“Yeah?”
She smiles. “Yeah. Let’s chalk my concern up to hormones and go look at some sparkles. So what’s the plan?” She points her thumb at the store. “Tiffany’s, I take it?”
“To start. But there’s more to it.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“If I tell you, you have to promise not to laugh.”
She snorts. “I promise nothing.”
I gently push her shoulder. “Brat.”
She holds up her hands. “Okay, okay. I promise I won’t laugh. Much.”
“I want to design it myself. Despite the fact I’ve bought two engagement rings, I really know nothing about this shit, so you and I are going to Tiffany’s, Cartier, and Harry Winston to look at settings and come up with ideas. Later this afternoon, I’m going to sit down with Spencer’s guy and design it. I really need your help. I want it to be one of a kind, and it has to be perfect.”
“Why would I laugh? That’s so sweet.” She tugs on my shirt. “Come on. The valet is giving us the hairy eyeball. We’re taking up his spot.”
We go through all the rings at Tiffany’s and Cartier, but neither of us sees anything that looks like Ari. Despite not finding anything, Charlie’s attitude and enthusiasm do a one-eighty. She seems just as invested in this search as I am.
“I’m glad I’m designing my own because none of these would work,” I say as we walk to Harry Winston.
A slight drizzle comes down, and Charlie reaches into her massive purse and pulls out an umbrella. “The upside is you’re starting to know what you don’t want, and that can be just as helpful. Ring shopping can take a long time. Spencer said he looked for three years for my ring.”
“The day he got his trust fund, he started looking, and it took three painstakingly long years to find one he was happy with. I thought he was just being a picky pain in the ass, but I couldn’t really fault him since it was for you,” I say. “Although now I wish I’d paid closer attention all those times he dragged me along. What he understood that I didn’t get until now is that this isn’t just a gift. It’s forever. This ring will be on her finger for the rest of her life. I can’t think of anything else that stays with you that long, except a tattoo maybe. Every morning when she wakes up, it’ll be there. Clothes will change. Hairstyles will change. But this ring will stay. It needs to be perfect.”
She puts her hand on my arm. “It’ll be perfect. Don’t worry. What did you do with the ring you bought for her last time?”
“It’s in a safe. I couldn’t bring myself to return it.”
“You don’t want to use it now?”
I shake my head. “No. For one thing, it wasn’t the perfect ring; it was just the one I settled on. It was pretty, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the one. Plus I want to get something new since this is a fresh start and everything. I’m sure I’ll give the old ring to her one day. She can use the stone, maybe for a necklace or something. But this is a new us, and she needs a new ring.”
We’re about two blocks away from the store when Charlie tugs on my jacket. “If I’m going to another store, I need some sustenance.”
She pulls me into Café Madeleine’s. We grab a small table in the back.
I pick up a menu, and she takes it from me. “You don’t need that.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I don’t?”
She shakes her head. “Trust me.” The waitress pops by with two waters. “We’ll have two red velvet cupcakes and two caramel with sea salt, please.”
The waitress leaves, and I laugh at Charlie. “Cupcakes for lunch?”
She takes a sip of her water. “I have to do stuff like this now. Once I have a kid, I have to be all adult all the time. No more ice cream for breakfast or cookies for lunch.”
I love that no matter how hard getting pregnant has been for her, she hasn’t given up hope. “So are any of those cupcakes for me, or are you having all four?”
She flips me off just as the waitress returns with our order. Charlie takes a huge bite of a red velvet, getting cream cheese frosting on her nose.
“Any ideas on how you’re going to do it?” she asks as she wipes her face.
I peel the wrapper off of my caramel one. “Not yet. I’m still thinking.”
She stops the waitress as she walks by. “Can I get a glass of milk?” Turning her attention back to me, she asks, “Did you have a plan last time?”
“Yup. A lot of good it did me. Non-refundable airfare. A villa for a whole week paid in advance.”
She pops the rest of the red velvet into her mouth. “Ouch. Sounds painful. Do I get details?”
I wipe my hands on a napkin then lean forward. This isn’t something I need a nosey onlooker to hear. “I was going to take her to Rome. We had been there together a year or so before. I’d flown in to watch her in the BNL d’Italia, which of course she won, then we spent a few days in Rome. We were doing the touristy thing, trying to cram a lot into just a few days. She wanted to do this Da Vinci Code conspiracy scavenger hunt. Rome was going through a massive heat wave, and it was a million degrees out. The last thing I wanted to do was walk all over the city. Hell, I didn’t want to leave the hotel room, but she insisted. So we hoofed it around, trying to find all these places on the list. We kept getting lost because all the places on the list were obscure. No one had ever heard of them. We were at each other’s throats all day, arguing about directions and answers to clues.”
“Yeah, that sounds like the two of you.” She takes a sip of her milk. “That’s a really romantic memory. I can see why you’d want to go back and relive it as your proposal.”
I throw my napkin at her. “Shut up and listen. At the end of the day, we were searching for this little church on top of one of the seven hills of Rome. We finally get to the top of the hill at sunset, and it’s just the most spectacular panoramic view of the city. You can see everything, and there was this big orange sun setting in the background. The sky was so beautiful it looked like a painting. It looked too amazing to be real. Next to us was this old couple sitting on a blanket, drinking wine and watching the sunset, and that was when I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. We may fight all the time and drive each other crazy, but I knew I’d never been so happy as I was with her. Even when we’re screaming at each other. There’s no one else I want to sit on a blanket and drink wine with when I’m eighty. She was all I wanted, forever. We weren’t ready then, but that’s when I knew. So I rented a villa and hired a private chef to make a picnic dinner I could bring to that spot.”
Charlie wipes her eyes. “Sorry. Damn hormones. That was so beautiful.”
I sigh. “Yeah. It could have been had things worked out differently.”
She takes the red velvet cupcake from my plate and peels off the wrapper. “You can still do it.”
I shake my head. “Nah. That whole memory is tainted now, you know? I can’t think of it without thinking about how much it hurt when she left me. I don’t want the ghost of what wasn’t to linger. Whatever I do this time will be about looking forward to our future, not clinging to our past.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something even more amazing.”
“I was thinking about this the other day. Had Ari not broken up with me after your wedding, we’d be married now. She never would have gotten into that car accident and hurt her knee, which led to blowing out her knee. She’d still be playing. Our whole lives would have been different.”
She pauses, considering the parallel universe that could have been. “It’s hard to imagine.”
“But you know what?”
“What?” she asks with her mouth full of cupcake.
“As painful as it was to go through everything we’ve been through, I think it’s better this way. Having lost her and been forced to live without her, I appreciate her so much more now. I know there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to be with her. The first time we were together, I took us for granted. It took losing her and finding her again to make me
see how fucking lucky I am to have her. I’ll never let her go again.”
Misty-eyed, Charlie smiles. “That. Right there. Say that, and she’ll say yes.” She wipes her eyes. “Who knew you were such a romantic?”
My phone rings, interrupting the moment. I dig it out of my pocket and answer quickly. “Hey, Mom, what’s up?”
“Chase, honey, I need you to come to the house. Something horrible’s happened. Ari’s in real bad shape.”
Chapter Eighteen
Arianna
I should have walked. But it’s drizzling, and after fighting all morning to tame my hair, I wasn’t ready to admit defeat to the frizz, so I drove. The St. Regis is only about a half mile away from my condo, but in this log-jammed traffic, it’ll take me an hour to go the ten blocks. That gives me plenty of time to guess why David wants to see me though. I’m sure at least one reason for this meeting is to check up on me. I was a complete mess when I saw him at the funeral. He probably feels he owes it to Daddy to make sure I haven’t come completely unglued.
I hit yet another red light, and a thought pops into my mind: what if he offers me a job? The last few times we spoke, it didn’t sound as though there was anything I was the right fit for, but things change all the time. I just promised Chase I was going to slow down and focus on us. Will I be able to keep my word if David offers me everything I want? Do I even want that anymore? The thought of stepping into a booth without Daddy makes me feel sick to my stomach.
Making myself crazy, I overanalyze the situation until I drop the car off at the valet and take the elevator to David’s floor. I knock on the door of the presidential suite. A flushed-faced David promptly answers. His hair is disheveled, and there’s enough extra baggage under his eyes for a trip to Europe. His white button-down is rolled up at the sleeves and rumpled as though he slept in it.
“Arianna, it’s so good to see you.” He kisses my cheek then pulls me into a hug.
“It’s only eleven in the morning, David. You look like you’ve been to hell and back already. Tough day?”
“I feel like I’ve been battling tigers.” He pulls out of our hug.
“And you got out of football because your wife thought it was too violent. Little did she know sitting behind a desk is far more dangerous.”
He snorts. “Only now I don’t get to wear pads, and the players play much dirtier.” He gestures to the room. “Please come in. I had them bring up coffee and juice. They brought me wheatgrass. I don’t know who the hell drinks this shit, but they brought a ton of it.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I’ve had it, but now that I’m not training, I can’t come up with a good reason to ever drink it again without serious money on the line.”
He laughs. “You are your father’s daughter.”
I give him a sad smile. “So what brings you to San Francisco?”
“You actually.” He motions toward the sofa. “Please sit.”
“Me?” I ask as I sit on the overstuffed armchair. “You didn’t have to make a trip up here for me.”
“Actually, I did.” He sits on the couch across from me. “I’m not sure if you know this, but my son-in-law is the president of my publishing company.”
I set my purse down next to me and cross my legs. Looks as though we’ll be here a while. “Oh, yes. How are Brad and Susan?”
“Fine, fine. So as I was saying, Brad called me yesterday when a book proposal came in that he thought I should know about. It was for a tell-all book.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I know those things make a ton of money, but I really despise them. Who’s the poor chump being told all about?” I open my bottle of water and take a sip.
“Your father.”
Choking on my water, I cough a few times. “Daddy? Is it another book about Mom’s murder? There’s already at least twenty. How many more does the world need?”
“Arianna, I need you to listen for a moment. This isn’t about your mother. Well, not really.”
Putting down my water, I uncross my legs and lean forward. “Okay. Then what is it about?”
“A woman is claiming that she had an affair with your father and he paid her a large sum of money to keep quiet about the affair and….” David pinches his eyes shut as he sighs. With a pained look on his face he says, “And the child he fathered and refused to acknowledged.”
I shake my head. “No. That’s not possible. My father would never have cheated on my mother, and even if he did, he would never abandon a child. My father loved children. You saw him as a coach. He treated every guy on that team like they were his own. It’s inconceivable to me that he would do that. It’s simply not possible. When did this supposed affair take place?”
“1987. From what the proposal said, she signed a nondisclosure agreement, but the terms of the agreement don’t carry over after his death, so she’s looking to cash in.”
I roll my eyes. “Anyone can write a book and say it’s the truth. People do it all the time. I’m sure my lawyers will be able to squash it.”
He stands and walks to the dining room table. He opens his briefcase and takes out a file. “I’m not so sure about that this time. A copy of the NDA, amongst other things, was in the proposal.”
He holds out the file, and I snatch it, eager for proof that this is just a farce. “People forge documents all the time. Give me an hour, and I can doctor your college transcripts so that it shows you got the GPA you claim in your bio.” I open the file. “This is all nonsen—”
I read the name of our family attorney at the top of the letterhead—Wallace & Hampton. My confidence dissolves like a scoop of ice cream hitting the pavement on a scorching day. I had expected something with Daddy’s signature. People forge it all the time since his signature is on countless mass-marketed products. But how would this woman know about Wallace?
I scan through the pages, growing more desperate to prove David wrong. “Most of this is redacted. It could say anything.”
He sits on the chair across from me. “Only the publisher who signs on will get to see the documents in their entirety. We, of course, passed on the book. I made a few calls, and many of the big houses have passed as well, but someone will take her up on her offer. I wanted to let you know right away so that you could try to get ahead of it. Take this file to your lawyers and prepare to fight. According to this person’s agent, the book is written and ready to go. They want a release day in the summer. That doesn’t leave you much time. You need an injunction and fast.”
I close the file and set it on the table. “This isn’t the first time ridiculous accusations have been thrown at my family. It won’t be the last either. But none of it ever sticks because none of it is ever true. My parents preached the importance of avoiding scandal at all costs by never doing anything you could be embarrassed by. At the risk of leading dreadfully boring lives, we all lived by that code. I’ll get the lawyers on it, and it’ll be handled.” I hold up the file. “I’ll be able to use this for kindling by the end of the week, and whoever this woman is will regret choosing my family as her mark because I won’t let up until she’s discredited, decimated, and destitute.”
“It’s more than your image you have to worry about,” he replies. “If this is true, this person could come after you for a portion of Aiden’s estate. At the very least, she could hold you up in court for a decade. You need to look into this and prepare for a counterstrike.”
“I’ll take it to Wallace, but it’s not true. This is my father. Do you really think my father had an affair?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, David looks away. I stare at him, waiting for him to meet my gaze, but he avoids me. Checking his watch. Picking a piece of lint from his pants.
“David?”
He finally looks at me. “You need to talk to your lawyer. You need to get ahead of this.”
My eyes narrow to slits. “What are you saying?”
He presses his lips together ever so slightly with a pathetic look of pity. “I know your father.”
> My hand curls around the edge of the sofa, my nails digging into the fabric. “So do I, and my father would never do this. He wouldn’t have cheated on my mother, and he would never have cast a child aside.”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Would you like for me to come with you to see your lawyer? I can clear my afternoon. I don’t want you to have to go alone.”
He really thinks there’s merit to this? How could he? How can he just betray my father’s memory? The man’s been in the ground for less than a month, and David’s just forgotten who my father was? What he stood for? I’m thankful David has brought this to my attention, but I’m devastated he thinks so little of Daddy. I guess lifelong friendships falter after death.
I sit up straight. “No, I’m fine. I’ll go see Wallace, and I’m sure he’ll clear this up. Then I’ll sue the hell out of this woman.” I pick up the file. “Can I keep this?”
He nods. “Yes. I made that copy for you.”
Putting my purse over my arm, I stand and walk toward the door. “Thank you for passing on this book and for coming to me with it. This sort of drivel sells a lot of copies.” I smile sweetly. “But now I won’t have to sue you.”
“I’d hate to be on the receiving end of the wrath of Arianna Aldrich.” When we get to the door, David hugs me. “I’m always here for you, and I’ll always look out for you.” He pulls back and looks me in the eye. “Please keep me posted and let me know if I can do anything. I mean it. Anything at all.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I will, but I’m sure this will be resolved quickly. You can’t have smoke if there’s no fire.” I kiss his cheek. “I’ll be in touch.”
The click of the door closing echoes in the hall as I walk to the elevator. The events of the last hour churn in my mind. Hopefully Wallace can put a stop to this woman’s insane pursuit before it gets too far. I’m amazed she sent out redacted copies of her “proof.” The redaction will at least contain any potential leaks. There’s not enough information to leak.
Love To Hate You Page 18
