“I don’t like this.”
Meredith cocked her head. “Do you think any of us do? We don’t have to like it, but we all have to deal with it.” Before Bronwyn could respond, Meredith kept going. “Let’s go see Cassie and you can tell me what that starlet in your office wanted.”
Bronwyn had little choice but to follow along. All the while, Meredith’s words rang in her soul. Her actions. Mo’s actions. They hadn’t happened in a vacuum, and their impact reached everyone they knew and loved.
Eighteen
Seventeen Years Earlier
“Mother, Father, I’d like to ask you a question.” Bronwyn stood with perfect posture and did everything in her power to keep emotion out of her voice. If her parents had a clue how desperately she wanted this, they’d never go for it.
Her father glanced at his watch. “You have five minutes, Bronwyn. Your mother and I have a dinner engagement.”
“Yes, sir. I wanted to ask if you’d be agreeable to me going on a trip with Meredith and her family this summer.”
At the mention of the Quinns, her mother’s already stiff posture grew impossibly more rigid. “No.”
“Mother, it’s not a regular vacation.”
“No.”
“It’s going to be educational. They’re visiting national parks all over the western US. I’ve never been to any of those places. You want me to expand my horizons and be well-traveled. This would be a way for you to make that happen. And I’d be busy all summer. It’s perfect.”
Her parents exchanged a look. At her mother’s nod, her father gestured toward a chair. “Bronwyn, please have a seat. We hadplanned to discuss this with you later, but now’s as good a time as any.”
Bronwyn braced herself for the lecture she knew was coming. All about how she needed to find friends more in keeping with her social standing. How she should spend less time with the Quinns. How her future depended on her focusing more on her studies and learning the family business.
“You can’t travel this summer because you’ll be leaving for Switzerland in early July.”
Bronwyn’s thoughts screeched to a halt, then raced away in fifty different directions. Switzerland? July? Leaving? What? But what she said was, “I’m sorry. I don’t think I understand.”
Her mother picked up the conversational baton. “We’ve enrolled you in a prestigious finishing school in Switzerland. It’s all very hush-hush. Your father and I have been working on this for a couple of years. It’s very exclusive, and we didn’t want to get your hopes up if it didn’t work out. We have a backup plan, of course. You have a place at the same school I attended in Massachusetts. But we had hoped for even more for you, and we’ve succeeded.”
Her parents shared an exultant smile.
They were happy. They had worked hard to ... ruin her life. How could they not know her at all?
“She’s stunned,” her father said. Was he ... proud? He smiled at Bronwyn. “You’ll need all of June to pack and prepare. Once you leave here, you’ll be in year-round classes and sessions for the next two years. So, you see, there’s simply no way you can go gallivanting all over with the Quinn girl and her family. Let them have their big adventure. You’ll be heading off on one of your own. One they could never even dream of.”
Bronwyn forced herself to speak slowly. “I can’t go to Switzerland.”
Her parents frowned.
“Or Massachusetts. Or anywhere. I want to stay here. I want to graduate with my class. I’m junior class president! I have obligations and plans here.”
Her mother waved all of that away with one elegant gesture. “Please. No one expects you to do all of that when you have an opportunity like this!”
Bronwyn fought her rising panic. “Mother, I’m sure this is a lovely opportunity, but it should be for someone else. I have no interest in—”
“Young lady.” Her father’s voice had lost all its pride and pleasure and was now hardened. “You seem to think this is optional for you. It is not. You will be going. You will succeed. You will make us proud. Have I made myself clear?”
“I can’t go.” Bronwyn tried one more time. “I can’t. It would kill me. I would hate every moment.”
Her mother said, again with the dismissive wave, “I felt the same way before I left for my junior year. And the young women I met there are now my best friends in the world, all of them in highly influential positions. You don’t want to leave now, but you’ll grow to love it. Someday, you’ll thank us for this.”
“I can’t go.”
Her father looked at his watch, then at his wife. “We’re late.” They both stood and walked to the door, as if they hadn’t shattered her world with their words and plans. “Bronwyn, you need to understand that we won’t entertain any nonsense from you about this. You will do this. Your grandmother has already given her seal of approval. The deposits have been processed. I expect you to get over this little tantrum by the time we return.”
