Elliot stepped out of the car. I had managed to open the door and lift my butt from the bucket seats before he had come around to my side to help me out.
“I didn’t know you were coming tonight, Harry.” Julian said with a barely concealed smugness.
My mouth gaped. “Elliot, you said—”
Julian waved his hand dismissively. “It’s okay, love. Don’t worry. Rina will be so happy to know you’re here.”
I nodded but chewed my lip anxiously none the less.
“Mother cornered her when we came in; she wanted to talk to my fiancée about floral arrangements.” Julian winced. “I excused myself and told them I needed a smoking break.”
“You don't smoke.” Elliot frowned.
“The stress of peonies versus roses has driven me to it. In theory. Not in reality.” Julian joked. He turned his eyes to me and appraised my dress. His action was clinical, like someone would admire a mannequin in a department store. Julian nodded his approval before his eyes flicked to Elliot.
“You guys ready to go in?” I asked.
“Elliot.” Julian said in a low warning. “The Mallorys are here.”
Fuck. My stomach sunk. I tried not to let my hurt should over my face. Elliot's face paled and he looked at me for a second before smoothing his expression. I had known that Sarah and Elliot had been involved at one point. I could only assume that it had ended.
I could almost read his thoughts. He wished he hadn’t brought me. He didn’t want to tote a stripper around in front of other rich folks.
Walter Mallory had been into the Pink Sleeve back rooms before. I'd never danced for him, but I’d served him drinks.
“Do you want me to go?” I leaned in and whispered.
Elliot's brow creased as if I had insulted him. “Fuck no. I just don’t want to deal with Sarah.”
“I can handle Sarah Mallory.” I said.
His eyes dragged from my heeled toes and back to my brown eyes. “I don’t doubt that.” He led us both inside without another word.
Meeting Marcella Gold had been an experience.
White haired, with dark brown eyes and olive skin; she looked faintly Hispanic.
She had the energy of a thousand suns as she led us to the dining room where the Mallory’s and the Langley’s were already sat. She somehow managed to fit an entire conversation into the short walk from the front door to the dining room.
“What is that?” I whispered in disbelief as I took in a strange turkey Pilgrim that looked like it was puking candy corn in the centre of the table.
“Centre piece.” Elliot shrugged.
All eyes followed our journey to the place settings on the other side of the room, at the end of the extremely long dining table. The back of my neck burned. I looked up and saw that Sarah Mallory was staring at us both with narrowed eyes.
“Pepper, is it?” She asked in a scathing tone.
I cleared my throat. “Harriet.” I corrected her. “Harriet Thompson.”
Sarah snorted and reached over to take a sip of her white wine. “Right.” Her laughter was bitter and scathing.
Her father, Walter Mallory was engaged in conversation with who I could only assume was Elliot’s father. Walter didn’t even acknowledge his daughter’s raucous and mocking laughter.
The rest of the table was silent; Elliot’s mother took a seat next to me. “You’re Darrel Thompson’s daughter?” She took my hand, without my permission and held it tenderly.
I nodded, but said nothing.
“It was such a shame what happened to him. He was such a good man.”
I nodded, but Elliot saved me. “Mother, you’re embarrassing her.” He chided.
Marcella Gold let go of my hand. “And how’s your mother?”
I did not want to answer the question, but I opened my mouth to do so. I heard the scrape of a chair against the marble floor and click of high heels. Her perfume swathed me first, expensive but liberally applied. My nostrils burned and my eyes watered. I found myself coughing as Sarah walked over to join us. She was dressed in white, in a skin-tight dress that came up to mid-thigh. She looked like she had gained a bit of weight since I had seen her last, and a small part of me felt vindicated at that.
“Yes, Harriet.” Sarah sneered. “Why don’t you tell us all about how Gilly Thompson is doing?” She put her hand on Elliot’s shoulder and I fought against the urge to remove it forcefully.
My cheeks flushed with shame and I felt so foolish. I wished that I hadn’t have come. “She’s fine.” I murmured.
Sarah took a sip of her white wine, but I saw her smug smile over the rim of her glass.
Marcella looked between us, before excusing herself to speak to the servers. I didn’t blame her; I would have escaped too if I could think of an excuse.
“I don’t really see my mother anymore.” I admitted.
I chanced a look at Elliot, who had been silence since we had sat down. Sarah’s appearance had made him shrink in on himself. Something bubbled under the surface. It was like anger, but more. It didn’t look like he was fearful of an ex and a current fling meeting. There was something else happening but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
My stomach was in knots. I didn’t know if I would be able to eat anything once the food came out. I felt so out of my depth that I wanted to melt into a puddle and disappear between the tiles.
I thought back to the conversation I had with Scarlett at the club. I was a stripper. Good for dancing and looking good. Showing off when it didn’t matter who saw. I had no idea why Elliot had pushed me into the deep end by inviting me to his parents home.
“Elliot, have you given any thought to what we talked about last?” Sarah said as she stood over him. Her long red nails twisted a lock of his raven hair. The intimacy and familiarity told me that I didn’t know Elliot Gold at all. I wasn’t part of his world.
“I’d rather not do this here.” Elliot growled.
Sarah shrugged and walked away to speak to Rina and Julian, both of whom seemed to be in an whispered argument.
“I don’t think I should be here.” I admitted to Elliot.
“I want you here.” He replied.
Soon after, once everyone had taken their seats, the catering staff served the appetizers and I stared down at an unknown pink foam, that smelt faintly of salmon. I lifted my fork to dig in when a tinkling sound rang out and all chatter stopped.
Sarah Mallory stood up, holding her wine glass in her hand. “I’d like to make a toast if that’s okay.” She smiled at Marcella. I caught a heavy look of disdain on Elliot’s mother's face. I wasn’t sure if Sarah was well liked in the Goldryn Elite circles.
Mr. Mallory smiled indulgently at his daughter.
“I’m thankful for so many things.” Her laughter tinkled as she addressed everyone in the room. “My father. My upcoming divorce and the unification of the Gold and the Mallory families.”
I shot a look at Elliot out of the corner of my eye, the knuckles on his champagne flute had turned white as his grip turned punishing. I had no idea what she was talking about but the news of Sarah’s upcoming divorce from Hank Kellerman was not well-known. I looked at Rina and saw her parted lips, she hadn’t been aware either.
Walter Mallory stood up and placed his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “To Elliot and Sarah. Congratulations! I can’t wait to be a grandfather.” He patted his daughter's flat stomach once.
Sarah looked right at me. Her gaze did not waver as she watched the news sink into my brain. She placed her hand on her belly and rubbed it. The grandfather comment hadn’t been random. She was pregnant.
And it was Elliot’s.
I did the cowardly thing. I raised my glass to the toast and plastered a smile on my face despite how stupid I felt.
16
Harriet was silent as I drove her back to her apartment block on the other side of town. I watched as she picked her thumbnail and studied it as if it was the most interesting thing in existence.
&
nbsp; She hadn’t said much since Sarah had hijacked the Thanksgiving Eve dinner with her heinous announcement.
She had done what she had set out to do. Isolate me from Harry.
“Can I come up?” I asked, afraid to raise my voice from more than a whisper.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Harriet waited until the car had pulled to a stop in the lot adjacent from her building to speak. She gripped the handle to the door, pushing herself out of the deep bucket seat before I had a chance to put the car in park.
I was a gentleman. She knew that I would have opened the door for her. That I wanted to treat her like a lady. Always. But she was determined to escape.
A flash of anger ricocheted through me. Sarah’s ‘cat that got the cream’ expression flashed across my eyes and I slammed my fist down on the steering wheel. Sounding the horn, though that wasn’t my intention.
Harriet froze, her whisky eyes were wide as they reflected the orange glow of the street lamp outside. Her gaze travelled from my fist to my face. Fear laced through her expression and I hated that I put it there.
“I just want to talk.” I did not look at her, but buried my head in my hands. I was so fucking ashamed of what Sarah had done and I had no one to turn to within that moment. Now, the girl that I was falling in love with couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
Wait? Falling in love with?
Harriet leant forward and took my knuckle in her hand, brushing her thumb over the bumpy ridges.
“What am I meant to do, Elliot?” Harriet sighed, and her tone was defeated. “You got her pregnant.”
“This isn’t about her. It’s about us.” I said adamantly.
“Is it?” Harriet laughed without humour, her hand still on the handle to the car door. “Because it seems to me that if I meant anything to you, you would have told me that you got your ex-girlfriend pregnant.”
“She’s not my ex.”
“Fuck buddy. Side piece. Casual fling.” Harriet snarled. “But then again, why should you tell me? I'm just some stripper that you bang on Thursday nights!”
I wanted to tell her so badly. I wanted to explain how vulnerable I was. Emasculated and powerless I’d felt. How I’d always be plagued with doubt about what happened. Had I wanted it? Even though I was unconscious. Some part of me must have done because I’d gotten hard. Sarah couldn’t have gotten pregnant if my body hadn't been up for having sex with her.
I clenched my fists. My eyes were unseeing as my insecurities and questions rushed through my mind. As I looked into her whiskey eyes, I knew that I’d lose her. And the way that Harriet looked at me? Like I could fight ten bears and still come out victorious?
I didn’t want to give that up just yet.
The car door slammed and Harriet disappeared into the night. Our conversation was over. I didn’t know if our relationship was as well.
I’d driven around for a while after I dropped Harriet off. I didn’t want to go back to the Manor, though my father had invited all the men to his study for brandy and cigars.
The same study that Harriet and I had come together for the first time.
I pulled up outside of my own home on Goldryn Row. A small mansion, a newer addition to the street. I could see the bright spotlights of Goldryn Manor from my front garden, if I squinted. I pulled up into the garage, punched in the key code and entered my kitchen. I threw my car keys into the dish with such force that it knocked it on the side. There was a bottle of aged scotch on the counter with a note on the side. A gift from a contractor probably. I picked up the thick parchment before discarding it as unimportant.
Harriet had walked away from me. Silent tears had leaked out of her eyes as she had unlocked her door. She hadn’t looked back once.
I didn’t know if she would forgive me.
The past few weeks, with Harriet’s casual friendship and passionate sex had been beyond imaginable. She was a chameleon soul. Harry fitted into my life in whatever way that I needed her to. She was a tide. Ebbing and flowing. Always changing but remaining the same. Soft where I was hard. Strong but fragile. The perfect contradiction.
I grabbed the bottle of amber liquid and marched through my home, taking my steps two at a time. I slammed my bedroom door behind me and sunk down onto the comforter before I took a slug from the liquor as if it was water.
I reached into my jacket pocket and took out the wrinkled sonogram. I fucking hated Sarah for the way that she had stormed into my life. I rubbed my hand over my face, dragging my lips apart as my eyes fixed on the grainy black and white image.
It was a child. My child.
Regardless of how the bulbous-headed foetus had come to be created, the image didn’t lie.
I drank. And drank. And drank. Until blackness claimed me.
17
Elliot did not call or text and when Thursday rolled around. He didn’t book a private dance. It was Thanksgiving, so I told myself that he was occupied by his family. I spent the day with the girls, eating from the buffet on my break and joking about in our skimpy costumes.
I told myself that I didn’t care. That he couldn’t hurt me by pulling away.
But that was a lie.
Had he been with Sarah the entire time that he'd been with me?
I fantasied about how to enact revenge on Sarah Mallory, but my moral compass dictated that I couldn’t hurt a pregnant woman. No matter how she pranced around, drinking wine even though she was growing another human inside of her. Using her unborn child like a VIP invitation to the Gold family.
It hurt worse because she belonged with him. She fit by his side like a perfect addition to his Goldryn Elite persona.
I was just a stripper. Trailer trash. What had I been thinking? I wasn’t the kind of girl that a Gold would marry. I was a bad decision to piss off the parents before he settled down.
I was sick at myself for thinking it. I knew it was the poisonous voice inside myself. The darkness that I hid away that told me that I wasn’t good enough and he was telling me all sorts of lies just to keep me on the side. Having his cake and eating it too.
On the Black Friday, I had finally gathered enough money to pay off Daniel Davis. It should have been a weight from my shoulders but somehow my stomach felt like it was full of snakes.
The thing about debt is that you're never free of it. You can force it into remission, but debt is like a disease. It’s always a threat if you’re susceptible.
When I handed Mr Davis the envelope, I told him to never contact me again.
He'd walked away with the words:
“If your Mama can't pay then I know where to find you.”
I was so angry that I couldn’t speak.
I was tired of being beaten down. I'd had enough time away from the toxic trailer that I had grown up in to be able to see that.
I’d been up all night after handing over my last ever envelope.
I was cutting Mama off. For good.
If Davis came after me again, I’d have to cut myself off from Mama legally. I'd sever ties. Get a gun and hope to God that he didn’t try and get me to touch his cock again; because I didn’t want to go to jail for shooting it off.
I needed caffeine something fierce. The good stuff. I had a beaten up old coffee maker that I’d gotten from goodwill but all the coffee that came from the pot tasted faintly of metal. I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and tied my hair into a scruffy topknot.
I looked like a homeless mess.
If any of the patrons of the Pink Sleeve saw me in the daylight, they wouldn’t recognise me. I slipped my wallet into the pocket of my baggy sweats and underwent the short journey to Main Street.
It had been a full day without Elliot Gold and I was already having withdrawal symptoms. It was humiliating.
The TeaSpoon, Goldryn Bois' answer to Starbucks, was my first stop. The bistro chairs out the front were empty because the air had a bite as winter moved in. Louisiana weather was bipolar. It could never decide it was going to let the season move
in or not. Whilst summers were humid and hot, any other time was a free for all. Though I hadn’t seen snow in the Bayou.
I ordered a black Americano and I hovered by the counter as I heard the barista call her name.
Was Sarah Mallory following me? Dammit to hell.
Probably not, as her drink was served before mine. Still, I was dressed like a homeless person without an inch of makeup. My cheeks were red and patchy without foundation or a dab of tinted moisturizer, and I was horribly self-conscious of my less than put together state.
The barista called my name and I flinched. Sarah had leaned over the counter, causing a ruckus and asking loudly if her drink contained gluten or not. The barista seemed to be holding back their laughter, considering that it looked like she’s ordered a standard latte.
I kept my head down and gripped the to-go cup as fast as I could without burning myself. I turned on my heel and I’d almost gotten away with it when I heard her speak.
“Harriet Thompson, right?” Sarah asked innocently, as if she didn’t have a clue who I was. Yeah, yeah, we're both fucking the same guy. Yay for us.
Oh god. I wanted to cut a bitch and I was a typically passive person. More of a 'curl up and hide' then 'guns blazin' woman. I nodded silently and gave a smile that was more of a flinch. The peroxide blonde tilted her head to the side and I noted that her hair looked like it had been freshly bleached.
All of the women that I had known who'd had babies had refrained from dying their hair much when they were pregnant for worry of their unborn baby’s health. Though Sarah didn’t seem to have that problem. Different strokes for different folks, I guessed.
“Do you mind if I have a word?” Her tone was friendly. Mild. Her eyes were daggers. I looked around and saw a few glances flitted our way and decided that it would probably look strange if I flung my hot black coffee over her face and ran.
“This is my third coffee of the morning.” Sarah laughed; the sound was high-pitched and forced. “I can’t live without my caffeine.”
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