Pimpernel

by Sheralyn Pratt

  “Most families that come from money do,” he said. “You know that better than anyone.”

  She gave a small nod before biting her lip. It was one of her few tells. She had something else to say.

  “So what’s the other bombshell you walked in here with?” Jack asked.

  There was another moment of hesitation before tapped on a document on her tablet and brought it up on the screen in front of him.

  “A will?” Jack asked in surprise.

  “Everett Ramsey’s will,” Margot clarified.

  Claire’s father. “And you think it impacts our current situation?”

  Margot scrolled down to the beneficiaries. “I think it could play into motive. Everett Ramsey’s holdings come in just over $119 million at the moment.”

  “And how much does Claire stand to inherit?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing,” Margot said, stopping on a section she’d highlighted.

  Jack quickly read the legal-speak until he reached the part that had his mouth falling open in shock. “He’s not Claire’s biological father?”

  “Not according to science,” Margot said, then gave him a few moments to digest that.

  “What does Natasha get?” Jack asked after the news sunk in.

  “One million flat,” Margot said. “Which may sound like something to the average person, but Natasha can burn through that in under a year. This will basically leaves her high and dry if Everett dies.”

  “Which speaks to Natasha’s motives to develop a nest egg of her own.”

  “Yes, it does,” Margot agreed.

  Jack rocked back in his chair, rubbing his hands over his short cropped hair as he looked at the situation through the lens Margot had just handed him. “So Ryan Eastman and Natasha Ramsey…that’s what you’re saying?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  It made sense—a lot of sense. “My sixth sense says the rabbit hole you’re about to go down is going to be a gnarly one.”

  “Won’t be the first,” Margot said. “I’ll mind the land mines along the way.”

  “Then do what you do,” Jack said.

  She gave his arm a squeeze before straightening and heading out the door. “And you do what you do.”

  Jack nodded and turned back to the screen to read Everett Ramsey’s will in its entirety. “Definitely.”

  Chapter 13

  Fake cops, giant arachnids, forced dates, and brunch with mom. All pretty much registered as category 5 disasters in Claire’s world. So, of course, they all happened in the same weekend. But unlike with the fake cop and the pet tarantula, Claire knew what to expect at brunch.

  Brunch was a hurricane she knew; and the warm before the storm always came when her mom’s bodyguard, Finn, answered the door.

  With the rate Claire’s mother moved through men, it was no wonder that the man who had spent the longest time at Natasha Ramsey’s side was an employee. Finn had been a Secret Service candidate before Claire’s parents lured him over to the private sector. If he was good enough for POTUS, then apparently he was good enough for the Ramsey family. Yet none of Finn’s rigorous training was apparent when he answered the door wearing a tie-less suit with the first few buttons of his shirt undone.

  “Claire,” he beamed, his hand reaching out to take her purse.

  “Good afternoon, Finn,” she said, handing over her bag and going up on her toes to air-kiss each of his cheeks. He returned the gesture.

  “You’re right on time. As always,” he said with a wink.

  “It’s compulsive,” she joked, relieved when he laughed.

  Not many people put Claire at ease, but Finn was one of them. He was like the older brother she wished she had, which was easy to imagine since Finn had been best friends with Claire’s oldest brother, Barron, back when they were teenagers. Claire had seen the many pictures of Finn and Barron on their youthful adventures. Then Finn had disappeared from all the pictures until he’d joined the family’s security team when she was ten.

  Finn had been Claire’s favorite guard from his first day. He’d been the only person at the house who actually talked to her. He snuck her desserts her mother wouldn’t let her eat. He whispered jokes that made her laugh, and always seemed to notice when a smile wasn’t real. In a world where everyone had treated Claire like an object to be critiqued and modified at will, Finn had been a single source of sanity…if indeed it could be argued that she was sane at all.

  Even if she wasn’t, around Finn she always felt like she was.

  “Today’s lunch will consist of diet soda and menthol,” he said in his best butler voice.

  Claire pinched her mouth shut in an effort not to laugh as she looked around to see if her mother was in earshot.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he self-corrected. “That was yesterday. Today you will be graced with a chef’s salad, accompanied by a thimble of dressing, unlimited water, an assortment of finger food, and a knuckle’s worth of mimosa.”

  Claire felt guilty laughing until she remembered that the afternoon would go downhill from here—a descent that began when her mother appeared in the patio door wearing a string bikini with an open silk robe. The woman might be 62 years old chronologically, but she’d had a lot of surgery to ensure that her face and body looked half that age. Displaying the results of her efforts was something Natasha Ramsey was never shy to do.

  “Is it 10:30 already?” her mother said as if cameras were capturing the moment for a captive audience. “My, how time flies on a beautiful morning.”

  “10:30 on the nose,” Finn said as if he didn’t say the same thing every week at the same time. “Shall we have brunch inside or on the patio?”

  Her mom’s head tilted as if just now considering the options. “It is beautiful outside, but we both know how delicate Claire’s skin is. I’d hate to have her catch a burn on her…” Her eyes assessed Claire’s conservative outfit. “Hands.”

  “Very well,” Finn said, gesturing to the already set table in the dining room. Today they were using a brunch setting of Rosenthal china with the Versace design. “Inside it is.”

  He’d danced this dance before.

  Claire sent Finn a smile as he pulled out a seat for her. She sat, careful to press her rear against the back of the chair while keeping her back rigidly straight so that it didn’t touch any part of the backing. Across from her, her mother’s posture mirrored her own in an unspoken competition.

  Etiquette trumped all in her mother’s eyes. Natasha Ramsey expected table manners to be above reproach. If you didn’t dab your mouth with your napkin before taking a drink, she was disgusted; if a man tucked his tie between his shirt buttons to keep it clean, he was as good as homeless in her eyes.

  Etiquette, tradition, propriety. Few things had been drilled into Claire more throughout her childhood, with a strict “Do as I say, not as I do” caveat.

  Tradition was the reason there was a fresh English muffin on a small plate to Claire’s left, even though neither she nor her mother would eat theirs. Carbs being carbs and all. If Claire wanted a lecture, all she needed to do was take a bite of bread. It was a move she kept in her back pocket for when she needed to eject out of unbearable conversations.

  The small tray of wild mushroom tarts in the center of the table looked delicious, but like the English muffins, they were also a test. Her mother would eat one and Claire would be allowed to eat one—but only one. Finn and the chef, Maria, would take care of the rest.

  The grapes Finn placed on the table next were liquid sugar. Off limits. But the sliced avocado that came next was okay. Claire could have up to three slices of that.

  A moment later, her mother’s chef pushed through the revolving door to the kitchen carrying the promised salads.

  “Oh, Maria, is that ham?” her mom asked when a plate was placed in front of her.

  “No, ma’am, that’s tofu,” Maria replied, moving to Claire’s side of the table.

  “Fascinating,” her mother muttered, lifting her
white napkin off the table, and sliding the napkin holder off the top. It was a signal that Claire was now allowed to do the same.

  “Thank you,” Claire said as Maria placed a salad front of her, earning a docked point from her mother across the table. She believed it was bad form to thank someone for doing their job.

  “You’re welcome, miss,” Maria replied, before disappearing back into the kitchen and leaving mother and daughter alone. Without missing a beat, Claire’s mother raised the tofu-ham off the salad and placed it on the rim of her plate.

  “This looks delicious, Mother,” Claire said as she placed the napkin on her lap.

  “Bon appétit, my dear.”

  The pleasantries were followed by several seconds of unreadable silence.

  Even in her most obsessive moments, Claire couldn’t read her own mother thanks to her many surgeries and bi-monthly visits to a plastic surgeon’s office. Without her Botox injections, Claire’s mom had resting owl face. As a hypervigilant child, it had always been hard not to take the large, unblinking eyes and raisin-pursed lips personally. Even in her happiest moments, Claire’s mom had always looked some shade of critical.

  That had been before the Botox revolution.

  These days, a little shot could reverse the permanent pursing of her mother’s lips. The shots had also softened the forehead lines once etched between her mother’s naturally furrowed brow. But all the shots in the world couldn’t change her mother’s eyes. Natasha Ramsey still had slightly bulging Betty Davis eyes with white visible all around the irises. It was her natural anatomy. It was illogical for Claire to believe that her mom had spent so much of her life being critical of her that her face had finally frozen that way, yet part of Claire absolutely believed it.

  Especially when her mom opened her mouth.

  “You know you’re always welcome to bring a beau to Sunday brunch, Claire.” The words held more disapproval than invitation.

  Claire glanced at the empty place setting next to her seat. “I am aware.”

  Her mother dabbed her lips before raising her water glass to her lips to take a sip. “I know that school demands a lot of focus, but you need a personal life.”

  Her mom said the words as if she hadn’t uttered them verbatim last week, and the week before that. Sunday brunch was like a scripted play they acted out week after week for an invisible audience.

  Well, today Claire was going off script.

  “As it turns out, I had a date last night,” she said as if it was completely normal.

  The water glass untilted away from her lips as she stared at Claire wide-eyed over the rim. “A date? What was the boy’s name?”

  “Well, he’s twenty-six, so I think he qualifies as a man,” Claire said, mirroring her mom’s tone. “His name is Nick. He is a PhD student at the university.”

  Her mom’s lips tried to purse, but the Botox did its job and her mom’s face stayed neutral. “Is he getting a PhD in something useful, or is it one of those self-indulgent doctorates?”

  “The sciences,” Claire said, skirting the question.

  “Hmmm. And how does he feel about you living with another man?”

  “A gay man,” Claire clarified. “And he doesn’t care.”

  Her mom’s eyebrow raised—or, at least, tried to. “Never underestimate the territorial nature of a man.”

  Claire used taking a sip of her drink as an excuse not to reply. Things were never going to go past the first date with Nick. Claire knew that, but her mother didn’t need to know. Not today anyway.

  “Speaking of which, tell me more about this perfect roommate of yours,” her mom pressed. “And how it is that you haven’t run screaming yet.”

  Claire shrugged. “He’s clean and respectful.”

  Her mom’s eyebrow found the wherewithal to arch. “And?”

  And I kind of like not living alone with all the crazy that’s happening at the moment. “He’s trying out for Project Runway. He’s designing non-stop for the auditions.”

  “Heaven help us,” her mother sighed. “Another gay designer. Just what the world doesn’t need. I think the fashion world is quite well stocked at the moment.”

  “People have a right to dream, Mother,” Claire replied, despite knowing it was useless.

  “Of course,” her mom said with a stale smile as she raised her glass. “To the American dream.”

  “I’ll drink,” Claire said. “But not to that.”

  “Not to the American dream?”

  When Claire arched her brow, no Botox tried to stop it. “Not to a mockery of it.”

  Her mom shook her head. “It’s stunning how far the apple can fall from the tree. You didn’t get even a whiff of my sense of humor, did you?”

  Claire gave a little shrug. “Must have gotten mine from my father…whoever that is.”

  Did she just say that? She had. She’d totally just said that. What had possessed her to do that? Her mom’s eyes narrowed as Claire covered her own shock with a sip of mimosa.

  “You know who your father is,” her mom snapped.

  In for a penny, in for a pound. “I know who raised me,” Claire replied. “It’s the same guy who ran a DNA test when I was 11 and shared the results. I’m an adult now. What does it hurt to tell me who my father is?”

  Her mother set her glass down and leveled an annoyed look at Claire. “You’re like a broken record on this topic.”

  If a broken record repeated itself every five years, then sure, maybe she was. No point arguing that, though. “I wouldn’t be if you would tell me.”

  “No,” her mom agreed. “Then you would be even more of a pain with your follow-up questions.”

  “Well, you know how obsessive I can be,” Claire snapped, earning an assessing look from her mom.

  “Well, someone’s feeling impertinent today.” Then she smiled with more than a little innuendo. “Do I have last night’s date to thank for that?”

  No. Ew! Claire thought on the inside, but she did her best to keep a poker face. “I just think it’s past time I learned about my father, if for no other reason than to get a family medical history.”

  “Or psychiatric history,” her mother said as she brought a mushroom to her lips.

  The comment was meant to get a rise out of her, but Claire simply nodded. “Or that.”

  Chewing her mushroom, her mom shook her head. “If I can teach you nothing else, my dear, it’s that these days a woman only has herself to take care of her anymore. Seeking out a man, whether father or husband, is nothing more than an exercise in disappointment. You’d do better to look forward, not back.”

  Says the woman who chides me every week I don’t bring a date to brunch. But Claire knew better than to say as much to a woman who wore a bikini to an allegedly formal brunch. Whatever served her mom to say in the current moment was what qualified as logic in her mind.

  “I wish someone would have told me as much when I was your age,” her mother lamented. “Except, by your age I was already both feet in the trap with two sons.”

  They weren’t too thrilled about being trapped with you either, Claire thought while keeping her lips pressed shut.

  “All my potential,” her mom continued. “Everything I could have been, placed to the side or used to lift up a man who had every intention of replacing me when it suited him.”

  There was no reason to bring up that her parents were still married. That was just a formality based in blackmail. Her mother and father had a lot of dirt on each other, and Claire had heard more than one fight with her mother screaming that if her father divorced her she would go public with everything.

  So they were still married. On paper. In person, her mother had definitely been replaced…five times over.

  “I’m telling you what no one told me, my dear,” her mother said with what appeared to be sincerity. “You need to look out for number one. Men will always try to use you, so you need to use them first.”

  These Sunday chats with her mom were alwa
ys so inspirational. Claire really should start recording them.

  “Don’t think I don’t see that smug look on your face,” her mom chided. “Like you think I’m some silly hausfrau who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. But look at me,” she said, gesturing around to the immaculate condo. “Do you see what I’ve been reduced to?”

  Sky rise living in Las Vegas? Life below the penthouse? It was kind of hard to drum up some pity, but if Claire didn’t want to witness a blow-up, she had to say something.

  “I’m working hard to be able to provide for myself, Mother. I’ll have my PhD in two years.”

  “Doing what? Experimental psychology? That sounds like a life of begging for grants while earning five-to-six figures. Where is the safety in that?” Her mom leaned forward—something Claire really wished she wouldn’t do in her bikini while food was sitting in front of her. “You need to think bigger, my dear. Much bigger.” She straightened. “Your brothers are already self-made millionaires. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be as well.”

  “And if that’s not my goal in life?” Claire asked.

  Her mom laughed. “Oh? And what is your goal? To help people?” She shook her head. “You can do that and still make money at the same time, Claire. That’s why I moved to Vegas. To help you see that.”

  Even though her mother’s face didn’t give her any clues, Claire knew that last part was a lie. Her mom would never move to Vegas for Claire’s sake. She was here in the city for reasons all her own. She just hadn’t ever chosen to share them.

  Claire cleared her throat. “Well, if all goes well with the follow-up studies based on my Master’s thesis, I may have something worth money on my hands soon.”

  “Excellent,” her mother said, sounding pleased even if she didn’t look it. “And when you have your findings, you bring them to me. With my connections, we’ll get you set up for success in no time.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Claire said the words even as a pit formed in her stomach. There was no way she was giving her mother any control over her career. It would be like re-living her childhood all over again.