“Yes, you can. Just find different friends. Not all rich women are like that.”
“I hope Brandon doesn’t have my life as a socialite all mapped out for me. Because I’ll so suck at it.” She yawned. “Okay, hon, I’m going to bed. Oh, wait. Do you think I could live in a snob-free zone? Move somewhere where everyone is nice and sweet?”
She chuckled. “It doesn’t exist. Good night, babe. Let me know how you feel in the morning. Get some rest.”
Marj turned off her phone and lay down and tried to shut her eyes. It had been the right decision to tell Britt. It was like tearing a scab off instead of picking it forever. If she’d held the secret so close, if she’d never admitted that she was nothing but a convenience to Brandon, then the hot coal of that knowledge would have eaten away at her. She had to admit it out loud before she could have closure—or some shit like that. Marj didn’t want closure. She wanted to howl and wail and sob and make Brandon Cates love her.
She needed about thirty hours of sleep to even begin to wrap her head around all that had happened to her in the last day. Maybe after some sleep, things would make more sense. Maybe she wouldn’t feel like dialing some hotline to beg for advice. Maybe she’d become self-assured and poised. Maybe she’d figure out a way to keep busy and stop her emotions from going so insane. Because right now, in the exquisitely comfortable boudoir of their upscale Manhattan townhome, Marj was shivering hard, her teeth chattering uncontrollably, not from cold but from misery. From the absolute shock of reality.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and made a little keening sound through her teeth for a while, pretending this was just a single indulgence in sadness and grief. Pretending she had any say in the matter at all when, in fact, she was perched on the maw of a devastation so great she couldn’t dare to look at it directly. A pit of darkness is how she imagined it, the kind of black emptiness that made your eyes hurt just to see it. She wasn’t sure she’d make it out of this. She bit down on her lip. Of course, she would. She had to.
Marj tried to take a drink of water and just choked on it. When her phone lit, she snatched it up like it was the One Ring and she was Gollum who’d been in the damn cave too long. Except it wasn’t Brandon’s number on the screen. It was Lena Cates, the Wicked Queen.
Chapter 10
“Get thee behind me, Satan,” Marj muttered and dropped the phone like a hot potato onto the bed, “I have some gibbering and trembling to get back to. Don’t interrupt.”
“Marjorie?” the voice came from her mobile’s speakerphone.
“Shit! Are you there?”
“Yes, pick up the phone, dear.”
“When I dropped the phone it must have bumped the screen and answered. I didn’t mean to pick up the call.”
“I suspected as much, Marjorie. And yet, I called nevertheless. It’s very nearly a civilized hour of the morning. I wondered if you’d care to join me for an early brunch. Brunch, you must know is breakfast with champagne. I recommend it highly. There’s a misnomer among the bourgeoisie that executive wives are ladies who lunch when, in point of fact, we pioneered the power brunch. A small fruit plate and keep the mimosas coming, darling. You can watch your figure and get a nice buzz on,” Lena said airily.
Marj gaped at the dim windows that showed the light of dawn filtering into the grayness beyond the skyline. She wondered idly if she should call a driver to take her to the coast. She could walk along the shore, breathe bracing salt air and maybe find her backbone again. Vaguely she realized that Lena was still on the phone, waiting for an answer. Being impossibly kind to her when she so little deserved it.
The recollection of her own arrogance swamped her with a blast of hot shame. What had this woman ever done to her? Nothing. She’d tried to hold on to the company her husband’s will entitled her to if the stepson remained a bachelor. So Marj had been the undoing of Lena’s hopes to attain the Cates fortune proper and still, here she was, making a friendly overture to Marj.
“You tried to sabotage my marriage,” Marj said. “You plotted to break us up and make us look bad in the press. You want what you think is yours, what you feel entitled to. So the answer is no.”
“Marj, let’s just talk. Nobody understands what you’re going through more than me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“One meeting. And I promise I won’t bite. I just want to talk to you. Please. Can you do me this one favor? And if you come, and I win, I promise not to fire anybody in the company.”
“You’re not going to win.”