The Heiresses

by Sara Shepard

  Corinne swallowed. The scar on her torso started to itch. But she couldn’t just sit there, saying nothing, so finally she looked at Dixon and smiled. “I can’t believe you kept this a secret.”

  Will gazed steadily at Corinne. “It’s amazing what secrets people can keep if they want to,” he said.

  And then he nodded and returned to the kitchen.

  6

  Later that evening, Rowan fumbled with the lock to the penthouse apartment on Horatio and Greenwich Avenue she’d owned since graduating from law school. She collapsed on the cognac-colored leather couch in the living room, her head buzzing from the two Maker’s on the rocks she’d had with a guy from her running team. Greg was in great shape and could run a sub-3:30 marathon, but his conversational speed was slower than her grandmother’s. She’d ordered the second drink just to get through it, James’s words looping through her mind all the while: You have to give people a chance. But she simply couldn’t help comparing Greg with James and coming up short. Poppy always said that more dates increased the odds of finding someone great, but Rowan feared that more failed dates just proved that she would never find someone who measured up.

  A large shape darted into the living room, claws clacking against the wood floor. “Jacks,” Rowan groaned as her one-hundred-pound Bernese mountain dog, Jackson, jumped into her lap. Bert, the Chihuahua, appeared next and yapped at her feet. Rowan gently kneed Jackson back down and patted Bert’s head. Both animals took off down the hall and started barking in the bedroom.

  Rowan shut her eyes, knowing they were dying for a walk. She could have paid someone to do it in the evenings, but she liked going herself. Hudson River Park was so peaceful at night, and she could let them off leash. But it was almost ten, and she was too tired.

  A light shone from Rowan’s office, which was off the living room. The computer monitor was still on, probably from her housekeeper Bea’s dusting earlier in the day. Even from her couch, Rowan could tell that the Blessed and the Cursed was on the screen. Bea swore she didn’t read it, but Rowan knew better. The lure of the site was like passing a traffic accident—you couldn’t not pause and look.

  Rowan rose, walked to her office, and peered at the screen. Pictures and gossip items about her family members took up the entire page. “Aster Saybrook Is Out of Control,” read the bold-print headline at the top. “This girl’s life is most definitely cursed,” a comment said beneath the article. “I’d bang her,” stated another; two hundred and six comments followed. Below that, there was an article about Corinne’s upcoming wedding: “Sink or Swim: New Coxswain Chef to Navigate Waters of Meriweather Wedding.” After that was a photo of Rowan’s twin brother, Michael, on his way to his dermatological practice in Seattle, and a shot of her other brother, Palmer, with his family at their estate in Italy, where Palmer headed up marketing for the Ferrari Formula 1 team. The website speculated that Rowan’s brothers didn’t work for Saybrook’s because Papa Alfred didn’t think they were smart enough, but that wasn’t true—they just weren’t interested in jewelry.

  There was also a segment that cited new evidence in the plane crash that had killed Poppy’s parents two summers before. Bullshit. If the experts had finally found the black box in the depths of the Atlantic, Rowan and her family would be the first to know, not this idiotic blog. And finally, at the very bottom, was a piece about Rowan herself, jogging in the park. “Ro on the Go.”

  She clicked on the link, enlarging the photo. Her face looked confident, and her legs were strong and supple. Whenever she saw paparazzi pictures of herself, she felt as though she were looking at someone else altogether—someone more glamorous, more together than she actually was. She closed out of the site, wishing she could turn off the public’s fascination with her family with the same ease.

  The doorbell rang, and the dogs barreled back into the foyer. Rowan hurriedly shushed them as she walked to the door. A familiar face appeared in the peephole. “James?”

  “Hey, Saybrook.” Poppy’s husband offered a boyish smile when she pulled open the door. His hair was unkempt in a messy-hipster way, and his nails were bitten to the quick, something he used to do before his old band, Horse and Carrot, performed.

  Rowan looked past him into the empty hall. “Where’s Poppy?”

  “Actually, it’s just me.” James shifted his weight. “I came from work—I had a late night finishing up on a launch.” He was a creative director at a tech company. “You mind if I come in for a sec?”

  Rowan stepped aside so he could enter. Jackson bounded up and put his paws on his shoulders. “Oh, Jackson,” Rowan scolded.

  “He’s fine.” James patted the dog’s fluffy head.

  Rowan walked into the living room, and James followed. He sat down on the couch and looked around. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked noisily. “Did you redecorate?”

  “Two years ago,” Rowan admitted.

  “It’s very you.”

  Rowan tried to see her apartment through his eyes. She had several leather pieces and distressed-metal side tables. There was a large propeller from an old Charles Lindbergh–era plane on the wall, and an antique metal plaque for a defunct brand of cigarettes hung near the window. Compared with Poppy’s feminine touches in their own place, Rowan’s apartment looked like the inside of a cigar bar.

  She cleared her throat. “Can I get you something to drink? I have water, lemonade, beer—”

  “What about Scotch?”

  She held his gaze for a moment, then crouched down to the antique cabinet where she kept bottles, as though this were all completely normal. There was a half-drunk bottle of Glenfiddich; she grabbed that and two crystal tumblers. The amber liquid burned her nostrils as she poured them both a few fingers’ worth.

  She handed one to James. “So what’s going on?” Rowan asked casually. Her heart, she realized, was pounding, though she wasn’t sure quite what she was anticipating.

  James cocked his head. “Can’t an old friend come see his buddy?” He shifted on the couch. “It was fun hanging out at Skylar’s party. I miss you.”

  Something inside Rowan wrenched. She raised her glass and clinked it to his. “Well. Cheers.”

  James slugged it back. Then he raised his head and wiped his mouth. Rowan handed him the bottle, and he poured more. A few moments of silence ticked by. “Remember that time we skipped the bill at the Plaza?” James suddenly said.

  Rowan blinked at him. “That was years ago.”

  James shut his eyes. “I forgot my credit card. And you were like, Hey, let’s ditch! I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.”

  “It was your idea, not mine,” Rowan chided. A bartender, dressed in a tuxedo and tails, had dashed out after them. James and Rowan looked at each other, and each swore the other had paid. After the bartender left, cash in hand, they doubled over in laughter, imagining the headlines in the paper the next day.

  “Heiress Dines and Dashes?” James said now, clearly thinking the same thing.

  Rowan snorted. “Ro-Ro Has No Dinero.”

  “That old guy could move fast, though.” James took another slug of Scotch. “Though not as fast as Jell-O Shot Alex.”

  Rowan groaned. “Jesus. Are you trying to kill me?” Alex had been in the philosophy department at Columbia and had asked Rowan to a party he was throwing. Despite the fact that he could debate the pros and cons of Foucault and Derrida, he’d downed a batch of Jell-O shots in under a minute and then tried to grope Rowan.

  “I don’t know why you went out with that guy,” James scolded.

  Because I didn’t have the courage to go out with you, Rowan wanted to say, taking a drink instead.

  She thought back once more to the night she threw the party for him at Meriweather, when she almost had said something. Poppy had found her in the bathroom. “You’re missing all the fun!” she’d said, bursting in as Rowan sat on the edge of the tub, trying not to cry. Poppy had leaned over the vanity to touch up her makeup, but then she seemed to sense R
owan’s distress. “Are you okay?” she’d asked, blinking hard. “Am I hogging James?”

  “Of course not,” Rowan sputtered.

  Poppy got on her knees on the bath mat and looked straight in Rowan’s eye. “Ro. Is he just a friend?”

  Rowan swallowed hard. Had Natasha said something? Was it obvious? It was humiliating, suddenly, especially because James clearly wasn’t interested in her. Rowan wasn’t the kind of girl who pined. And she wasn’t the kind of girl who came in second.

  A hard shell formed around her, blocking off her feelings. “Of course he’s just a friend,” she said firmly, returning Poppy’s gaze. And that was that. She’d made her choice.

  Now she and James drained the bottle of Scotch, and Rowan found some red wine in the kitchen. As she poured them glasses, they talked about how they’d once crashed a girl’s bachelorette party and wound up in her limousine. They reminisced about James’s band and their most memorable gigs, including the time they rented an inflatable bounce house to sit next to the stage. “Ah, the sex hut,” James said, clasping his hands behind his neck. “One of my best ideas yet.” A faraway look crossed his face. “That bounce house was like a water bed.”

  Rowan flushed. They hadn’t talked about James’s conquests in years; she was out of practice. “Ew,” she said, mock-disgusted.

  James grinned. “She didn’t think so. Until I punctured the thing.”

  “You punctured it?” Rowan recalled how the bounce house had leaned left toward the end of the night, one of the castle turrets limp. Like a penis, had been the joke.

  “My keys were in my pocket,” James explained. “The thing almost swallowed me up. I had to hunt for my pants butt-naked.”

  Rowan pictured James trapped inside the bounce house without any clothes on. Then she felt a guilty twinge. Was it a betrayal to talk about James’s player past like this? She wasn’t sure Poppy knew about it—she had never asked, and Rowan hadn’t shared. Rowan wasn’t sure why she hadn’t told, except that it seemed manipulative, as if she was hoping it would make Poppy like James less. Besides, he had changed because of Poppy; she’d made him better, as she made everyone better.

  A renewed sense of drunken euphoria swept over Rowan, and she decided she was making too big a deal about all of this. She looked at James and blurted: “I forgot you were like this.”

  “Like what?” James cocked his head. “A great deflator of bounce houses?”

  “Well, yes. You tell a good story.”

  “Well, I haven’t forgotten that you can hang,” James said, leaning forward and placing his hand on her thigh.

  Rowan stared at his hand, thinking how she used to marvel over his long, slender fingers. She swallowed hard and reminded herself that he wouldn’t be touching her right now if he weren’t drunk.

  But then he leaned toward her. A sizzle darted up Rowan’s spine. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied a photograph of herself and Poppy on the mantel, their arms around each other’s shoulders, ecstatic smiles on their faces.

  She pulled away. “I think we’re wasted.”

  “I’m not.” James’s voice was suddenly sober. He placed his hands on his knees, a pained expression on his face. “Rowan . . . I think Poppy’s cheating on me.”

  The temperature rose a few degrees. “What?”

  James ran his hand through his hair. “She’s been so distant. It’s like I don’t exist.” He sounded unglued. “I mean, look. I know the signs. I’ve done it to people. Something is really wrong with us.”

  Rowan thought back to Skylar’s birthday party. Poppy had seemed a little standoffish. She hadn’t noticed when James disappeared into the bathroom, and she wasn’t looking for him when they reappeared. “She’s overwhelmed. She has a crazy job, two little kids, and the press is still talking about her parents’ accident,” Rowan said, thinking of what she’d read on the Blessed and the Cursed.

  “She’s always handled it before. Now, there are times after work when she’s just . . . missing,” James explained. “I’ll call her, and she doesn’t pick up. And I’ve caught her making secret phone calls. Hanging up fast when I come around. It’s why I didn’t go back there tonight. I just couldn’t handle it anymore. I had to tell someone.” He grabbed Rowan’s hand. “I almost said something to you about it at Sky’s party. Do you know what’s going on?”

  “Of course not!” Rowan cried. She stared down at her hands, her head spinning. James’s fingers were entwined in hers. Slowly she pulled them away. “This is all in your head. Poppy would never do that.”

  “You’d be surprised what people do.”

  “Not her,” Rowan insisted. “And not to you. You’re a wonderful father and an amazing husband. You’re amazing . . . in general.”

  The sentence hung there. James met her gaze. Rowan pressed her lips shut, horrified she’d said it.

  A surprised smile appeared on James’s face. “Do you mean that, Saybrook?”

  The Scotch felt thick on the roof of her mouth. “Maybe,” she whispered.

  “How do you mean it?”

  He stared at her. Rowan swallowed hard, a door opening. All at once she couldn’t lie. Here, drunk, at eleven o’clock on a Thursday night, maybe she could tell the truth.

  “I mean it . . .” She shut her eyes and turned away. “In every way.”

  James’s lashes lowered. Then, with one confident movement, he pulled her toward him. His mouth closed around hers. He ran his hands through her hair. She touched the back of his neck. She drank in the smell of his soap, his strong grip, the deftness with which he touched her. God, she had wondered about this for years. Every time he met another girl, every time he told Rowan he’d slept in someone else’s bed, she’d wondered.

  In minutes they were in her bedroom. “This isn’t right,” Rowan murmured as he laid her on the mattress.

  “Yeah, it is, Saybrook. This is probably the most right thing we’ve ever done.” He kissed her neck. “I knew you wanted me. I wanted you too.”

  Rowan stared at him. “No, you didn’t.” But the look on James’s face said that perhaps he had.

  James caressed her face, his breath quick. “I think even Poppy knew how we felt, deep down.” He sank onto one elbow. “You are so smart. And beautiful. And cool.”

  “Stop,” Rowan said bashfully, but he pulled her in again before she could say anything else. His words washed over her, again and again, until they were the only refrain in her mind, the only thing that existed between them.

  For a few precious hours, she finally got everything she’d ever wanted.

  ROWAN OPENED HER eyes. She was lying on top of her duvet in a merlot-colored silk camisole she didn’t remember buying. The ceiling fan whirled over her head; outside, she could hear the soft hiss of the city waking up. Judging by the dull light streaming through the window, it was probably right before dawn. Her head pounded from the Scotch and wine. James lay beside her, unconscious. A figure stood over the bed. It had hollow eyes, a downturned mouth, a shapeless body. “Shame on you,” a raspy voice whispered.

  Rowan cowered back. But when she lifted the covers from her eyes again, the figure was gone. The digital clock blinked 5:50. Sunshine streamed in from the tall casement windows.

  Rowan heaved a breath. A dream. There was nothing in the corner except for a pile of clothes. Her jeans. Her T-shirt. And black men’s loafers.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. James was here.

  But he wasn’t in the bed, as he had been in the dream. Rowan rose, walked to the door, and listened. James’s muffled voice floated out from the living room. He stood in his boxers, his strong, tanned back facing her. His cell phone was to his ear.

  “I know, I know,” he whispered. “But I told you, something came up.” He shifted. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

  Rowan tried to escape silently, but she stepped on a creaky plank in the floor. James turned. His eyes widened, and he hit the END button on the phone.

  “I’m sorry,” Rowan whispered,
a lump in her throat. He had to have been talking to Poppy. Lying about why he hadn’t come home last night, consumed with regret.

  Rowan couldn’t even think about her guilt, it was so overpowering. She couldn’t look at her hands, knowing that they’d touched James everywhere. What had she done? She thought about how the future would unfold: she’d blurt it out to Poppy for sure. There was no way she could face her cousin as though nothing were the matter. Poppy might forgive Rowan, but there would always be an abyss between them—at every dinner, during every holiday celebration, every time they saw each other, they both would remember what Rowan had done.

  And then, quietly, Poppy would tell the other cousins, explaining that she understood why it happened, in a way—poor Rowan had been single for so long, and James had been her friend, and really, could anyone blame her?

  She backed out of the room. James dropped the phone on the couch and ran toward her. “Hey. Where are you going?”

  He tried to wrap his arms around her waist, but Rowan arched away, almost feeling as though the future scenario she’d mapped out in her mind had already happened. “Oh, God, James. What the hell happened? What did we do?”

  He leaned back and stared hard at her. “Calm down. It’s going to be okay.”

  Tears filled her eyes, hot and salty. “How can you say that? Nothing will be okay.”

  He tried to kiss her, but she ducked her head to the side so that he got her ear. “I have to get out of here,” she said, glancing at the clock. It was 6:03; she had a conference call with the Singapore office at 7:30. She dared to glance at James. Just looking at him, she felt an undeniable pull toward him. “You should go home,” she ordered. “Work things out with Poppy. Please.”

  James shook his head. “I think we’re past that. I’m serious. I’m telling her it’s over.”

  Rowan felt the blood drain from her face. He couldn’t do that. “Okay, so stay here and think. Sober up. You’ll change your mind. You’ll see how wrong this is.”