Still, he was witty and even better connected than she was, so she could overlook anything that wasn’t perfect, including his slightly straying eye and unwillingness to commit – so far. He was old money, with all the cache and manners that construed. Their families were friends and everyone anticipated that soon they would marry. It was expected and although Wyatt had not yet presented her with the nine-carat ring she had been eyeing, he also didn’t refute their future together when anyone alluded to it. She could wait. After all, being his wife would open the few remaining doors where she desired entrée.
At 29, Sloane knew that she would have to worry about tying him down in the next few years but she was in no hurry. He may be a catch, but he didn’t make her heart race. She could look at him dispassionately and patiently. The prize was worth it. Sloane understood that she would be the envy of everyone once she married him, making her half of the most prominent couple in Chicago.
Scrubbing off her professionally applied makeup and running a brush through her lush mane of hair, Sloane slid into the short La Perla nightgown she had left out earlier. It was barely there, just a whisper of material, designed to arouse Wyatt. She thought about grabbing a tee shirt instead, but the nightgown felt so decadent against her skin that she wore it just to indulge herself.
Catching a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror as she moved to slide between the sheets, Sloane knew she looked stunning and seductive enough to bring any man – even Wyatt – to his knees. She liked the image of him there before her, on his knees, making her feel incredible. She would go to bed slightly - not unbearably - dissatisfied. She was too tired to take care of things herself.
Wyatt should only see what he is missing. I would have him eating out of my hand, or better yet, eating out of my….
Sloane’s last thoughts as she fell into an undisturbed slumber were how lucky she was. She would marry Wyatt sooner, rather than later, and then she would have attained her every heart’s desire. She would have a handsome, sexy and dutiful husband, a challenging career, perfect children, influence, prestige and tons of money. She would go to the Alps and Aspen for the skiing, Saint Bart’s for warmth in winter, Milan and Paris for the fashion shows.
Within a year, she prophesied, she would have everything she dreamed of – the perfect life she deserved.
CHAPTER ONE
“For our final piece of business,” the president of the Children’s Hospital board began quietly and seriously, “the board has determined that having Sloane Huyler head the benefit committee is no longer in the best interest of the hospital or the event. I am sorry, Sloane, but we are requesting that you step down and let Allyson chair the event going forward.”
Her face burning with shame, Sloane made eye contact briefly with each board member present, some of whom returned the look, many of whom refused to meet her steely blue gaze. It didn’t matter. She knew she was defeated. In fact, she had actually expected this humiliation to come at last month’s meeting, or any of the prior meetings since August. She was surprised it hadn’t happened months ago. She supposed, she had run out of any remaining goodwill with the headlines earlier this month.
“Of course, I want to do whatever is best for the hospital and the benefit,” Sloane choked out reluctantly.
Sloane wondered if they were ousting her from the entire benefit committee or just the chair position, but she refused to give these blueblood wannabes the satisfaction of asking. She had busted her butt for this benefit already, so screw them if they didn’t want anymore of her hard work.
“Sloane, of course we value your expertise and dedication, and appreciate the work you have already completed.”
What? Did he read my mind?
“You are very welcome on the committee,” the board president was quick to offer, “We welcome your continued help and input - just not as the gala chair.”
“Please accept my resignation as chair of this year’s benefit, effective immediately.” Sloane spoke in a strong, sure voice, holding her back straight despite the proverbial knife they had just thrust in it. “While I am, of course, willing to help in any way I can, I find that I am no longer able to fulfill the responsibilities of chair. I will follow up with an email confirming this as well.”
These people are not going to break me, damn it. I am Sloane Huyler. I used to eat people just like these for breakfast. How dare they turn their backs on me now? They are all just nasty hypocrites.
The motion to replace her was made, seconded and voted upon quickly. That last, unsavory piece of business completed, the meeting adjourned. The board members who would normally have stayed around chatting with Sloane, suggesting they go grab a drink or dinner, instead were slinking from the room avoiding contact with her at all costs.
Grabbing her Celine bag from the back of the chair, preparing to leave the room, Sloane was stopped by Allyson Riley, the new chair of “her” benefit.
“I expect you to send me all your notes, Sloane,” she stated without emotion. “Also, I have already assigned you to work with the hotel on setup, catering and flowers. I will provide oversight and handle fundraising from now on.”
“Sure, Al, I understand. Just send me your notes and we can swap roles. You will do well as Chair, I am sure.”
As if that few sentences had not cost her dearly, Sloane offered a crisp nod to her replacement and exited the room. None of the anger and resentment simmering just below the surface showed on her flawless face.
One more minute with her and I might have put a fist through her perfect little nose job. What a toad!
Sloane had seen this coming but that didn’t soften the blow. It was just the next disaster in the nightmare that her life had become. For six months now, she could not step out her door without another shoe dropping.
Really, is there anything left to go wrong? How on earth can it get any worse?
Sloane was tough. She always had been. For 30 years, she had lived a privileged life, assured that she deserved every minute of it. She was whiplash smart, cover-model beautiful, came from a wealthy family and she was about to marry into an even wealthier one. Her future was bright. Nothing could stop her from attaining her hearts desire. Then, suddenly, all that had changed and for the last six months, nothing had gone right.
And isn’t that the understatement of the century?
First, her father was accused of doing a shady business transaction, stealing secrets from a client and selling them to the Chinese government. He needed to launder the payments so he tried to do it through the company of her soon-to-be-fiancé. When Wyatt discovered the scheme, Sloane’s father planned to keep it hush-hush by blackmailing Wyatt’s father, then sealing the deal by forcing the long overdue marriage of their children.
How did that all turn out? First, Wyatt called off the engagement but she was tough. Sloane survived that indignity by telling people that she did the jilting. Everyone knew she never loved him, so she pulled that one off pretty well.
The other problems were not so easily resolved. When the Feds arrested her father, Sloane thought he would be back home quickly, completely absolved of all wrongdoing. Instead, he was indicted, rapidly tried and just this month he pleaded guilty to theft, illegal transactions with a foreign government and money laundering. He was sentenced to eighteen years in federal prison.
Sloane was sure he would appeal but instead he cut a deal for a shorter sentence. Since then, like the fall of dominoes, Sloane had suffered a barrage of events from which she was unable to recover. Huyler Industries was bleeding clients and money. The business was failing and she was wracking her brains for a way to keep it afloat. The family fortune, such as it had been, was gone, used to pay taxes and penalties and the exorbitant fees of fancy lawyers. Now her parents’ beautiful lakeside home would be sacrificed too.
She couldn’t look for assistance from any of her influential and privileged friends and colleagues because they had all deserted her. She had lost her money, her reputation and her influence.
With nothing to offer, she was a pariah. The city officials, the movers-and-shakers with whom she’d had great working and personal relationships were the first to desert her. Soon after, all her contacts at banks and investment firms wouldn’t return her calls. Other business people, her fellow Northwestern graduates, the group that helped each other out, stopped helping. Finally, she lost her friends. That was the bitterest pill to swallow.
Until now.
She had just very publicly lost the chair of the benefit committee. She had been chairing the benefit for the last four years. With her name and connections, badly needed donations flooded into the Children’s Hospital. She was able to charm everyone she knew into putting up items for the silent auction in addition to her accomplishments in gaining large, corporate sponsorship. She had a reputation for an enormous turnout, exciting and entertaining events and the ability to raise close to one million dollars year after year.
Even Sloane recognized that a pariah could not get the business leaders of Chicago to open their deep pockets. A pariah could not even get them to take her calls. The board was correct in assuming that her name on the top of the committee list was more problematic than useful. For Sloane, the benefit was the last star to which she hitched her wagon. Losing it was particularly painful.
Sloane had seen the faces around the room tonight, too. The board, her so-called friends and colleagues, were most likely gloating. She knew it. She wasn’t surprised by it. She had too much before. People were spiteful and they took pleasure in watching the mighty fall. Like schadenfreude, those around her were experiencing the joy that came from watching her lose it all.
Besides, I was a bitch. Face it; they knew I was looking down my perfect nose at them, because I was. Well, they are enjoying the show now, Sloane. Each and every one of them is getting the last laugh.
It was a juicy story, after all, with all the elements of a good crime movie – Chicago-style. There was international crime, unethical practices and a perennial Chicago favorite – payola. Her father had expanded their business into China by engaging in illegal practices. And of course, there was the felling of the high and mighty.
The fancy lawyers had bargained eighteen years down to six, which her father had just started serving at the Federal Correctional Institution in Littleton, Colorado. Sloane’s mother, Marianne, was left trying to make ends meet on a drastically smaller income and Sloane was left trying to hold together the company responsible for supplying that income. Not an easy task when her father had destroyed the reputation of Huyler Industries and with it any earning power.
It remained a hot gossip item for months, after all the news was ugly, but accurate. A get rich quick scheme by a man everyone believed to be worth millions. Why risk it? It turned out he was broke. Who knew? The Huyler name was dragged through the mud every night on the news, every day in the papers.
It didn’t take long before Sloane was unable to show her face in public. Huyler Industries lost every client not bound by ironclad contract. Her mother checked herself into a ‘facility’ after three months of cameras and scrutiny, just to get away. It was a nice place too, on the beach in the south of France, with fabulous spa services and plastic surgeons. Her mother came home looking refreshed, rested and lovelier than ever just in time to stand behind her husband when he pleaded guilty.
That had left Sloane holding down the fort, trying to piece together what was left of the business and the family fortune. With her father in jail for another 6 years, everything sat squarely on Sloane’s capable shoulders. At the moment, she was sinking under the weight. Publicly, she had been unable to separate her activities from those of her father. If he was guilty, she was guilty by association. No one trusted anyone named Huyler anymore. Sloane never understood why her father took the deal. Six years was a long time for an innocent man, hell one day was a long time, and a successful appeal would have cleared his name.
Sloane had braced herself for the loss of business, the bad press, and the painful process of discharging workers who had been with HI from its conception. She had withstood the bad news about the family finances and even faced the need to sell their beautiful lakefront home. She had done it all with her typical chilly demeanor. She had mastered the cool ‘I don’t give a damn’ look when she met prying eyes. Sloane remained poised when she was slighted, when she saw people talking behind her back. However, it all took its toll.
After all, and despite what most people believed, Sloane was human.
When she failed to receive an invitation to the social event of the season, Wyatt’s wedding, Sloane had chalked it up to her failed relationship with Wyatt Lyons Howe IV. After all, his new bride could hardly be expected to extend an invitation to Wyatt’s ex-fiancé.
Still, the wedding had been splashed over every newspaper and magazine; even “Entertainment Tonight" and “Extra” had picked up the story. A Cinderella romance with a fairy tale ending for a poor artist and a real estate mogul did not happen every day. When the artist became a major success in the same year, it made the national news.
Over 750 people had attended the August wedding, according to the press. Sloane was not one of them. She had hoped to gain entrée as someone’s ‘plus one’, but try as she might, she couldn’t cajole anyone into inviting her when the charges against her father came to light the same month.
She had no expectation of attending the ceremony held in a converted Gilman, Illinois barn, knowing only close friends and family were invited. She had to admit though, when she saw the photos of the converted space covered in white flowers and twinkling lights, that she felt a small romantic pull and a bit of jealousy. Not that she would ever admit it.
However, when she was excluded from the big reception at the Howe Museum, she felt shunned. It should have been her wedding. Those thoughts consumed her in the days before and after the summer event. She was supposed to marry the handsome Wyatt. She had chased him relentlessly. She had waited patiently for her prize, only to have a little nobody swoop in and steal it. Such a thing just did not happen to Sloane Egan Huyler.
It became harder to maintain that cool façade when she had been unable to deny that they made a stunning couple, and Keeli made a beautiful bride. Sloane studied the photos of the wedding in every magazine and newspaper. The papers had zoomed in on the gorgeous tiara that Keeli designed to hold her veil. Orders for the now-famous tiara were flooding the workroom of Keeli Larsen Designs and other jewelers were rushing to copy it.
So here Sloane stood, on a cold, dark, February night, outside the meeting room of the hospital, the only person in society to have missed the wedding: jilted, broke, friendless, and the daughter of a notorious jailbird. Now, to add insult to injury, she wasn’t even the chair for the Children’s Hospital Benefit.
Hell, she could not even find a date for the benefit. Chill, you still have months to figure that one out.
Lifting the collar of her heavy coat and dropping her chin in case anyone from the meeting was still loitering in the building, Sloane took her signature long-legged stride toward the exit of the hospital, holding back the tears that were blurring her blue eyes, praying she could get to her car before they fell.
“Ooof, excuse me,” a deep voice offered. Sloane lifted her eyes to see who she had just plowed into, whose large, warm hands were still wrapped around her upper-arms, steadying her as she wobbled in her Prada stilettos. “Steady there.”
“Randall,” Sloane was relieved when she looked up and recognized that the man she had tried to knock over was Randall Parker, III and not some stranger. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“Sloane,” Randall acknowledged Wyatt’s ex with a nod of his head and a bit of a chill in his voice. “In a bit of a rush?”
“A bit.” Sloane was clearly trying to make a getaway. She had bumped into him rather forcefully and he continued his hold of her arms. She just wanted him to let her go so she could make it out the door before she turned into a blubbering mess in the middle of the hos
pital lobby.
“Everything ok? Are you ok?” Randall’s voice softened with concern. He still held her, but they both knew she was solidly on her feet. He was studying her face too closely and Sloane was squirming under the scrutiny. “Is everything alright?” he prodded gently, clearly seeing everything she was trying so hard to hide.
Without waiting for an answer, Randall removed his hand and taking one of Sloane’s, he led her to a wooden bench conveniently placed against the wall, encouraging her to sit down.
“I can see that you are upset. Is someone ill? What are you doing here?” He seemed genuinely concerned now but Sloane wasn’t fooled by his soft voice and kind demeanor. All of Wyatt’s friends had been giving her the cold shoulder since Wyatt dumped her and Randall was no exception.
Sloane knew him too well. Everything with Randall was about picking up a woman, about the conquest. She remembered, as she looked in his handsome face, that he – like his friends - was a player. This was probably just his strategy to segue into a hookup, despite his previous aversion to her. Randall was such a ladies’ man that a few times during her engagement, he had hit on her after a few too many drinks. He chased anything in a skirt so she knew that his sweet ways now were nothing personal.
“Oh no, everyone is fine, Randall, and I really need to get going.” The good news about running into Randall was that she just wanted to get away from him now and so she had forgotten that she felt like crying. “I was just here for a board meeting. Second Monday of the month,” she offered as if that explained everything. She moved to get up again but his hand was holding hers in her lap and he was not letting her move.
“What about you? Are you visiting someone?” She could at least be polite.
Bedazzled (The Beguiling Bachelors Book 1) Page 33
