Her sigh gusted into my ear. “Pom, is that any way to greet your beloved parents who you’ve already accused of murder twice in this lifetime?”
Way to hit the guilt buttons. I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for my floor—two below penthouse level, which my mother never ceased to remind me—as I said, “Are you calling about the article? Because I’m not breaking up with Gabe.”
“I’m calling because apparently you were photographed with Kevin Miller,” my mother said huffily. “And yes, also because of the article, but we can discuss that later. What were you doing out with him?”
The elevator dinged for my floor. I went into my apartment, where I was promptly greeted by Squeaky and not Gabe. “I wasn’t out with him. I ran into him while I was out,” I said, poking my head into every room, even my bedroom-size closet. No Gabe. He must still be on the subway. “There’s a difference.”
Due diligence done, I plopped myself down on our couch, Squeaky hopping up into my lap and sprawling out over my legs. I could talk to my parents until Gabe showed back up. Honestly, it was fine. Talking to them would distract me from how anxious I was over Gabe’s reaction. “Not in the eyes of anyone who sees,”said my mom. She paused after she said it, like I was supposed to be taking that moment to appreciate how profound she was. I used it to scratch that spot behind Squeaky’s ears that made him purr like a vintage Maserati. “You do realize what he’s done, right?”
My superior investigative skills made me think it had something to do with that bed-and-breakfast. “Is it because you lost out on the new hotel?”
“Bed-and-breakfast,” my dad chimed in, because of course he was there, too, apparently not holding too much of a grudge against me for suspecting he was a killer. “There’s a difference.”
“It’s not only that he bought the bed-and-breakfast out from under our noses,” my mom said. “It’s who he did it with. Did you know he’s been colluding with Nicholas?”
Why would my brother, the heir apparent to Afton Hotels, be teaming up with a rival? “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“You would know any of this if you ever bothered to come to board meetings or showed any interest in the family business at all,” said my mother. I rolled my eyes. “Nicholas is trying to demonstrate to the board that he’d be a superior head of the business to your father. Apparently he’s beginning to sway people. Getting one over on us by purchasing this bed-and-breakfast out from under us isn’t going to help our case.”
A daring move, for Nicholas. If he failed, he might be tossed out himself. Though I doubted my father would have the guts to do that to his only son. Who else would the family company go to?Me?I snorted. “And he got Kevin on his side?”
“I’m sure your brother promised him some stake in the company if he succeeds,” said Mom. “I know this is that girlfriend’s influence. Nicholas would never think to do such a thing on his own.”
“Jessica’s not his girlfriend, she’s his fiancée.” I could practically hear my mother’s shudder through the phone. “And I don’t think it has anything to do with her.” Should I say somethingabout how my dad was bad at his job? Probably not after so recently accusing him of murder. That might be too much for one week. “What if you gave Nicholas more responsibility in the company? A better title? That might make him happy enough to chill out on the coup for a bit.”
“Hmm,” my dad said. My mom moved on, probably because she’d rather choke on a martini olive than tell me I’d had a good idea.
“Anyway, Pom, let’s talk about you and your options as I see them. I think we say it was mutual. Much respect on both sides, will stay friends, blah, blah, blah, all that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your breakup with the nanny’s son,” Mom said. “I don’t think you want any more drama in the press. Will he move out of your apartment without fuss, or are you going to need to evict him? Because that wouldn’t be ideal.”
“Would you stop calling him that?” I said. “And I won’t need to evict him, because, as I told you, the article is not true. I love Gabe. He loves me. We are not breaking up. The press is always telling lies about me. It’ll blow over in a week or two like it always does. I don’t even know why you’re focusing so much on one stupid article.”
“This one won’t blow over as quickly as they used to,” my mom said. “That was true when all you did was party and the most controversial thing you did was take an occasional drug or sing along to a song and say a certain word aloud that you weren’t supposed to say.”
The word was “fucking.” Why did she have to make it sound like I’d said some awful slur?
She continued brightly, “Now you’re trying to do something big and real. The press hates that. People are going to want to tear you down for trying to change how they see you. It won’t stop. Trust me, it happened to me.”
I doubted that very much, mostly because my mother hadnever done anything good for anyone in her entire life. But I bit anyway. “What do you mean?”
“When I was in college, I decided I wanted to save the world. We needed to fix the ozone layer, I believe. And I met a boy in the environmental club. We held a lot of fundraisers and I raised a lot of money. Together, we were unstoppable. For a few months.” That tracked. “But cracks started opening in our relationship soon after. He would get up in arms that I’d used the family plane to visit my grandparents or hop over to the family lodge for some skiing rather than flying commercial, or that I wouldn’t stop using the only hair spray that could tease my hair into the fashion of the day, as if I were reaching up there and ripping a hole into the ozone layer myself. We were just too different. It never would have worked.”
I took a deep breath. “That’s not even close to the same thing.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
“No,” I said firmly. It would be the same thing if I were raising money for kids in need but personally anti giving scholarships. Or something. The situations were totally, completely different.
Right?
Crap. Now I was all in my own head. “Look, I know that Gabe and I are different people and that we come from extremely different backgrounds. I know that we were raised very differently and that we still look at things differently. I know that maybe we won’t always see eye to eye.”
I was about to continue with something grand like,And it doesn’t matter, because our love will conquer all, but my mom interrupted with, “I’m so glad you see it my way. I’ve heard through the grapevine that Nicholas’s old college friend Chip is interested in you now that you’ve moved past your drunk-at-sunrise phase.”
Bibi had seemed interested in setting me and Chip up too. What was it with this guy? It almost made me intrigued enough to look him up. I mean, if both my motherandBibi, diametricalopposites, thought he’d be a good fit, then I was just curious—oh my God, no. What was I thinking? I lovedGabe. I wanted to stay withGabe. I wanted things to work out withGabe. EventuallyGabeand I would run into Chip and his wife (slim, brunette, wide-set eyes like mine because he could never truly get over me) at a gala and make polite conversation and Chip would hit on me in a way he thought was slick but was actually really obvious and I’d turn him down because, HELLO, I LOVED GABE.
