Jayda, being Jayda, had an inquiring mind and she had to know. “Who she cheated with?” she asked him.
“Nobody,” Gweneth said quickly. Even Jayda could tell she didn’t want that secret coming out. “He’s just upset that his father won’t give him the time of day. And why would he is what I say.”
“I say the same thing, Gwennie,” said Felix.
“And I told him so,” said Gweneth. “I told him maybe the man doesn’t want to have anything more to do with the person that killed his wife. That’s what I told him.”
“What are you talking about? He wasn’t driving. What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Harrison and me,” said Gweneth. “We love each other I don’t care what he’s saying in front of you. He loves me.”
Since Gweneth wanted to throw accusations out against us but refused to deal with her own, Jayda decided to do the same. “Who did she cheat with?” she asked Harrison again.
When Harrison didn’t answer, Jayda assumed it was Felix. And that was only reinforced when she saw Gweneth glance over at Felix and Felix immediately speak up. “Can I see you for a moment, Harrison?” he asked as he began walking toward the exit.
Harrison didn’t want to have anything to do with his brother, but he got up and followed him out of the drawing room.
But as soon as they stepped out, Gweneth turned her sights to Jayda. And walked over to her. “You think you’ve got it made, don’t you? You think you’re going to replace me, don’t you?”
Then she shook her head. “That will never happen. You hear me? That will never, ever happen.”
When she didn’t get a rise out of Jayda, her voice rose in anger. “I hate you!” she yelled. “I hate girls just like you! And I will pull all that weave out of your hair and show you for the bald bitch you black girls truly are if you try to fuck with me!”
Jayda, seeing that hatred in Gweneth’s small eyes, tried to stand up but Gweneth had already grabbed her by the hair and was slinging on her head.
“Gweneth stop!” Carter said. “Stop it at once!”
In the hall outside of the drawing room, Harrison was arguing with Felix about Gweneth’s presence as Felix was claiming he had nothing to do with her showing up. Felix wanted to know if the rumors of Jayda being a “fake fiancée” were true. But when Harrison heard the yells, and thought about Jayda, he hurried back into that drawing room. And that was when he saw Gweneth snatching on Jayda’s hair and Jayda trying to stop her and get up from that settee at the same time.
But because all of Jayda’s hair was real, Gweneth, shocked because she thought all black girls were bald, was snatching out nothingness. But Jayda, who had grabbed Gweneth’s hair even as she was still sitting down and trying to stand up, was snatching out piles and piles of weave from Gweneth’s super-long hair.
“Okay, that’s it!” Harrison said angrily as he hurried over to the women and grabbed Gweneth violently away from Jayda, throwing her away from his fiancée. Then he grabbed Gweneth by her own hair, the little she had left, and began dragging her out of that drawing room.
And although she was kicking and screaming and begging the others to stop Harrison, nobody came to her rescue. Even Felix, who had made it back into the drawing room, didn’t intervene either.
And not even when Harrison Bainbridge the Third, whom many called simply HB, had come downstairs sooner than he had planned after hearing the commotion and he saw Harrison drag Gweneth out of the drawing room and into the hall.
“HB, look what he’s doing to me!” Gweneth cried when she saw the old man. “Stop him, HB, stop him!”
But HB was frowning. “What happened to your hair?” he asked her.
Harrison didn’t stop dragging Gweneth until he had tossed her toward his father’s house manager as he was hurryingup the hall. “Get her out of this house and away from this property now!” he ordered. “Get her out of here!”
But the manager was new and hadn’t seen Harrison before that day. He wasn’t quite sure if he should take orders from him. He looked at HB.
“You heard my son. Get her out of my house and then come and get all of this hair up too.” He was looking at the weave that was still shedding from her hair. “My word. How many horses did you scalp woman?” he asked Gweneth.
“Kiss my ass!” Gweneth cried to him as the house manager and the butler together stood her up and began to get her out of that house.
And then father and son were face to face for the first time in four years. For the first time since the accident.
But instead of Harrison greeting the father he had longed to make amends with for four long years, he thought about Jayda and hurried back into the drawing room.
Which confused HB. He looked into the drawing room and saw Harrison hurry to some black girl, ask if she was okay, and then pull her into his arms as if she was the most precious thing in the world to him.
Was that his son?
HB was so amazed that he simply had to find out who this woman was, and even more importantly, what had become of the son he hadn’t seen in four years. Because this caring person, who seemed genuinely concerned for that young lady, could not possibly be the cold-hearted bastard of a son that he remembered.
