Chapter Twenty-Six
Piper
When Pippa ambushedme after my last class on Thursday, I didn’t have a clue a parental intervention would accompany it. Apparently, me ignoring Pippa’s repeated SOS’s was grounds for a family meeting that couldn’t wait until a normal time—like never.
I felt like a kidnap victim as my family surrounded me and herded me into a rented SUV for the drive over to Copper, the poshest restaurant in town. As we settled into the overstuffed leather booth, Wyatt texted me. The text that dropped in the middle of round one over dinner couldn’t have been timed worse, falling directly in the middle of one of Pippa’s epic meltdowns.
“After you left in such a big hurry at Christmas, Charlie said he wasn’t happy with me changing my major to econ,” she whined.
“I thought everyone”—I gazed from Dad to Mom—“was ecstatic about your change of major.”
“He thought I’d be more helpful as a politician’s wife if I studied psychology. We had a fight about it.” She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “When the semester started, I returned to my advisor and rearranged my classes back to education.” Shooting our parents a defiant tilt of her chin, she said, “If being a teacher was a good enough career for the President of the United States’ wife, it should be good enough for an aspiring politician’s girlfriend.” Then she dropped her face into her hands. “He broke up with me.”
Crocodile tears filled her eyes as she informed me of that turn of events.
When they didn’t move me, she threw a bit of a tantrum right there in the restaurant. “You blocked me. You won’t respond when I text on Ben’s phone. You need to stop being so dramatic and tell me how to get Charlie back.” The only thing missing was the toddler-style stomping of her feet.
It was uncouth as hell, especially in front of our parents, but my jaw literally dropped and remained hanging for a full fifteen seconds. My sister had deliberately set out to steal my boyfriend, succeeded, and now she thought I was holding out on her for how to draw him back after a breakup? Unbelievable.
Yet when I shared my incredulous expression with our parents, they stared back at me with expectant looks, as if the whole family thought I should be able to step right in and fix Pippa’s problem.
“For fuck’s sake. I have no control over a man who dumped me for you. I didn’t try to convince him to come back to me, so I have no idea how to convince him to come back to you.”
A server showed up with a round of aperitifs, and I sucked down half of my lemon drop in one go. But I was fairly certain the earth hadn’t produced enough alcohol in the last century to blunt the ridiculousness—and the dull edge of pain gnawing at my heart—created by my family’s demands.
“Stop with the sour grapes, Piper,” Dad warned. “They’re unbecoming. A Maxwell never shows sour grapes. If you do, the finance market will sense you’re an easy mark.”
“I’m not displaying sour grapes.”And I don’t give a rip about finance.But I was smart enough to hold that one back. “Charlie cheated on mewith my sister. If I had my way, I’d never see him again in this lifetime.”
“Piper.” Dad pulled out his stern voice, but I wasn’t sixteen anymore, and we weren’t talking about me watching out for Pippa with high-school mean girls.
Pippa’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates as she said simultaneously, “You don’t want Charlie back? Seriously?”
People always underestimated our mother because Shelby Maxwell was a woman of few words. But when she spoke, she always had something important to say. I could have done without that during this particular interview. “You’ve met someone new.”
Though I desperately schooled my features into something I hoped was bland, my face heated all the same. Holding my mom’s eyes, I didn’t give anything away, nor did I lie. “Whether or not that’s true has nothing to do with Philippa and her current woes.” Turning my attention to my sister, I said, “Why not switch your major to psychology with a teaching minor? That way Charlie’s happy, you’re happy, and the two of you can go back to hooking up.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I sat back and finished off my drink.
Wyatt Baxter was none of their business, especially Phillipa’s in her current, single state. Charlie used Pippa’s unwillingness to be molded into his perfect little Stepford Wife as an excuse to break it off with her. After the way he’d come on to me in the Molly the night I met Wyatt, I had the distinct impression he had a sister kink, or at least a fantasy of being with a pair of sisters together—one who excited him and one he could manage. The idea sickened and surprised me at the same time. The vanilla sex we’d had throughout our relationship told a story of a prudish guy with little imagination. Then again, I’d suffered through a holiday dinner with his parents and seen how his dad treated his mom. Maybe he wanted a malleable woman to impress Dear Old Dad and a fiery one on the side. Phillipa’s willingness to cheat with him should have clued him in on the fact she wasn’t exactly meek.
“Don’t be crass, Piper. Your sister and Charlie are experiencing a hiccup in a committed relationship, not hooking up.” Dad leaned back in his chair so as to look farther down his nose at me and my “crass” observations.
Something Wyatt had said on our first official date slipped into my mind. I was loyal to people who didn’t appreciate that loyalty. When I caught the speculative gleam in Pippa’s eyes, I had a bad feeling Charlie was about to be forgotten. It was the only explanation I had for what came out of my mouth.
“You know, Dad, at Christmas, you informed me that Charlie said we’d broken up over the Fourth at the lake house.” I stared at my sister. “Only, that was a lie. What you saw my sister doing with my boyfriend wasn’t ‘comforting’ him after I dumped him for my internship. What you saw was the two of them cheating on me. Something that had been going on for far longer than those couple of weeks.”
“Piper...” Dad started.
I ignored the warning in his voice as I watched the color rise up my sister’s cheeks, confirming what I’d suspected for a while.
“The day I ended it with Charlie was the day before classes started when I walked into our apartment and caught the two of them naked in Pippa’s bed in the middle of the afternoon.” Mom let out a tiny gasp, and Pippa showed a speck of decency when she dropped her eyes to her lap. “That day, they both insisted was the first time they’d been together, and could I forgive them, and it was an accident—they didn’t mean it.”
Dad continued to glare at me while Mom’s raised brows were directed at my sister. “Is this true, Phillipa?”
A hunted expression crossed my sister’s features. “We didn’t mean it. Piper was so busy with her classes and friends and projects last spring. Charlie would drop by the apartment to wait for her. Sometimes she’d make him wait forhours.” Pippa’s eyes implored our dad, sensing he was the parent who might stay in her corner. “Her absence meant we spent a lot of time together. One thing led to another, and then we just—” A shrug finished her “explanation” as though it were enough.
I’d never asked Charlie to wait for me at the apartment. The fucker had played my sister—and me.
“Like I said, Piper. If you’d focus on what’s important instead of haring off on all these little business distractions, none of this would have happened,” Dad intoned.
