Jamie gives me a curious look. “You don’t know that much about her, do you?”
“I didn’t think I needed to do opposition research on my future mother-in-law,” I say.
“Well, I browsed a little. And there are some murky things in her history. First, where she came from. Sheila Madison is a Hoboken girl, okay? There were some ladies from her past who painted a not-so-flattering picture of her teenage years, but their accounts were buried in old tabloids.
“She married James Madison when she was just nineteen, which is when she had Terrence. The Madison dude was rich, not Morgan rich, but rich enough. A few years later, he kicked the bucket and left her with a small fortune,” Jamie adds. “She put Terrence through school and squandered the rest of that money on lavish parties, expensive shoes, and all the trappings.”
“She married into the Morgan family maybe five or six years ago, right?”
“I think so, yes.”
“So she was single for a long time. A single mother,” I say, trying to empathize with a woman who has clearly declared herself my archnemesis, for some reason.
Jamie rolls his eyes at me. “Don’t be ridiculous. The woman had nannies and sitters galore. My point is, the woman married for wealth. She has no acquired success of her own, then you show up, having built your business and success from the ground up. Of course, it pissed the hag off. She’s jealous.”
“Jealous?” I give him a doubtfullook.
“Why else would she still come after you? You’re out of her precious angel’s life, aren’t you?”
“It’s just… it’s mind-boggling. So gratuitous. I wish she’d just leave me alone.”
Jamie shakes his head slowly. “I don’t know, Will. I don’t think she’s the kind of person who simply gets tired of hurting people.”
“Where does that leave me then?”
“I’d say you could benefit from the Morgan brothers’ protection,” he says.
“Whoa, hold on. I haven’t even gone on a first date with them, and you’re already suggesting tactical alliances?” I snort my disbelief. “Jamie, come on, let’s get our head in the game and focus on getting our business through the winter.”
We both hear the familiar ping of an incoming email on my laptop. I glance at the screen and see the new message. My breath falters as I read the sender’s name.
“Sharon Bates,” I mumble. “I know her. She’s one of the business liaisons for the Morgan family. She handles personal issues for them, separate from the financial firms and their legal teams.”
“Oh? What does it say?”
I open the email and find myself shocked as I read it word by word. I wonder if this is some kind of twisted dream. I might have to pinch myself.
“Will?” Jamie insists, then gets up and comes around my desk to read the email for himself. “An event… wait, what?”
“Precisely my thoughts.”
“A wedding is being planned for someone in the Morgan family, and they’re interested in our services.” Jamie goes over the inquiry again. “They want the whole planning package, including chaplain and catering services… press, and so on. And they want to meet with us at the Morgan estate… Whaaaat?”
“It’s in the Hamptons, close to the yacht harbor, to be specific. Terrence showed me photos.”
Jamie gives me a sneer. “He never took you there, did he?”
“Nope.”
“But he proposed. What. A. Prick.”
“Jamie! What do we do about this?” I ask, reiterating the weight and implications of the Morgan family’s inquiry. “This is obviously about Terrence and Katrina’s wedding. I saw their damn engagement announcement in the paper two days ago. He couldn’t even wait a damn week after he’d dumped me.”
Jamie stands up, blinking in rapid succession and equally baffled. “What kind of game is Sheila playing? First, she steals clients away to give them to her friend’s agency. And now, she wants us to handle Terrence’s wedding? What the hell is going on?”
The cost of what they have in mind is bound to take them into six-figure territory. This wedding alone will get us through the winter, which is precisely our biggest priority right now. We can’t afford to turn them down.
But what is the endgame?
