Vandervilles: Book 1 : When Beauty Met The Beast

by Khardine Gray

  Kelly nodded, understanding. But Chloe behaved the way she always did when Richard's name was brought up.

  She said nothing, and there was no reaction from her. Not even a blink. This time Chloe focused her attention on her nails.

  It didn't sit well with her that Chloe disliked Richard, and Taylor wondered what she could do to make her like him.

  "Do you think that's a good idea, Chloe?" Taylor asked her. Chloe lifted her head and regarded her. Those light brown eyes that almost looked like honey stared back at her, and she eventually nodded.

  "I think you should follow your heart." Chloe placed her hands over Taylor's. "Do what your heart tells you. You must. It doesn't matter what I think."

  Taylor held her gaze, wanting desperately to ask her what her thoughts were. But it was written all over her face. Chloe still didn't like Richard. Even after all this time. She had her reservations about him.

  "Okay." Taylor nodded. "I guess I'll cancel my dress fitting with Vera then." She thought she'd bring back the lightness in their conversation with a joke.

  "You booked a dress fitting?" Kelly's mouth dropped.

  "No, but I was going to."

  "Hey did you tell Wes about the job?" Maybe a change of subject was best because Chloe wasn't budging at all.

  "Yeah, he was happy, but said he knew I'd get it anyway." She smiled, still looking a little uneasy.

  "We all knew you'd get it."

  "I really appreciate the faith you had in me." Chloe looked at them both, but rested her hand on Taylor's shoulder, as if to make up for her prior silence.

  "So, what happens now? Did my mom give you any insight into her plans?"

  Chloe nodded. "The focus will be on Fashion Week. The creative team has been split into two groups. One group will do the upcoming magazines and shows, and the other will focus on creating the very best Fashion Week ever known to man. I'm going to ask Lisa to work with me. I think if the role of assistant exists, I'd like her to have it. She has some pretty cool ideas."

  This was what she liked about Chloe too, her humility and willingness to join forces with those who could be her competitors. It made her a better person.

  "That's a good idea."

  "Daaaad." The sound of a screeching child drew Taylor's attention away from her friends. She looked below to the ground floor of the mall where the fountain sprinted up and over a bronze statue of a girl playing with a dog. The child screeched again, running past the statue and into the arms of a dark-haired man. It was a very adorable little boy dressed in dungarees.

  Taylor smiled at how cute the boy was and marveled at how loving the man seemed as he picked up his child, who looked no older than about five. She returned her attention to Kelly, who was asking Chloe about her ideas, but did a double take as the man whirled the boy around.

  She saw his face from where she sat, and her heart stopped.

  Taylor straightened up immediately and continued to watch in absolute horror as she saw Richard spinning the boy around.

  Richard.

  Her Richard…

  As a jolt of shock rippled through her, she grabbed onto Chloe's hand.

  "Chloe," she managed against a strangled breath. Chloe looked at her quickly.

  "Taylor, are you okay?" Chloe asked.

  Taylor didn't answer; she slid off the stool and moved over to the balcony so she could get a better look.

  Getting closer confirmed that it was indeed Richard.

  Her Richard had a son. A child. It didn't make sense to her, nothing did.

  Chloe and Kelly rushed up to join her and watched too.

  It was bad enough to see Richard with a child she had no knowledge of, but the scenery got a whole lot worse when a blonde woman approached Richard with a newborn baby in her arms and he leaned in to give her a loving kiss.

  Taylor was certain everyone could hear her heart break and shatter into a million pieces.

  Despair drained the little strength she had left as she watched the happy family proceed down the pathway that led to the toy stores. It was Chloe's hand on her shoulder that brought Taylor out of her nightmarish trance.

  "Taylor." Chloe's eyes filled with tears.

  "He lied to me?" Taylor barely managed through her own tears. "He…lied to me," she breathed, in a low, tormented voice that sounded so different from her own.

  As reality sunk in with the ugly truth, it weakened her and severe distress and despair overwhelmed her body.

  She looked from Kelly to Chloe, saw the sadness in their eyes, and her anguish peaked, shattering the last shred of control she had.

  A terrible sense of bitterness and disappointment assailed her, and all she could do was run.

  Chloe

  Damn it.

  As Chloe watched Taylor run off, she was torn between running after her and running after Richard to beat the crap out of him.

  She doubted she could kick Richard's ass, but she was willing to give it a damn good try. What a lying, manipulative, son of a bitch.

  She hated when her instincts were right. She simply hated it. Just this once she wanted to be wrong. For Taylor's sake.

  She couldn't believe Richard could be so vile. The man had a family. Two kids and maybe that was his wife.

  Chloe balled her fist and stormed towards the direction she'd seen Richard go.

  "Hey, stop." Kelly grabbed her arm and did her best to pull her back, but Chloe kept going against her pull. "Stop Chloe." Kelly had to put both arms around her to hold her back. "You can't. That woman and her kids will get hurt," Kelly stated. It was only then that Chloe stopped.

  She looked at Kelly and saw the sadness in her eyes.

  "He deserves to pay." Chloe couldn't hold back her fury. Her stomach clenched when she thought of all the times she wanted to warn Taylor away from Richard.

  "Yes." Kelly nodded. "But his children don't, and neither does that woman. She could be his wife, and it looks like she just had that baby."

  Chloe tried to calm herself and steady the rapid beat of her heart. Kelly was right. The woman and the kids were innocents in this.

  "What should we do?" Chloe brought her hands up to her stinging cheeks. There really was never a dull moment. She was looking forward to tonight and spending it with her friends. She was looking for any distractions she could grab on to to stop her from thinking about Wade. She never expected this.

  "We need to find Taylor."

  Chloe agreed.

  They walked to the parking lot, expecting to see Taylor crying in her car. However, when they got there, she was nowhere to be found.

  Taylor

  Hot tears blinded her and stung her cheeks as Taylor drove.

  She felt like a mad woman without a soul. She drove around and around for hours, not going anywhere in particular, just driving.

  Driving around as she tried desperately to understand what had happened. She needed to make sense of what she'd seen.

  Her Richard had children. Two children and that woman was someone special to him. She was holding his child, and she kissed him.

  He kissed her.

  How could it be that this had happened to her? She thought he was hers, and that he loved her.

  She thought they belonged together.

  Taylor was trying so hard to understand, but she couldn't. She couldn't understand any of it.

  What about the ring certificate?

  If that woman wasn't his wife, then maybe the ring was for her. That made sense. If she'd just had their baby and she wasn't his wife yet then maybe he was going to propose to her. Or, maybe she was his wife, and it was an eternity ring. A lot of men gave their wives eternity rings when they had their children.

  Whatever it was, where did that leave Taylor? Where did that leave her?

  With nothing, and feeling worse than stupid.

  Chloe might not have said anything against Richard, but the signs were there that she didn't trust him. Why hadn't Taylor paid attention to that? Why?

  It was
raining now, and the wind tore through the trees that outlined the boulevard. She got as far as San Diego and turned back. She also called her mother but didn't get her, so she left a message.

  Taylor felt like she needed the support of one of her parents. Just one of them to hold her and tell her she'd get through this.

  She called her mother again but the same thing happened, so she did what she wouldn't normally do and called her father.

  It was chance if he ever answered the phone. Often if she wanted to reach him, she'd have to do it through his secretary or just turn up.

  It was bordering on eight now, but she knew he'd still be at the office. He worked late on Monday nights with his officers as they did plans for the week and had other meetings. She was sure he wouldn't mind her stopping by, even for five minutes.

  When the phone went to his voicemail, she said, "Dad, I'm on my way to you. I just need to see you. I'll be there in about half an hour."

  She placed the phone back in her bag when she finished and diverted into town.

  Maybe it was stupid going to see him because he was perhaps worse than Richard, but she wasn't going to him for advice. She didn't even plan to say anything. She just needed to be with someone who loved her and could make her feel better.

  She loved Richard so much. Loved him more than anyone she'd ever been with and had prepared herself to spend the rest of her life with him. How was she supposed to just forget that? Forget her plans, her dreams for them both, which involved children of their own?

  It made her sick to think of it now. It made her ill to realize that everything was all in her head.

  Within half an hour she pulled up at the parking lot of her father's office. She parked close to the door so she could avoid the rain. The main reception was dark, but the doors were open. The lobby was dark, too, but as she walked in the sensory lights flicked on one at a time. She took the stairs to his floor and proceeded along to his office.

  No one else appeared to be around, which was good because she didn't want to explain the tears. She also couldn't hold back and stop herself from crying.

  The desk light was on inside her father's office, so she knocked. There was no answer, but she could hear soft jazz music coming from inside. The type her father listened to at home.

  She decided to go in, thinking he must be around somewhere. When she stepped in, she realized that the music was coming from the back room and now she could hear her father's voice, along with a series of female giggles.

  Her first thought was that he was with Penelope, but she pushed it out of her mind. She just needed to see him.

  So she proceeded to the back room. The music got louder the closer she got.

  Taylor opened the door, and her poor heart broke again for the second time tonight.

  She watched in revulsion as her father held his latest secretary up against him, placing kisses over her naked body.

  "You're beautiful," he said as he kissed her ravenously, and what was left of Taylor's heart faded away into nothing.

  She ran again.

  Driving…again.

  Driving to nowhere.

  No tears came this time.

  Taylor was running on empty, and there was nothing left of her. The rain had eased too, the same as her tears, and there was a heaviness about the atmosphere. It felt like anticipation.

  She stared ahead as she continued to drive, feeling her mind drift. It drifted back to an incident that occurred when she was a child.

  She was five years old when she first saw her mother get angry. Seriously angry.

  This incident, though, was so significant it never left her mind.

  Her father had come back late from work, and she heard her parents arguing in the kitchen. The argument was so bad that it actually woke Taylor. She snuck out of her room and listened in. Her parents said all kinds of horrible things to each other. Really horrible things that frightened her.

  It shocked her because they were always so loving when they were around Taylor and Wade. On that night her mother kept asking her father who he was with, and when he eventually said Eve she slapped him hard in his face and ran away crying.

  Taylor didn't understand what was going on at the time, and what was so wrong with her dad being with Eve. Eve was his secretary, and Taylor thought she'd seemed nice. So why was her mother so angry?

  The situation got worse the next day when she saw her mother crying. Taylor had never seen her mother cry before. Not ever, and she remembered feeling helpless as she watched. But the person who comforted her was a man she'd never seen before.

  Taylor ran to her mother and gave her a hug as the man also hugged her.

  "Mom, what's wrong?" she'd asked.

  "I'm fine, sweetie. I'm just upset," her mother replied.

  "What's a cheat, Mom? Is that a bad thing?" She'd heard her mother say that to the man.

  Her mother frowned and looked back at the man. "Sweetheart, why don't you go and play with your toys?"

  "Who's that?" Taylor asked.

  It was only then that her mother smiled. "This is my very best friend."

  "I thought Flick was your best friend." That was Chloe's mom. Her mother had always told her stories about her and Flick but never mentioned anyone else.

  "She is, but this is Brian. He's my other friend, and he always makes me happy."

  When Taylor heard that she smiled. She loved anyone who could make her mother happy. Taylor looked at Brian and became completely fascinated with him.

  "Hi Brian, can you really make my mom happy?" Taylor remembered how he looked at her, and how confident he seemed when he nodded.

  "I can," he replied, and her mother did indeed look happy when he said that. It was just like magic.

  "See look, she's smiling." He tapped her head lightly. Taylor looked at her mother and saw the greatness in her smile. "That's a real pretty dress you have there," Brian said. His expression brightened, and his large green eyes sparkled. She remembered thinking that his eyes were the same color as hers and that he had a kind face she could trust.

  Nothing made Taylor happier than a compliment, even at that young age.

  "Thank you. My mom bought it for me." The dress looked like something a doll would wear, with its pink-and-white satin, ribbons, and lace. It was a gift for doing well on her science project at school.

  Years later that simple, childhood event became significant in Taylor's mind as she learned what the word cheat meant. She learned that her father cheated on her mother with Eve and a multitude of other women, causing her great distress and deep embarrassment.

  Brian had been around over the years, and he was true to his word. He did make her mother happy, and it was always at the times she seemed to need him the most. Taylor had been grateful that her mother had someone like that who could make her feel better after something so terrible. Something that could darken your soul.

  That was how Taylor felt now as she drove around in her wretched state, not knowing where she was going and what she was doing.

  Her phone rang. It was Chloe. Before it was Kelly. They hadn't stopped calling since she left them, and as like before, Taylor ignored the call. She was too embarrassed to speak to either of them, especially Chloe.

  She didn't know what she would say, and she couldn't stand feeling worse than she already did.

  The driver behind her turned on their high beams, and the reflection in her rearview threw her off her focus. She glanced behind her, scowling at them. She recognized the car from earlier. It was a yellow Lamborghini. It was behind her when she drove away from her father's office.

  It was strange that the car was still behind her, she was miles away and had practically driven around in circles on purpose.

  They switched to low beam for a few seconds then back to full-on high beam. Who the hell were they playing at?

  She sped up to get some distance and planned to turn off at the next intersection. But they sped up, too, and turned with her as she drove into the interse
ction.

  A strange feeling gnawed at her stomach, and she suddenly felt uncomfortable. She decided to maintain a good speed and turn at the next route exit. That road would take her back home.

  The driver continued the on and off flicker of their high beams and kept up their pace with her.

  Panic shot through her when she took the exit and the car did too. Taylor realized then with great fear that she was being followed. She reached for her phone to call the police, but her hands were shaking so much she dropped it. She tried to pick it up, but her attempts sent it right under the passenger seat.

  Her breath caught in her throat as the car sped up to her and moved so that it was right next to her. Her mind willed her not to look, but she had to. She had to see who was driving. She gazed across to the car, trying her hardest to see who the driver was, but couldn't through the darkened windows that were rolled up.

  The car drove next to her for a few seconds, and to her great astonishment inched closer as they approached a sharp turn on the highway. Beyond that was dead man's gorge, nicknamed such for the steep, jagged rocks that covered every inch of it. Rocks that would kill you in an instant if you had the misfortune of driving over the edge.

  The yellow car inched even closer, and Taylor tried to speed up when dark dread filled her of what could happen. The closeness of the car suggested one thing, and that was that it was trying to run her off the road and into the gorge.

  Her suspicions were confirmed in full force when the car suddenly slammed into her Porsche and she lost control of the wheel. She screamed at the top of her lungs and grabbed onto the wheel, trying to steady the car.

  When she managed to stabilize it, the car came at her again, smashing into her harder this time.

  She screamed again and started crying as fear immobilized her.

  They neared the sharp curve, and when she saw the car come at her again, she knew that death was upon her.

  The car rammed into her and sent her straight through the barrier and over the edge.

  Terror robbed her of her final scream.

  Wade