Ivory Tower

by Lace Daltyn

  When had things gotten so out of control? And when, if ever, would she be able to make choices that were for her alone. Choices that would validate the person she didn’t know she could be. The vision of her, in the dress of her choice, walking down a short aisle surrounded by only their closest friends and family, slowly spiraled down the drain.

  She pounded the table, wondering if any part of this wedding would be hers. Damn it. Her mother had no right. Jenna yanked the invitations into a pile, picked them up and stepped across to the garbage can. Poised above it, she tried to throw the invitations in. She really did. But at the last moment, she knew she couldn’t do it.

  Jenna tossed the invitations on the table and walked slowly to her room, quite certain her shoulders were more stooped than those of her mother’s.

  Chapter Five

  With only two weeks to the wedding, Jenna recognized nothing of the original plan she and Josh had decided upon in the current preparations for their wedding. Instead of a few simple sprays of mixed flowers, the church would now be awash in roses and tulle. Instead of a small garden reception, the after-wedding celebration felt like something akin to a presidential dinner.

  As she sat waiting for Josh at their favorite restaurant, Jenna glanced out the window to the cooling September midday sunshine without seeing it. Between her mother’s demands and Josh’s continued preoccupation with who knows what, the ledge her patience precariously balanced on had grown very, very small.

  Today, Josh would tell her what was going on. She would demand it.

  Jenna’s backbone softened as she watched him navigate the plethora of tables, heading her way. His hello kiss was so damn perfunctory, Jenna almost demanded he try again as he slid into his chair and picked up the menu. Pick your battles, Jenna. She wanted some answers and, for now, that meant letting one minimalistic kiss slide. “How’s business?”

  His head jerked up, the first clue he’d given her in days. So his distraction had to do with his business. About half the tension in Jenna’s shoulders dissipated. It wasn’t about them.

  Thank God.

  Shrugging, Josh went back to perusing his menu. “All right. Lots of changes going on right now.”

  “Because of the merger?”

  His lips tightened, her second clue. It had to do with the merger. “Yes. Sort of.”

  The last string holding Jenna’s impatience back burst. “What kind of answer is that?”

  With an exaggerated sigh, Josh closed his menu and set it on the table. “If you don’t mind, we’ll talk about that in a moment. First, is there anything we need to go over regarding the wedding? Everything falling into place?”

  Recognizing the effective delay, Jenna still bit. “Who knows? Every time I ask Mother a question, all she says is ‘it’s under control’.”

  “What does that mean?”

  It was Jenna’s turn to breathe frustration. “Remember how Mom changed us to the yacht club for the reception?”

  “Yes, and you told her to change it back.”

  “We can’t.” Someone who didn’t know Josh as well as she did might not have seen the changes in his face that indicated tension. But Jenna saw them. The slight tic of his lip, the inconsequential deepening of the lines on his forehead.

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons. One, she cancelled the Garden House. And it’s already been re-booked for that day.”

  Okay, now just about anyone would be able to tell that Josh was getting pissed. Might as well get it all out there.

  “The second reason is that, with a week and a half until the wedding, we’ve gotten in many more R.S.V.P.’s than our original guest list.”

  “How many is ‘many more’?”

  “Two hundred and fifty.”

  He clenched his jaw. “We only had a little over one hundred people on that list.”

  “I know.”

  Now his jaw was working back and forth and they hadn’t yet ordered lunch. “What the hell is going on, Jenna? I thought you said no to the additional guests.”

  “I did.”

  “Then what the—what happened?”

  “I gave her the ultimatum. Honestly, I did. My mistake was in not grabbing the invitations off the table right then and there. I think... No. I know she mailed them.”

  Expelling a breath, Josh pushed back from the table, like he wanted some distance. His jaw worked overtime as he ran both hands through his hair.

  Jenna was so tired of fighting. With her mom, with Josh, hell, she felt like she was fighting herself, too. There wasn’t anything as she planned it. “Nothing is going right. Nothing at all.” Jenna tossed her menu on the table. “You know, if my mother weren’t so freaking concerned about her place in society, we wouldn’t have all these problems.”

  Josh scooted closer and placed a hand over hers, reminding her they were in a public place.

  Jenna lowered her voice. “Damn it. Dad left her pretty well off. She’s got enough money to live comfortably and it’s still not enough for her. She will never be satisfied.”

  “Then you need to break up with her, Jenna.”

  “Ha ha,” she said, scrunching her face. “You know I can’t do that.”

  Josh crossed his arms. “Your father would not want you to be this unhappy.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.” Jenna held her fiancé’s gaze. “I’ll be so glad when we’re married and I don’t have to worry about all the crap that goes with being wealthy.”

  Josh squirmed a bit in his seat, but Jenna couldn’t stop the roll she was on. “We’ll live in your little apartment and survive off whatever salary you can draw from your business. My writing will augment that. It’s not much, at least not yet. And maybe, just maybe, a few years down the road, we can afford a little house.” She knew she was waxing effervescent, but couldn’t stop. These plans were ones her mother couldn’t screw with. They were hers and Josh’s alone to make. “Oh, Josh, I can hardly wait until I’m out from under Mother’s wing and we’re able to determine our own flight path.”

  Josh’s face had gone pale, but Jenna barely noticed from the height of her soapbox. “Money is what’s wrong with Mom, Josh.” Jenna clasped his hands in hers. “I’ll be so glad to leave that all behind and just be us. You and me. Poor as church mice.”

  Extricating his hands from hers, Josh grabbed his water and gulped it down. Jenna’s ardor cooled enough for her to recognize how bad he looked. “You look like you’re about to be sick. Are you okay?”

  Josh stretched his chin in one direction, then the other. He looked at Jenna for so long, worry smacked her in the chest like a cement wedding bouquet.

  “What?” It was her turn to gulp. “What’s going on, Josh? Are you...are we...?”

  He grabbed her hand. “No, it’s not us. Don’t even think that. God, how could you think that? I love you like mad.”

  Jenna let out the breath she’d been holding, but couldn’t stop the sweat working its way down her back. “Then why do you look like death warmed over?”

  “It’s the merger.”

  “Is that all? You said it would be stressing you out for a while.” Jenna relaxed back into her seat. “Are they still making demands?”

  “No.” Josh drew out the word. “It’s all over and done with. I signed the papers today.”

  “So why are you unhappy?”

  “I’m not. It was a great deal. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  Completely confused now, Jenna tilted her head, waiting.

  “I didn’t merge with the company.” Josh ran his finger along the collar of his shirt to loosen it.

  “You didn’t? Then what did—”

  “I sold the company,” he blurted out.

  “You...what?”

  “They didn’t want to merge. They wanted to buy me out.”

  Jenna’s bark of laughter had nothing to do with humor. “So you’re out of a job?” Her voice, although still a whisper, managed a hint of her mother’s screech.

  “Yes,”
he said, still looking decidedly uncomfortable.

  Holy crap. Her soon-to-be husband was unemployed. No job. No income. Nothing. Jenna relived all the times she’d railed at her mother’s dependence on money and now here they would be, well, destitute. Poor. No two dimes to rub together, except for her writing and what was left of the inheritance her father had given her. Hysteria bubbled up to her throat and threatened to throw up the breadstick she’d just eaten. She didn’t want to be rich, but now that reality was smacking her in the face, she had to gulp down a significant amount of anxiety.

  Jenna glanced at Josh, who still looked ill. Knowing he was worried about them, about their future, she felt like crap for her reaction. That’s one of the many reasons she loved Josh so much. He worked hard to take things in stride. And she needed to measure up. So be it. They’d live on her paltry writing income until he found another job. They’d get that house with the white picket fence. It just might take them a few years longer.

  She straightened, reached across the table, and covered his hand with hers. “It’s all right. We’ll make it work.”

  The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of starting from scratch. No more haughty garden lunches. No worrying about impressing the right people. They would be free to be Josh and Jenna, just two people living on what her mother would consider the wrong side of the tracks.

  Josh should be relieved, but the pallor of his skin belied her reassurances.

  “Really, honey. We’ll be fine. We can find a smaller apartment than yours, maybe a studio at first. We’ll live on my income and the money I got from Dad, although,” she ducked her head, “I doubt it’ll be much. My publisher keeps contracting the romances I write, but the income stream can be pretty light. I’ll have to ask Mags. You know she handles all that for me. We’ll make it work until you find another job.” She flashed him the biggest, brightest, most supportive smile she could.

  “You don’t understand,” Josh said.

  “That we no longer have your income? I got that. And it’s okay. It’s you I love, Josh. Not your money.”

  “Hang onto that thought. There’s something you don’t know.”

  “Honey, I know everything I need to. We’ll be just fine. In fact, it’s a relief, honestly. You know how much I’ve wanted to distance myself from the mentality of people like mother. Now I can.”

  “No, actually, you can’t.”

  Confusion returned in the form of fire ants crawling around in her brain. “What do you mean?”

  “Look, Jenna. I love you. And we can live however you want. Studio, one bedroom, mansion, whatever you want. We’ll make it work. We won’t become your mother.”

  “How could we become my mother? She lives for money and we won’t have any.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

  “Well, what, exactly, would you say?”

  “I have the money from the sale.”

  “That can tide us over for a while, I’m sure. But we’ll need to be careful.”

  Josh glanced up at the ceiling.

  “Won’t we?”

  “Again, not exactly.”

  Patience lost the battle raging in Jenna’s head. “Spit it out, Josh. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “We’re not paupers, Jenna.”

  “What are we, then?”

  “Multi-millionaires.” With that single short phrase, all the color absent from Josh’s face rushed back in.

  Jenna heard the word, registered it in her sub-conscious, but still couldn’t format a response. Multi-millionaires? Josh had sold the company for millions? Of dollars? Part of her wanted to be supportive, to congratulate him. And a teensy bit of her heart let out a sigh of relief that they wouldn’t be destitute. Jenna crushed that part firmly, letting the overshadow of hurt take center stage. He knew she wouldn’t be happy about this, yet he didn’t tell her until it was a done deal. He hadn’t asked her opinion. He hadn’t trusted her enough to confide in her.

  “So,” Josh continued, “if you want to toss all your Mom’s plans aside and do exactly what we want to do, we can.” He smiled for the first time since he’d sat down. “We can afford it.”

  “We can afford it,” Jenna repeated.

  “Definitely.”

  “We can afford whatever we want to do.”

  Josh didn’t seem to grasp that she wasn’t asking questions as he replied again in the affirmative.

  “So we’re as rich as my mother.”

  “More so, I would say.”

  She heard the pride in his voice and knew she should respond to it, but Jenna wasn’t quite on the same page Josh was. In fact, she barely heard him over the ocean noise roaring in her ears. “We’re richer than my mother.” She started to laugh, a shallow, callous, loud noise that didn’t sound like her.

  “See,” Josh said, leaning back in his chair. “I knew you wouldn’t take this news well.”

  “Really? What tipped you off? All the times I’ve talked about money being the root of my mother’s problems? All the talk I did about us living simply until we could afford better? You—” Her voice caught and she had to clear her throat before she could continue. “You couldn’t have told me earlier?”

  “I wanted to, but I was under a gag order until the paperwork was signed.”

  “So you couldn’t discuss with your fiancé something that would affect our lifestyle together?”

  “We can still do what we planned. We won’t become your mother. We have a different set of values.”

  Steel entered her voice at the same time her heart shut down. “Oh, but we already have become my mother.”

  “How in the hell can you think that?”

  “Because we’re sitting here, civilized—in a restaurant—fighting about money. Over lunch.” Jenna’s world turned from orange to red as she tossed her napkin on the table and stood. “I for one, refuse to stoop to that level.”

  She grabbed her wrap and purse and leaned over. “You should have told me before this.”

  She walked out without a backward glance, leaving bits and pieces of her crumbled heart in her wake.

  Chapter Six

  Jenna sat in her best friend’s living room, at her own wedding shower, unable to dredge up even an ounce of enthusiasm for the occasion. Surrounded by twenty women, fifteen of whom she barely knew, if at all, sipping wine and eating little sandwiches and cakes that would make English High Tea proud, she had to force herself to smile and nod. How had things evolved to this level of catastrophe?

  She was miserable. Everything about this wedding had morphed into something she no longer recognized. Jenna had caved on almost the whole thing, including the damned Barbie dress, even though Jenna had even gone behind her mother’s back, purchased the dress of her dreams, and stashed it at Maggie’s place. Apparently, it was doomed to remain there.

  She brushed hair out of her face, happy at least that she’d won on this. Her hair color was no longer the foiled blonde that her mother preferred and wore herself. Jenna’s hair was now as close to natural brunette as she could get it. Eventually, the color would be all hers, but close would do for now. Josh’s reaction had been more than satisfying, if the glow in his eyes was any indication. Things had been tense between them these past few days. They’d barely spoken since the argument three nights ago and it was killing her. Jenna felt lied to. Omission was a lie, right? Especially when it came to the one you were about to commit the rest of your life to?

  But she missed Josh. Missed his hugs, his presence, his belief in her. He’d been scarce, giving her time, she knew. Her eagle-eyed mother had noticed, too. She’d been one part preening parent, one part inquisitor. It grated on Jenna’s nerves now more than ever before.

  Jenna rose from the couch and nodded to yet another friend of her mother’s. She made a controlled exit to Mags’ kitchen, where her friend was busy trying to keep the caterers from totally taking over.

  “Hey, Mags.” Jenna hip-bumped her.

  “I c
annot believe your mother hired caterers for the shower I am throwing for you.”

  “I know. She’s a steam train chugging ahead full speed, isn’t she?”

  “Hyper speed.” Mags rolled her eyes. “On the caterers, the invitation list, even the moratorium on games. The only thing that’s mine of this shower is the apartment. Oh, sorry. Venue, as your mother prefers to say.” She yanked some fancy cloth napkins out of a caterer’s hand, or tried to. A tug-of-war ensued. The caterer scowled at Mags, but her friend glared back and stood her ground. Moments later, the server walked out with cheesy but colorful napkins that proclaimed Here Comes The Bride. Jenna smiled her first genuine smile in days. She and Mags had laughed long and hard as they’d picked them out.

  “Yep. Your mother’s a supersonic train.”

  Jenna nodded, trying unsuccessfully to stifle the first good laugh she’d had in a while.

  “The question is,” Mags continued, “when are you going to jump the train?”

  With a sigh, Jenna wondered the same thing. “This wedding is not what I had in mind.”

  “Then change it.”

  “It’s too late. We’re only a couple weeks away.”

  “It’s not too late. Not until it’s over with.”

  Jenna bit her lower lip. Things were out of hand and she had no idea how to put it back on track. Even ever-patient, multi-millionaire Josh had blown up at her this morning. Another sign tension was gutting their relationship.

  “Just tell your mother to shove it,” Mags said.

  “How can I do that? It’s important to her.”

  “Just walk up to her and say ‘Screw you, Mom. Josh and I are going to elope.’ ”

  Jenna laughed again. Oh, how wonderful it would be to do that. She knew, though, she never could. “It’s not that simple.”

  Mags frowned. “What’s up?” She tapped Jenna’s arm. “You and Josh are acting like frozen soldiers around each other lately.”

  Jenna sighed. “We had a fight.”