The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield (91 page)

She grimaced. “I stopped by at her parents’ place this morning to tell them about my separation with Don but they’re away on a world cruise. I was surprised to see her there. She pulled me aside and told me the truth—about her affair with Don, the baby, the abortion, how you’d helped her.”

I rubbed the space between my brows, finding my spot in all of this mighty awkward. “You have every right to be angry at her for carrying on with your husband behind your back, but I hope you understand what she’d gone through when he cast her out and forced her to get rid of the baby.”

A sad, ironic smile lifted one corner of her lips. “To be honest with you, I’m not angry with Bessy at all. Don can be deceptively wonderful and Bessy’s always been the kind of girl who would seek approval anywhere she could find it. It would’ve been so easy for him and I feel terrible for her. I’m angry at Don for what he tried to get her to do. I’m angry that he couldn’t even be man enough to face up to the ramifications of his actions but I really shouldn’t expect better.”

“Is she going to tell her parents?”

“She’ll have no choice once she starts to show but I don’t think she’ll tell them who the father is,” Layla said with a resigned shake of her head. “I don’t blame her for that. It’s ugly. They’re going to be furious with her but they’re not going to cast her out. She’s going to stay with her older sister in Florida for now until her parents return.”

I smiled. “I’m glad to know that things are somehow going to work out despite everything.”

And I meant it in my heart. 

No matter the past, I was relieved that both Layla and Bessy could escape the man they made the mistake of trusting when he was ultimately just going to destroy them both.

I was just getting in my car hours later, being one of the last to leave after I did another walk through the house to finalize the decision of moving the masquerade party here, when I heard Simone call my name.

“Did I forget something?” I asked with a frown, patting the pockets of my jeans and my bomber jacket to see if anything was missing. 

Simone smiled and handed me a small tin container. “No. I just thought I’d send you home with these raspberry tarts. You seemed especially fond of them earlier during dessert.”

I eyed the container she was holding out to me, trying to figure out what her gesture meant.

Since our last confrontation during the Championette’s annual brunch, Simone and I had treated each other with distant civility for the sake of getting along enough for the Society. We rarely spoke to each other directly or have personal conversations. 

I eyed her suspiciously. 

She was resplendent, as usual, with her statuesque build, her remarkable beauty, her perfectly tailored clothes, and it was an effort on my part not to feel a bit inadequate especially since I was just in my scuffed black leather biker boots that barely added an inch to my height, well-worn jeans, a shirt and a bomber jacket, and a ponytail. The Championettes had grumbled about my casual style a few times but since I showed no signs of heeding their mutterings, they seemed to have dropped the subject.

Just because the ugly duckling realized she was actually a swan, doesn’t mean that she’s forgotten all the other swans in the lake and that they’re all beautiful too.

“Thank you,” I said politely as I took the tin box. “The tarts were heavenly. The pastry chef has my utmost respect and gratitude.”

“And you have mine, as much as it surprises me to say so.”

I froze for a second before I looked up to meet her gaze. “Pardon?”

“I tried my hardest not to like you—even from the very beginning,” she said bluntly. “Not when Brandon explained to me that you were just part of a scheme and I shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Not when I met you for the first time and you were actually decent to me, even though I was horrid to you. Not when you fought back that day Layla tried to get you banned from joining the Championettes. Not when you stood your ground despite all the terrible things Layla’s minions did to you at the brunch. Not when you tried to save her by keeping her as a co-chairperson when it was clear who everyone else wanted.”

I snorted. “That sounds like a lot of attempts. How many more do you need?”

“Oh, I thought I could keep trying forever,” she answered with a small smile. “I didn’t want to like you because that would lead me to admit that maybe Brandon was right about you after all. And that meant he and I were a lost cause, although I should’ve probably realized that the night of your engagement party, when he kept craning his head around as he danced with me, looking for you while trying to apologize to me for having been put in an awkward position.”

And to think I was bleeding my heart out that night, wondering why I thought I could mean more to Brandon other than the black-and-white contract we’d signed for our marriage of convenience.

“I realized today, after listening to Layla tell me everything, from the truth about Riley, to her abuse at Don’s hands, to Bessy’s situation, that trying to hate you is a useless exercise because nothing would come out of it.” 

Her eyes were bright and direct as she stared right at me, that small smile she’d started with widening a little more. “It’s hard to hate someone who doesn’t care about your opinion of her. It’s also harder to hate someone who can’t help but be generous and kind, despite all the nasty things you did to her. It makes one feel like a total bitch.”

Well. What do you know?

“It’s hard not to retaliate and dish back exactly what you’ve been given,” I told her. “The thing is, if I went that way and did that for every bad thing ever done to me, I would’ve become a miserable and angry person. There would’ve been so much bad coming in and out that I would've become horrible as an end result. With my limited options, I chose to be happy, making do with what I got without letting it eat me up.”

I recalled something someone once told me—a great wise man with silver hair and sky blue eyes and many interesting stories about the good, the bad and the in-between.

Sometimes, we become capable of magnanimity because we know what it’s like to be without it.

“You are a good person, Charlotte, and none of your rough edges can really detract from it, no matter how much other people wished they did.” Simone’s smile now stretched broadly across her face, genuine and quite radiant, and while there might always be a gap between us, at least the ice bridge seemed to have thawed. 

“Thank you,” was all I could say.

Her eyes grew sad, her smile dimming just a bit. “I regret not having been there for Layla but I’m glad that she at least had someone to help her through this.”

“I’m sure that she would’ve turned to you as well, if it came down to it,” I reassured her. “I just happened to have literally landed smack into the middle of it when I chased down Riley, thinking he was a thief. It kind of snow balled from there.”

Simone shook her head. “No. I know she wouldn’t have come to me and I don’t blame her for it. You see, I avoided topics about Don and I’m sure that Layla knew this. He’d hit on me a couple times before, years ago, and considering that it happened a lot with men, I dismissed it. He’d come on to me too strong, I’ll admit, but I’ve dealt with powerful men like Don before who thought themselves entitled to everything, like my ex-husband for example, so I didn’t think anything more of it. I just avoided him to prevent any awkwardness with my friendship with Layla. I suspected that they were having problems but nothing I could put a finger on because Layla hid her troubles well. If I’d looked a little bit more outside of myself, maybe I would’ve noticed. Maybe I could’ve done something for her sooner.”

I tentatively reached out and touched Simone’s arm. “The world is going to be full of opportunities where we could’ve done something differently. They will keep cropping up because just like the roll of a dice, there are so many possible outcomes from a singular moment. We can’t eliminate the what-ifs but we also shouldn’t torture ourselves with them.”

Simone nodded, looking a bit cheered. "You're absolutely right."

"Even if I'm not, it's sound advice for us who want to stay sane." I grinned and tipped my baseball cap at her. "I have to go home. Thanks for having us, Simone."

She took a step back and gave a little wave of her hand, still smiling. "No. Thank you for having us."

And with that, I left.

When the Maxfields threw a party, they really threw a party.

The family's old but magnificent neo-classical mansion was already a highly coveted real-estate piece with its history and sheer size—a rare find in the bustling heart of downtown. In the muted dusk, the grand house seemed to glow and shimmer. To be admitted behind its gates alone was quite a privilege.

The fact that the celebration was for Martin Maxfield's birthday made the event a definite must in the calendar of anyone who was financially, politically and socially important in the city, if not the country.

For all his normally buoyant yet occasionally sly tendencies, Martin was a well-respected figure in the business world, having gained the favor of both the private and public sectors. 

It was no surprise that all kinds of people turned out. 

I expected businessmen, politicians, celebrities, socialites, and all kinds of important people.

What I didn't expect was... my mother.

Louisa Samuels in the flesh.

"Charlotte? Are you okay?"

The sound of Brandon's voice seemed warbled and dulled, as if he were somehow speaking to me through a bottle.

I blinked and glanced up at him, his handsome face, creased with concern, coming into focus.

"I need to... I need to leave." My voice was no better—it was raspy and broken and trembling at some parts.

I vaguely noticed Brandon's large, warm hand settle on my shoulder. "Babe, what's wrong?"

"She's here," I whispered, backing up a step only to be reminded by the cold, hard wall behind me that there was nowhere to go. I was trapped in a small, discreet alcove where I'd run for cover the moment I caught sight of her face in the crowd. 

I was such a coward but what was I supposed to do?

My mother was so far removed from my reality that she may as well be literally a ghost from my past.

Except that ghosts blur with the smoky fringes of the other world. Your mother looks vividly real.

 
A sense of panic was surging up through me like a nasty acid reflex and I wrestled my shoulder away from Brandon’s firm grip, wanting nothing more but to get away—to dissolve into the wall if I had to.

He wouldn’t let go though. He kept staring at me as if I were a really complicated Math problem he was sure he’d solved before. He didn’t understand that I had to go.

“She’s here,” I hissed urgently, clamping a hand around Brandon’s wrist and wrenching his grip loose. “I don’t know how... I have to go.”

Scowling, he effectively blocked me from where I would’ve launched into a sprint, cradling me close to his side as he swept his gaze around the vast room full of guests.

“She’s here, Brand,” I choked out, squeezing my eyes shut and pressing my face against his black suit, not caring if my make up smudged all over it. “I can’t...”

And suddenly, Brandon’s arm tightened around me. I felt his body tense up as he gently extricated me from the tight clutch I had of him, his hand tipping up my face so I could look up to his.

His hazel eyes were sharp and bright—like the blinding glare of the sun in high noon.

“Your mother.”

I nodded and ran a shaky hand through my hair, uncaring of the moussed and teased mess it raked through.

I lifted my eyes to peek just past Brandon’s shoulder, knowing what I didn’t want to see but looking for it all the same.  

“Yes.” I bit the inside of my bottom lip until I tasted the tang of blood, my attention zooming in on the lone figure that hovered just by the door, draped in a soft lilac evening gown, her head following the slow sweep of her eyes as she scanned the party. 

Even from across the room, her face looked nearly exactly as I remembered it, and it wrenched painfully at something inside of me. The sunniness of her curly blond hair, the oval-shaped face rendered attractively by the neat features that composed it—apparently, the years didn’t cause her looks to deteriorate as much as they did whatever happy memories I had of her.

“She’s here,” Brandon said.

“I know. She’s—” My eyes suddenly narrowed as I glanced up sharply at my husband. “Wait. How did you know my mother’s here? You don’t know what she looks like. Or that she would be here.”

Something flickered briefly across Brandon’s somber face. “I do know.”

I slowly backed a step away from my husband and he didn’t lock me in place this time. “Why would you know such a thing?”

I felt it coming—that sharp but somehow hollow pain that blunted through my chest like the strike of a fist at the very centre of me. 

It was a feeling I was well acquainted with—a feeling that had struck me only twice in my life: first when I realized, a couple of years later when I was old enough to understand, that my mother had abandoned us instead of just disappearing at the sprinkle of fairy dust, and second when I finally felt my father’s drunken brutality, after I’d thought that nothing could’ve hurt me more than his neglect.

It was the kind of betrayal that nearly drove me to my knees, brought down by the power only those I so very carefully chose to love could possibly have over me.

That’s the truth of things, isn’t it? When you love someone, you give them the choice to love you back or break you. And you’ve been broken each time, Charlotte, haven’t you? 

Before Brandon could even speak the words I could already read in his eyes, tears were rolling down my cheeks, burning narrow, little paths down my cold skin.

“Did you ask her to come here?” The small but hard voice that spoke didn’t sound like me but it must’ve been because each word was lodged painfully at the base of my throat where the sobs threatened to burst from. “Did you, Brand? After I told you that she was dead to me? You had no right!”

He flinched, his face draining of color like someone who was fast losing the blood that kept him alive.

“I wanted you to be happy,” were his faint, trembling words as he reached a hand out to me. “Charlotte.”

“You think seeing her would make me happy?” I demanded incredulously. “Do you even know me at all, Brand?”

“I know that despite your bravado and your adore-me-or-abhor-me attitude, something is still hurting, Charlotte,” he snapped back, grabbing me by the elbow, his eyes fierce once again. “Something is still broken.”

I twisted my arm away in disgust. “So you wanted to fix me? I thought you loved everything that was broken about me, Brand. Suddenly, you want to patch me up. I hate to break it to you but you there’s no point in putting a Band-Aid on an old wound that had scabbed over so many times it no longer bleeds.”

And before he could grab me again, I turned on my heel and ran down the narrow hall next to the alcove, oblivious to the frantic clicking of my heels and the loud swishing of fabric as my dress rustled around my legs, slowing me down I might as well have been wading through the waves in the ocean.

I practically stumbled into the library which was lit intimately by the soft glow of the wall sconces that surrounded the warm, cozy space.

The fact that it abruptly ended the path I was willing to run on as fast as I could for as far away as possible, suffocated me. 

I scrambled to the tall windows, shoving the drapes back and fumbling for any kind of lever that would let me crack it open. 

Fuck!

The damned dead-end was stifling hot and my breath was stuck somewhere in my chest, trying to pound its way out. 

“Charlotte!” 

I distractedly heard Brandon’s voice but I ignored him as my hands found purchase and gripped a latch. With furious effort, I twisted it whatever way I could until one pane cracked open. 

The soft gust of the cool evening breeze nearly knocked me over and I limply leaned against the window frame, breathing hard and fast.

“Charlotte, look at me.”

I didn’t realize how close Brandon had come and I backed up a step at the sight of him, holding a trembling hand up to stop him in his tracks. 

“Don’t.” I swallowed against the lump of tears in my throat, blinking rapidly through the watery vision I had of my husband. “I’m not some injured animal you pick up from the side of the road, Brand. I’ve been on my own, out in the wild for so long, without you, without anybody, and I’m fine being that way.”

Brandon’s lips clamped tightly into a thin line, his expression so stormy I was sure lightning was going to streak the sky outside followed by a roaring thunder, but he kept his ground. 

“You can feed me and care for me all you like but taking me to a mother who’d long abandoned me isn’t going to change a damned thing,” I spat out, so so angry that the one person I thought would understand me the most and accept me, scars and snarls and all, was the same person who’d stuck a hand into a wound I didn’t mind having for the rest of my life, pulling at stitches so old and worn, I was starting to bleed all over again.

“I’m not trying to change you, Charlotte,” Brandon ground out, his jaw clenching with the effort. “I’m simply trying to change some of the things that surround you in hope that you wouldn’t have to hurt any more or forever second-guess your worth. While your self-deprecating attitude amuses other people, I know it comes from somewhere painful, no matter how easily you brush it off like it’s nothing.”

I bristled. “You couldn’t fix me before so now you’re going to attempt it? I will never feel like I deserve everything, Brand, because I don’t, and I don’t see that as an issue. You don’t have to put the pieces of my life back together. I like it the way it is but if it’s not good enough for you, you’re going to have to ask yourself why, and maybe the answer is because I was never good enough for you to start with. Now that you’re stuck with me, you’re trying your best to polish away all the scuffs I came with.”

Brandon opened his mouth to speak again but I was far too gone, my anger sending a jolt of adrenaline through me with the strength of an electric shock. 

“I have some news for you, Brand. My mother isn’t a little scuff. She’s a big rip at the bottom of my shoe that I will always notice no matter what,” I said vehemently, my voice gathering momentum. “And I’m alright with that. You know why? Because it reminds me to never get too comfortable, and it has served me well in the last twenty years of my life. You just never know when someone will suddenly think you’re not good enough for them and decide to walk away from you.”

“I am not going to walk away from you!” Brandon practically yelled, a muscle in his cheek ticking. “This is not a question about whether or not you’re good enough for me, Charlotte. I just want you to be happy.”

My lip curled up in one corner as I attempted a smile. 

My next words came out softly, “I bet that’s what my mother told herself as she was packing up to leave me, Brand. I’m sure she thought I was worth the whole world to her and that by leaving, she was doing me a favor because she wanted me to be happy. After all, what child would be happy with a mother who so obviously wanted me be somewhere else?”

A bitter laugh bubbled out of my throat as I looked away and stared out into the dark night, remembering countless times when I’d done the same as a child, wondering what my life would become as my father drunk himself to death in the next room, hardly sparing me a thought. “I was happy, alright. I was really happy living with a ghost of a father who readied his grave one drink at a time. It was as every ideal childhood should be—full of wonderful dreams—because there wasn’t a single night I didn’t wish I was someone else, living a different life somewhere far away where there were great kings and happy princesses instead of alcoholic fathers and little girls who became adept at mopping vomit off the floor before even she put on her first beginners bra.”

“You blame her,” Brandon said in a surprisingly gentle voice. “You blame her for everything you went through.”

I lifted heavy, wet lashes to look at him. “It’s an opinion formed on a logical sequence of events, Brand. She went and started an affair with someone else, walked out on her family, drove my father to drink, left me at the mercy of a man who had more conversations with his gin bottle than his only child, forced me to depend on myself and endure no matter what. What alternate deductions can you arrive at?”

He didn’t say anything for a moment before his expression steeled with resolve. “Maybe she can rectify her mistakes.”

“Rectify her mistakes?” I scoffed with an incredulous laugh. “I’m now the highly esteemed Mrs. Charlotte Maxfield, with the world at her feet. I should write her a thank-you card. Without her mistakes, I may have never struck out as well as I did. I’ve made do with what she’d broken. I don’t need her, or you, to fix me.”

I levelled my gaze steadily at him, my chin thrust up in defiant challenge. “If you can’t live with that, Brand, then let me go, because I’d rather be who I am now than subject myself to my mother’s good intentions for the sake of her redemption and your misplaced sense of nobility.”

Without another word, I strode past him, my shoulders squared and my head held up high with as much dignity someone walking away from a death sentence could muster.

After all, I’d given him my heart—the battered and bloody thing—and it would seem, upon closer inspection, that it wasn’t good enough as it was.

The prince may love the pauper but she will never be a princess—not with her calloused hands and her gruff ways. She will never forget who she is, despite the crown and pretty dresses and the endless round of parties, and that’s the truth the prince will have to accept.