Uncertain whether or not his parents would be in at ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning, he realized it didn’t really matter. He’d sit in the front parlor until they returned. Tomorrow and Thursday he’d deal with his job and apartment. Today, he needed to take care of the most pressing business at hand: confronting his parents—his mother—about what she’d done to Laire.
He pressed the code into the keypad to open the gates, but as he pulled into the circular driveway and cut the car engine, he realized he felt like a stranger at the house he’d called home for much of his teen years, and opted for ringing the doorbell instead of using his key on the front door.
“Why, Erik!” exclaimed Esme, the maid who’d been with his family for years. “You didn’t tell us you were comin’!”
“Mornin’, Esme,” he said, stepping into the front vestibule. “How are you?”
“Just fine! Your folks got in late last night from Vermont. Took breakfast in their room. You want coffee?”
“No, thanks,” he said. “You said they’re in their bedroom?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll find them there,” he said, nodding at Esme as he crossed the huge hallway to the grand staircase. He took the marble steps two at a time, turning left at the landing and climbing another set of stairs to the second floor. At the balustrade, he turned right, walking down the carpeted hallway to his parents’ suite.
His heart pounded as he knocked on their door—not out of any misgivings or fear but because he was eager to confront them and get this over with so his life could finally start moving forward again.
“Come in,” called his mother’s voice.
He stepped inside, closing the door behind him before turning to his parents, who sat at their breakfast table in front of a big-screen TV tuned to Fox News.
“Sweetheart!” cried his mother, placing her teacup back on its saucer and beaming at him. “Here to welcome us home? What a darlin’ son!”
“’lo, son,” said his father, glancing up from his newspaper. “Happy New Year.”
He stared at them, at the privileged domesticity of their midmorning breakfast, at the steam that rose from his father’s coffee mug, at the bright orange of the fresh-squeezed juice in their goblets. He had a fleeting thought that never again would he be welcomed so warmly, without suspicion or baggage, into his parents’ home. Everything was about to change.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“Oh?” asked his mother. She turned to the table, found the remote, and muted the TV before turning to her husband. “Put the paper down, Brady. This might be serious.”
His father grumbled, but complied, placing the newspaper by a budvase on the white tablecloth, and looking up at his son. “Well?”
Erik locked eyes with his mother. “About six years ago, while we were celebratin’ Thanksgivin’, a girl showed up who wanted to speak to me. Do you remember her?”
“What?” His mother laughed softly, shrugging her shoulders. “I have no—”
“Do. You. Remember. Her?” he growled, enunciating each word with a bite.
“Why, Erik . . . what are you talkin’ about?”
“A girl, mother. A girl showed up at Utopia Manor. Six years ago Thanksgivin’. She had red hair and green eyes. She was on her way to speak to me but ran into you by the pool. She spoke to you instead. Do you remember her?”
His mother’s smile slipped. “Well, now, I don’t know if—”
“Her name was Laire, and she was pregnant.” He stared at her, into her, willing her to give him a good excuse for what she did. “She was pregnant with my baby. Do you remember her?”
Her eyes flared with fury, and she flinched, turning away from her son. Picking up her teacup deliberately, she took a sip, then turned to him, her smile plastic but in place. “Yes. I believe I do remember some cheap piece of white trash comin’ to my house on a holiday and claimin’ that she was pregnant with my son’s bastard. Yes, indeed. I do remember her. I remember her hightailin’ it off my property when I threatened to call the police.”
“Fancy!” gasped the governor, and for the first time since Erik started speaking, his eyes darted to his father.
“Did you know?” he asked, searching his father’s deep blue eyes for answers.
His father shook his head slowly, as though in shock. “No, son. I did not.”
Finished with him, Erik slid his gaze back to Fancy, who didn’t look a bit sorry for what she’d done. She shrugged. “There was no way to know if she was tellin’ the truth! If she spread her legs for you, then surely she could have spread them for—”
“Shut up!” he yelled. “I loved her! I got her pregnant, and when she came to tell me, you called her a liar. You threatened her. You made her leave.”
“Yes, I did,” she said. “And I protected you from the scandal she would have caused!”
“Protected me?” he demanded, feeling sick.
Fancy’s lips were pursed as she stared back at Erik with his eyes. With Ava Grace’s eyes.
“You were out every night fuckin’ some little island tramp, and then you expected me to welcome her with open arms into our esteemed famil—”