They'd both made a point of disconnecting from their everyday lives while overseas. Aiden had delegated a great deal of the responsibility of running Carbide Solutions to various corporate minions and Gwen had made sure to tell her parents not to draw her into their bickering while away. This was supposed to be a time where Gwen and Aiden could be together, just the two of them enjoying the other's company.
"I'm sure they'll behave," Aiden said, "After all..." he started, but caught himself.
"After all what?" Gwen said. Why was Aiden being so weird and nervous all of a sudden?
Before she could continue that line of questioning, he nodded at the doors. When Gwen looked, she saw her parents come inside. Her father, David, his high forehead glinting in the light, stopped just within the foyer and squinted around, unintentionally blocking a pair of women behind him.
"I hate when you do that!" her mother, Barb, said, her voice easily audible across the foyer. David jumped at the sound of it and made a hasty apology to the women he'd blocked.
Gwen's heart somehow simultaneously dropped down into her stomach and rose up into her throat. Clearly, it hadn't been a pleasant ride over from the airport. David had pulled his tie loose and undone his top button, a permanent flinch fixed to his face that scrunched tighter every time Barb berated him about something.
Barb had apparently put her hair up in a bun, but all the shaking of her head from said beratings had undermined the hairdo, letting strands poke out at odd angles.
Both of them looked about ready to burst from hypertensive rage.
"Should we do something...?" Aiden said, seeing the way the valets and butlers kept eying the couple like the pair of crazy Americans they were.
"Definitely," Gwen replied. She towed Aiden along beside her, fixing a smile to her face.
David and Barb had launched into their millionth argument over who had forced whom to sell the house when Gwen cut in between them. "Mom! Dad! Isn't Switzerland beautiful?"
As usual, David and Barb both tucked their anger and frustration away in a futile effort to hide from their daughter how much they hated each other.
"Not as beautiful as you, baby!" David said, "Let me get a look at you." He hugged her close, then held her at arm's length so he could take her in. "Stunning, just stunning!"
Gwen laid it on thick, bubbling and gushing and blushing beneath her parents' praise. It wasn't all that hard to do.
Barb grabbed her by the arm and tugged her over out of David's grasp, going through the same motions. "Gwenny! Oh, my sweet baby! Look at you!" She squeezed Gwen so tight around the waist that spots swam across her eyes.
With a bit of Aiden's help, she extricated herself from the repeated bear hugs and took a step back. "How was the ride over?" Gwen said.
Barb and David glanced at each other, their eyes meeting and then deflecting. "Great," David said. "Comfortable," Barb inserted.
Gwen felt great pity for the driver of that car.
"I hope it was a pleasant flight?" Aiden said, offering his hand to David.
"Yes... Very nice, thank you..." David replied eying that proffered hand as though it were a snake in the grass. Apparently, he still hadn't forgotten Aiden trapping his hand in one of those prolonged Manning handshakes the first time they'd met, back in Gwen's old apartment in New York.
Aiden recalled it then, too, and let his arm drop. But before he could do anything else, Barb swept in. She'd seen David's discomfort and decided to capitalize on it in an attempt to ingratiate herself with Aiden.
"Still so strapping!" Barb said, holding both Aiden's hands and shooting a pointed, smug look over her shoulder at David. "It's so hard to find a good man these days. You're both so lucky," Barb said, looking first at Aiden and then at Gwen.
"Maybe you just don't know where to look," David said.
Gwen could sense another fight encroaching like a pressure change before a big storm. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood.
Aiden sensed the same thing and swooped in to defuse the tension. "Why don't we get you both checked in? I'm sure after the flight and ride you're both ready to relax a little before the party starts."
"Good idea," David said, searching across the lobby for the auditor's desk.
Gwen watched Aiden lead them over while she massaged a knot of tension that had formed in her shoulder in the last few moments. The child in her hated that her parents were divorcing, but the rest of her knew it was the right choice for them. They couldn't stand to be near each other, and she wanted them to be happy. If only they could have been happy together.
More and more people began arriving, then. Aunts and uncles from both sides. Old Harvard friends from Aiden's college days (though thankfully not that Liam fellow, Gwen hated him quite a bit).