact with you and your team shortly. My assistant will send over the calendar to schedule our meeting for the proposal,” I say as she thrusts her chest out slightly, giving me a view of her ample and fake tits in her dress.
I lean forward and kiss her cheek. She smells of designer perfume, a lot of it. The scent is as overpowering as this store.
I never understood why women want to layer themselves in expensive, scented alcohol when the natural scent of a woman is beautiful enough. But that question doesn’t really matter. Not when this merger is set to make me at least another three million.
The truth is, I don’t need money. I have plenty of it.
What I need is a distraction and also a reason for the copious amounts of money that I do have. Mergers like these, sales and purchases of these companies, are nothing but ploys. Little covers to keep people like my ex-wife’s father and my own father out of my back pocket.
I pull away from Allison and nod at her and the blond woman that I watched sneer at Lucille. I exit the store and as soon as my shoes hit the sidewalk, my phone starts ringing in my pocket.
“Christ,” I growl to the sky.
I just want one moment. One moment of peace and quiet.
“Yes, Bruno,” I say as I press the phone to my ear.
“Megan and the attorney are at the loft,” he says, and I sigh heavily into the phone.
“Of course they are. Tell the driver I’m ready.” I’m not surprised in the slightest that she’s there an hour before she’s supposed to be.
I adjust my watch on my wrist and fix the lapel of my dark blue Armani suit as I wait for the car in front of the store. My designer shoes stomp on something as I walk further onto the sidewalk. When I bend down and retrieve the piece of paper that I stepped on, I realize it’s just a random resume. I’m about to crumple it and toss it, but my eyes latch on the name Fairchild.
This is Lucille’s resume.
I look at the bare work history, from when she worked as a file sorter for the local library in high school, up to her internship at the Lucas Brothers firm. I see her current job as a bartender, but there is no name. Just the name of her supervisor. Her education ended three years ago and I realize that it’s impossible for her to graduate in just a few years, which means she dropped out.
