SO THAT WENTwell. My meeting with Nolan Hawthorne scared me straight. That man would do whatever it takes, move people around like pawns, just so he could achieve his dreams. And my foolish ass chose to be one of those pawns. I was now stuck on his chess board until he deemed me unnecessary. There had to be a way of getting out of the marriage without upsetting Nolan Sr and the only way I could think of was to make Carey divorce me himself. But even he was committed to this non-marriage. He didn't have to do much to be fair. All he had to do was ignore me and act like I wasn't around. Sometimes I wondered if he even was aware I was in the same room as him. He only spoke to me when it was absolutely necessary. Like when he told me we had to attend a fundraiser.
"You can do that? Can you?" His snideness wasn't as offputting when I was stressing out about being stuck in a loveless marriage for years.
But go to a fucking ball? I had only been to one as a server. I was sure I could manage being on the other end of the wine tray. All one had to do was attend, make small talk with a bunch of people you don't know, and go back home. How wrong I was.
The fundraiser was like walking into a den of fucking snobby elite vipers. They all knew each other and only spoke to peoplethey knew. And since my husband forgot I came with him, he immediately left my side and disappeared. Alone in the middle of the room, I wandered aimlessly, observing everyone.
The attendees were dressed to show off their impressive evening gowns. If they all sell their clothes, surely the charity would surpass its goal. Tired of pretending as though there's someone I was looking for, I went to one of the empty tables around the room, sat down on a plush cushioned chair, took out my phone from my purse and pretended to be busy.
"Excuse me?" A young woman who looked to be no older than twenty wearing a simple black dress came to my side. She had a silver tray with a sheet of paper and a pen. On it were names and numbers.
"Would you care to add your name to the list?" Her bright smile was hard to dismiss.
"What list?"
"For a silent bid. You can bid for whatever prize you want." She pulled another sheet of paper beneath the one with names and numbers and handed it to me. There were several prizes listed. Most were dinners to exclusive restaurants, spa getaways, tickets to sports events and celebrity meet and greets. "Whoever bids the highest wins."
"Sure." What harm could it be? It's not as if I had enough money to outbid these rich fuckers. She beamed and handed me the pen and the other paper. The bids were surprisingly low. Most had bid hundred dollars, some even fifty. The gall. For NBA finals tickets? You'd think they'd bid at least a thousand dollars if it was for a good cause. I wrote my name next to a celebrity meet and greet. I was hardly a fan of her, but I liked her songs. Instead of the fifties and hundred dollars other people wrote in, I decided to go a bit higher. I bid two thousand and gave the girl her sheet and pen back.
Her eyes widened when she saw the number. "Wow. Thank you."
I shrugged. "It's for a good cause, right?" It was a cancer charity, after all. If I was going to donate two thousand dollars to defeat the thing that took my mother, then I would do it with my eyes closed. The girl beamed as though she couldn't believe it and thanked me again before approaching another person.
Feeling marginally better than before, I took out my phone again. I was a few pages deep into the novel I was reading when I heard voices a few feet away, referring to me.
"Thalia. That's her name. I heard she trapped him with a pregnancy." One voice said with a thick eastern European accent. I glanced up and looked for the source. Three women were standing a few feet away from me with their back to me, and their heads turned at that familiar gossip angle. They were all tall and skinny, with perfect postures. Two were fair skinned and had blonde hair, and the other was olive skinned with brown, almost black hair. Models? Ballerinas? Influencers? All the above probably, judging by this room.
"Fakepregnancy, you mean," the other blonde said. Her accent sounded southern. "Otherwise, where's thebaby?"
The brunette one glanced back, caught me watching her and turned back quickly, but that didn't stop her from adding her own lore about me. "Carey's too nice. Any man would have dumped her after that."
"She must give excellent…" Eastern European blonde mimicked a blow job, and they all laughed.
"Whatever she's doing, I can do better," Southern Blonde said. "That man looks like he's in dire need of a good fuck."
"Too bad you're married to a crypt keeper." All three swiveled their heads to a woman who had come to stand beside me. She was not as tall as them, but she was taller than me. She had a round face and cute dimples that showed with the slightestmovement of her cheeks. Unlike the trio, she had a natural-looking face, free of lip fillers and full of buccal fat. "You might want to attend to him, Violet," she gestured to a group of men in their sixties and seventies, "he seemed to have soiled himself."
The southern blonde huffed and marched to the group of old men while the other two scattered away. I stood up. "Thanks."
"Name's Darcy," she said, extending her hand. "Never seen you to one of these things before. You're the talk of the night."
I frowned, "Me?"
"Carey Hawthorne's new wife, who he has been hiding for a year, is now out in public. Of course, people are talking. We all want to know who snatched everyone's favorite lawyer."
I looked around the room and, for the first time, I noticed more than a few eyes on me. Most of them female. Many of them assessing. "I'm nothing special, trust me."
She smirked. "I don't know about that. The man's never been in a serious relationship. Then suddenly he's married in a grand ceremony and to someone who's not one of us. And to top it all of they're both on the down low for a year. You may not be special, but we are all curious."
If I knew Carey was such a coveted prize, I would not have come. "One of us?"
Darcy spread her hands around. "From this incestuous cursed pool of socialites, ex-models, trust fund babies and finance bros." She rolled her eyes. "We all marry each other, eventually."
"And what about you? Who are you married to?" I said, trying to keep the conversation flowing.
She cringed. "A trust fund, finance bro. The most Hapsburg man of all."
I laughed. Perhaps the first chuckle in a long time, at least not since my mother died. "And what are you? An ex-model or a socialite?"
