Revenge In The Hamptons (Revenge Is Best Served Hot (Powerful Women Series))

by Morian, C. C.

  “I’d feel funny going out there alone. I haven’t done the Hamptons thing in a few years. I feel kind of old for it.”

  “Mike’s going, isn’t he? He’s a few years older than you. Besides, you wouldn’t have to go alone. I’d go with you.”

  “You and Gerry?”

  “No, silly. Just the two of us. Gerry can stay here and play golf, he’s always looking for more time for that. I know someone who has a Hamptons house, we can go hang out. Catch some rays, anyway. And stop you from sitting around feeling sad and waiting for Mike to make up his mind about you.”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

  “Don’t take too long. The summer will be over soon.”

  The following week I took Liz’s advice. As usual I hadn’t heard from Mike all weekend. So when he called on Tuesday to ask what I was doing that night, I said, “Let’s talk about next weekend before we talk about tonight. I want to do something with you then, since you left me on my own this past weekend.” Ouch. That didn’t come out right, it sounded so snarky and dependent. Liz was right, I’d never act like this anywhere else but in a relationship.

  Mike laughed, but he didn’t sound amused. “That sounds like an ultimatum.”

  I started to apologize but caught myself. “It’s not meant to be, but take it as you want. Is it too much to ask to want to see you on weekends?”

  “No, you’re right. This weekend, for sure. Now can we get together tonight?”

  He’d changed the subject, but once again, when I had pushed it, I got what I had asked for. Maybe with Mike I just needed to do more asking. “Okay, but I want to go out somewhere, before we, you know.”

  “You haven’t seen me in a week, you know you want it.”

  “Sometimes you are just so full of yourself.”

  “I don’t hear you complaining when you are full of me, if you know what I mean.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s not funny.” But I felt that little twist in my stomach. Or more specifically, a little lower than my stomach. Mike’s strategy worked, but I wouldn’t admit to Mike that just him alluding to sex, even in so lewd a fashion, got me thinking about it. “Dinner first,” I insisted.

  “Okay, but save room for a very decadent dessert.”

  After the call, I wasn’t sure if I felt better or worse. But none of that got in the way of me going along with sex with Mike that night, or got in the way of me enjoying it.

  Mike called me Wednesday. “I can’t do this weekend. Something has come up.”

  “Work trip?”

  “No, I’ll be around. We can still get together, I just have to be here in the city to deal with something.”

  “Is everything okay? What is it?”

  Mike hesitated. “You promise you won’t get mad?”

  “I can’t promise that until I know what it is. Why would I get mad?”

  I could almost hear Mike thinking on the line, obviously deciding what to say.

  “You remember Chrissy, right?”

  Chrissy. Mike’s ex girlfriend. Someone, now that I thought of it, he actually referred to as a girlfriend. “Well, I don’t remember her, because I never met her. Or any of your former girlfriends.”

  Mike either missed what I was implying or chose to ignore my snide remark. “She’s going through a rough patch with the guy she’s living with. I just want to spend a little time with her, talk to her and make sure she’s okay.”

  If everything hadn’t been so iffy with us, I might have thought nothing of this. I might have even thought it was considerate of him, maybe even a little gallant. Still concerned about someone he had been close with. But I was not in the most trustful mood. “And she called you, of all people?”

  “The guy she’s with seems to be kind of controlling, he’s cut her off from most of her friends. She wants a guy perspective on the whole situation.”

  I didn’t quite know what to say. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with this. I couldn’t exactly dictate to Mike who he could or couldn’t spend time with. “You don’t still—have feelings for her, do you?” Actually, I wasn’t sure if Mike had ever had real feelings for anyone, including me, but that was beside the point right now.

  That didn’t stop me from holding my breath.

  Mike answered quickly. “No, no. Nothing like that. I haven’t spoken to her in over a year.”

  “Are you friends on Facebook?”

  “Sure. But I’m friends with lots of people. Are you friends with Ward?”

  Mike had me there. “Okay. When is this get together with your old girlfriend going to take place?” I was pissed, but didn’t quite know why. I wondered if Mike would be upset if I had called and told him I needed to spend some time with Ward. Mike would probably say it was fine.

  And that might be my problem, I’d want more of a reaction from him.

  Did truly powerful women act and sound petty and childish?

  “I didn’t give her a time yet,” Mike said. “I wanted to talk to you first. I was thinking Saturday afternoon, so you and I could still go out at night.”

  That actually sounded somewhat thoughtful. Mike could have easily lied about the whole thing, made up a story about having to work, and met with Chrissy on the sly. I softened just a bit. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

  After I hung up I realized I forgot to ask Mike where they’d be having their tête-à-tête.

  Saturday night Mike took me out as promised. But he seemed very subdued during dinner, not at all like him.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. I was guessing it had something to do with Chrissy.

  “You remember I said I was going to get together with Chrissy today?”

  As if I could forget. I had been obsessing about it all week, and earlier today, at the gym, I was so worked up worrying about it I had almost broken the treadmill, I had it set so high trying to work off my nervousness.

  “I seem to recall you mentioning it,” I said.

  “It turns out her situation is worse than I thought. The guy she’s with, he’s being abusive.”

  “He’s hitting her?” My concern for another woman pushed any other thoughts out of my mind. “She needs to get out and get help, and not from an old boyfriend.”

  “It’s nothing like that, not yet. He just treats her like shit, and Chrissy is worried that it might get physical, they have bad fights.”

  Mike had done his share of making me feel like shit now and then, but I bit my tongue. Whatever slights he had given me, I never felt that he’d ever go over the line to violence. And our fights were pretty tame. “Still, she needs some professional help.”

  “I suggested that. Right now though I think she just needs some space so she can decide whether to get out of it and how to do it.”

  I tried to be sympathetic, wondering what I’d do if I were in Chrissy’s shoes, would I call Ward? I didn’t think so, but maybe. “That sounds like good advice. Does she have somewhere to go?”

  Mike glanced around the restaurant. “Can we talk about this later? Somewhere private?”

  “Why? No one can hear us.”

  “I don’t want you to make a scene.”

  “What would I be making a scene about? This doesn’t really have anything to do with me. Or us. Or does it?” I heard my voice rising.

  “It shouldn’t. Let’s just talk about it later.”

  “I want to talk about it now.” I’d already fretted away almost three days wondering what the real story was about Chrissy. Did Mike want to get back together with her?

  “She really has nowhere to go. Her dad is dead, her mom lives in California. She can’t just leave her job. So—so I offered her my spare bedroom.” Mike tried to say it like it was no big deal, but even he couldn’t pull it off.

  I was momentarily stunned. This was so—unreal. “You what? You’re letting her move in with you?”

  “Not move in. Just stay for a while.”

  I was grabbing the arms of my chair so hard my fingernail
s bent against the hard wood. “And when is this supposed to happen?”

  “She’s probably there now. She went to her place to get a few of her things and then was going to head over to my place.”

  There were so many thoughts going through my head, so much I wanted to ask, so much I wanted to say. Part of me wanted to cry, another part of me wanted to throw my wine in his face. But I could only think of one, crazy, stupid question. “How’s she going to get in your apartment if you are here?”

  “I gave her a key.”

  And that did it. I’d only been to Mike’s apartment once, and out of the blue his ex girlfriend was back in his life, and she had a key. I stood up, my knees shaking, and stumbled out of the restaurant, bumping into people waiting to get in, my eyes so blinded by tears I couldn’t see.

  In the cab on the way back to my apartment, Mike called me three times. I didn’t pick up. When I got home the phone rang again, and I again ignored it. The voicemail indicator came on, and I did my best to ignore that too, but in the end I gave in to my curiosity. Just wanting to see what he’d say, and being able to listen without having to face him.

  “Tessa, I’m sorry. I know you are upset. I should have talked to you about it first like I did before I saw her. But if you’d been there you would have done the same thing, she’s a wreck. I’d never forgive myself if she went back and got hurt. Please call me.”

  I wasn’t ready to do that. I was still far from having this processed. I tried to imagine another friend telling me this story. Well, this guy I’ve been seeing for quite a while, he just let his ex girlfriend move in. If I heard that I’d shake my head in either disbelief or disgust, thinking that any woman who allowed that must be really weak.

  Mike called twice more, but there were no more voicemails. Then the calls stopped. I wondered if he was back in his apartment, and was embarrassed to be calling me with Chrissy there.

  My hands were shaking as I poured my third glass of wine. I should have thrown the wine at him, staining his expensive suit and tie. It would have been stupid but would have made me feel better. Well, maybe not better, but it would have been something.

  There was one thing I could do. I grabbed my phone and scrolled through the contact list for Liz.

  Liz didn’t pick up, it rolled to voicemail. I tried to keep my voice from cracking. “Liz? Is that offer to go to the Hamptons still open? Let’s go. As soon as we can.”

  The Hamptons. Out on the long island west of New York City, aptly named Long Island. It didn’t look like an island on a map, more of an isthmus, but it was actually an island, separated from Manhattan by the east river. Two of the boroughs of New York actually were on the island, but when New Yorker’s spoke of “The Island” they generally mean the area east of the city line.

  The Hamptons, near the far eastern edge of the island, were a collection of towns and villages where some of the richest people in New York had summer homes. The days of the raucous clubs, party rental houses with thirty people, and wild sex in public were mostly gone. Instead, the nightlife, though still extensive, had shifted toward large parties thrown in private homes. Some of these were still rentals, but many where homes that were co owned by a few people. A lot of the night clubs had closed as well, but this didn’t mean that there was nothing to do, far from it. You just had to know where to go. Or be invited to parties, some of which were sponsored, oddly enough, by businesses.

  Two weeks had passed since Mike’s bombshell, and I hadn’t spoken to him. I’d ignored his texts and calls. I did notice that none of them had come during the late evenings. I did listen to a few of his voicemails. They varied between trying to sound matter of fact, Hey let’s have dinner tonight to apologetic I know you are still mad, can we talk? to as if nothing had happened I know you must be missing at least a part of me.

  His persistence was confusing. Was he feeling guilty? Or did he really want to make things right?

  On the other hand, I didn’t get a message saying that Chrissy had moved out, so I assumed she was still at Mike’s apartment.

  And for my part, I hadn’t broken up with him. Unless two weeks of silence was breaking up.

  I decided I’d try to go to the Hamptons, get it out of my mind for a few days if at all possible, and then decide what to do. Maybe I’d give him one chance to fix it. Maybe.

  Liz was pretty connected. On the way out to the Island on Saturday afternoon, she laid out our plans for the weekend. “John Kelly—he owns the house we’re staying at, is having a small get together tonight, mostly for people who have been here all this week. A small party for John might mean fifty people. Or a hundred. Tomorrow one of my clients has a company thing on the beach, we can mingle a bit and if it’s too corporate we can bag out and just sit in the sun.”

  “Sounds good. I was a little hesitant about this, but I’m looking forward to it now.”

  “Good. It will be fun.”

  “I’d rather not run into Mike though. It might be a little embarrassing. He might think I’m checking up on him.”

  Liz took my hand. “Listen to me. You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about. You are a strong woman. Time to act it. We’re here to get away, have fun. It’s where everyone goes in the summer. It’s not like you are stalking him. If you do run into him, just say “Hi Mike!” like you would if you ran into him on the street in midtown. If he has a problem with you being here, it’s his problem, not yours.”

  Liz could always be blunt, and I could take tough love from her, because I knew she had my best interest at heart. I wondered, though, if I could be so cavalier if I ran into Mike, especially if he happened to be with Chrissy. Although that would answer a question for me.

  Our hosts house turned out to be more of a sprawling mansion than a house. Set behind a huge hedge on a quiet street, the house spread across a huge pristine lawn. A set of wide double doors opened up into an airy foyer. The woman who opened the door, who appeared to be a maid, explained that John was on a work call in his study, and she led us to a room on the second floor, a bedroom bigger than my entire apartment. Two antique queen beds sat on expensive looking rugs, the walls decorated with tasteful art, not prints.

  After the maid had explained where everything was, Liz opened the windows, which overlooked a tennis court, pool house, pool, and another expansive lawn, set below a three tiered set of terraces. A few dozen people were out by the pool, lounging, no one in the water. The ping of tennis balls drifted up to us from the courts.

  “Come on, let’s change and go sit by the pool,” said Liz.

  That’s how we spent the afternoon, Liz introducing me to a few people she had met. People arrived all afternoon, too many to count. Our host came out about five. He was a quiet, redheaded guy that must have been older than he looked. He didn’t seem to be the Hamptons party type, but after Liz introduced me to him, and I had thanked him for letting us stay, I noticed his eyes showed a few more years than his freckled face. After he walked away Liz explained that he was a successful advertising executive, and knew, in her terms, everybody. He wasn’t much of a partier himself, but loved to host them.

  The crowd was a very diverse mix, although I guessed most were New York professionals. No one really young, no college age kids. Quite a few people my age and a little older, up and comers, fast risers. Quite a few who looked a bit older, early forties. No kids at all. As the afternoon wore on, the age group shifted a bit younger.

  “There’s no official party time,” explained Liz. “It kind of just evolves.”

  At six, waiters in uniforms appeared with trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

  I felt like I was at a spa, pampered, the surroundings casually opulent. “This is the way to live!” I said, as I was offered a second mimosa.

  “It sure is. Keep that in mind as your boss makes you work weekends sometimes. It might pay off like this.”

  “It would take me a long time to get to this,” I said.

  “Me too. But there’s always hope. And in the
meantime, we can visit. Anyway, let’s go get changed.”

  We switched from bathing suits to summer chic, Liz in crisp white slacks and me in a summer dress, both of us in strappy sandals. By the time we got back outside, a set of white cloth covered tables had magically appeared, brimming with food.

  “If we eat something, we can drink more,” said Liz.

  Cradling drinks and party plates filled with finger food, Liz and I chatted our way through the growing crowd. The people were relaxed, laid back, a lot of them funny. Although many of the guests were probably stereotypical Wall Street cutthroats during the week, none of that was in evidence here, either because the guests had been carefully chosen, or because of the ambiance, or both.

  “Still thinking about Mike?” asked Liz, after I had laughed hysterically at two guys who had just performed a takeoff on rap song.

  “Mike who?” I said, gaily, and I meant it. I hadn’t thought about him for hours.

  By the time the sun had begun to set, I had more to drink than I normally would in an entire week. Everything just flowed, the time, the conversation, the alcohol. Knowing I didn’t have to drive, didn’t have to get up early the next morning, and maybe, just a little, letting myself go, I wasn’t quite drink, but I had a little buzz going.

  “That guy’s been checking you out for the last hour,” said Liz, indicating a group of four men, all well groomed, sitting on the wide stone steps behind the house, looking out over the pool.

  “What? Who?” I asked.

  “The one in the dark blue polo. He’s cute.”

  I glanced over while trying not to appear obvious. Liz shifted so that I could look at her and see over her shoulder, it was an old college trick we had perfected when we wanted to check out a guy.

  “Well, he is, but I don’t think he’s looking at me. Just out toward the pool. Lots of people to look at.”