by Cynthia Dane
Jasmine knew their evening with Ethan’s father would be quiet, but she didn’t expect the total silent treatment as they ate their pot roast dinners and settled in to watch crime shows on TV. Jasmine sat next to Ethan on the couch while Adam took up his stoic stance in an arm chair, hands folded on his stomach as he grumbled about incompetent detectives and how “that doesn’t work in real life.” He had read it in an article.
Ethan didn’t seem bothered by this, for it was probably his father’s usual behavior. Jasmine, on the other hand, almost craved her parents’ antics compared to this. At least they were alive.
After the latest rerun of CSI: Miami, Ethan and his father went out back to take in the warm night. Or at least that’s what most women would have assumed. By now, Jasmine knew it wasn’t old times transpiring back there. Worst of all? The kitchen window was still open, so she could hear almost every word they said as it filtered through the screen.
“We would really appreciate you coming to the wedding, Dad,” Ethan said. “I’ll take care of everything. You’d like the garden at my place, anyway. Looks like that one you used to take me to on the weekends when we lived in Lothsborough. That’s where we’re getting married. The garden, that is. Not Lothsborough.”
“I was gonna say, anyone could do better than that dump of a town.”
Ethan sighed. “You don’t have to make a decision right now, but…”
“I’m not going.”
“I thought as much.”
“Why would I want to leave here? Here is fine. I don’t need to see your fancy things to know they’re there.”
“It’s not about that. It’s about me getting married.”
“I’m sure there will be others to attend if I feel up to it.”
“Other what? Weddings?” Ethan was losing his patience already. “I would hope you give my fiancée the benefit of the doubt. She’s not like that.”
“That’s what we all say, son. You’re young. Sue me for assuming you’re thinking with the little brain instead of the big one. I saw that girl.”
“That ‘girl’ is my fiancée.”
“So you’ve said a dozen times.”
“Which means there’s no need to insult her. She can probably hear you.” You have no idea, Ethan.
“Why would I hide what I have to say? Do you want me to tell you that she’s pretty? Yes, son, she’s pretty. You have good taste when it comes to a woman’s looks. I’ll say that much.”
“You don’t know her.”
“I’m fine with that. You’re the only rich person I need to know.”
“She’s not rich.”
“Either way… whether she’s rich or Cinderella… it doesn’t matter.”
“You know that neighborhood we lived in up north? The one with the drug dealers and the rats in the cupboards? That’s where she was living when I met her. She grew up in some small town out in the countryside. I’d trust her with my life.”
Jasmine had heard enough. No matter how much he defends me, his father won’t care. Maybe it was complete indifference on Adam’s part. Or maybe he was so cynical that any woman Ethan married was merely a starter wife that wasn’t worth getting to know. Would he feel the same way about any kids I had with Ethan?
At the very least, Adam didn’t care that she and Ethan shared the couch bed without wedding rings on their fingers. It was the most uncomfortable bed she had ever slept on since her shitty apartment in the city, but at least it was with Ethan, who wore nothing but boxers and a cotton shirt as he climbed beneath an afghan and sighed against a couch pillow. At least he was quick to fall asleep.
Jasmine remained wide awake, listening to the sounds of South Carolina around her. Windows were still open, and a machine hummed in the closed bedroom where Adam slept. These sounds weren’t what kept her awake, however. It was the dull ache in her heart. The one that said even Ethan’s remnants of a family didn’t accept her, because they thought she was a transient first wife who could be forgotten one day.
“God fucking damnit,” cursed Adam in the bedroom. “These pieces of shit never work…”
Ethan continued to steadily sleep. Jasmine sat up, threading her hair through her fingers and wondering if she should go to the bathroom for the hundredth time that night.
“How young do they think I am? This wasn’t even this difficult in the ‘70s…”
Jasmine got up, picking an empty plastic cup off the coffee table so she could fill it with water. Ethan was snoozing so hard that he started snoring. Okay, Mr. Adorable. He was missing a cat, though.
“Shit!”
Jasmine was halfway to the kitchen when she heard a thump in the bedroom. A heavy thump. The kind of thump that made people stop in their tracks and contemplate whether or not they had heard someone die.
Damnit. Jasmine put her empty cup down and went to the bedroom, knocking softly on the door. “Mr. Cole?” she asked, both wanting to wake Ethan up and wanting to let him sleep. “Are you okay in there? I heard a thump.”
“Don’t bother yourself!”
Grunts and mumbles commenced. Jasmine may not be great at charades, but she definitely knew the sounds of someone struggling to get up off the floor.
She tested the doorknob. Adam Cole was apparently not a man who locked his bedroom door at night.
Sure enough, she found her future father-in-law on the floor beside his bed, attempting to hoist himself up without much success. Jasmine rushed to his side, turning on a bedroom light.
“Are you okay?” Nothing sent more fear into a young person’s heart than seeing someone who could be their mother or father falling to the ground. While Adam was a good generation older than her own parents, he was still parental, and that was all that went through Jasmine’s mind as the old man tried to brush her off and get up on his own. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“What makes you think I can’t get up?” Adam smacked her wrist, sending Jasmine two steps back as he finally made it up onto his bed. He immediately pulled his blanket on top of his body, sputtering that it was indecent for her to see him like this. “Do you think I’m stupid or something?”
“No, I… I don’t think anything like that.” Jasmine stayed a respectful distance away. It doesn’t look like he needs any help, but how was I supposed to know that?
“Good! Now do you think you could leave me alone and let me get back to sleep?”
“Sure.” Jasmine turned away, hoping he wasn’t embarrassed to see her in a cotton T-shirt and sleep shorts.
“Last thing I need is my son’s training wheels flying off in my direction…“
Jasmine stopped in the doorway. “Excuse me?”
Adam waved her off.
I don’t fucking think so. Jasmine approached him again, too bothered to toss her hair out of her face. “What did you call me?”
“What business of it is yours?”
“What bus… I’m going to be your daughter-in-law and you’re calling me your son’s training wheels!”
Adam had no idea he had become the straw that finally broke this camel’s back.
“Excuse me, but maybe you should give your son the benefit of a doubt when it comes to choosing the woman he wants to marry. I don’t know what kind of girls he was dating the last time you took any kind of vested interest in his life, but I’ve met a lot of his more recent exes and they’re some of the smartest broads you’ve ever met in your life!”
Adam didn’t say anything, although his eyes furrowed and his cheeks froze in place. Jasmine turned to leave, but then thought of something else to say.
“It’s fine if you don’t like me, but you don’t get to make those kinds of judgments until you at least try to get to know me! For fuck’s sake, everyone keeps treating me like I’m sort of gold digging child, when all I want to do is marry the brilliant man I love! Not that I think he got any of his brilliance from you, since God knows Ethan never says anything nice about his childhood!”
“Now hold on!” Adam was up, blanket fli
nging back and hair going wild. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I was not a bad father! Who the hell are you to judge me, missy!”
Missy? Missy?
“Wow.” Jasmine didn’t know whether to laugh or chew this guy out. “Now I know why Ethan never brought me down to meet you before. He conveniently forgot to tell me that on top of being an ass, you’re also sexist as hell.”
“Well maybe I don’t take too kindly to having some woman I don’t even know come in here and tell me what’s what!”
“Some woman? That’s it. I’ve had it.” Jasmine approached the bed as if her ass were suddenly lit on fire. “I am not some woman. I am your son’s fiancée, and in six weeks I will be his wife! I hate to break it to you, but I am not some fling he is having fun with until he settles down. I am the wild oats sown!”
“I… well…”
“Shut up!” Adam sat back in his bed again, although his face remained absolutely hell no. “I take enough abuse as it is from the people he has to make money off of! I will not stand for it in my own family! Because, if you haven’t gotten the memo by now, Mr. Cole…” That was not a sexy name to say anymore. “I am your family, and last I heard, you ain’t got much left!”
Jasmine knew she was burning this bridge before it was even built. I don’t care. Holy shit, do I not care. Adam was not going to get away with brushing her off as Ethan’s marriage training wheels. She was the full two-wheels, made by an old company known for its high, long-lasting quality. Ethan would be riding her until she was dead! There are so many meanings behind that. Jasmine didn’t care. It fit the kinky lifestyle that Adam Cole would hopefully never know about, so help Jasmine’s remaining yet fragile ego.
“Take a good look at me right now, because even if you never bother to come see us, let alone come to our wedding, I want you to at least see what kind of woman your son has fallen in love with. So help me God, we might be having kids someday, so you better check out these genes right now!”
“Well…”
“Did you hear me? I’m not a fucking floozy. I’m your son’s fiancée, and I am going to be the mother of his children one day!”
Adam’s hard gaze told her to get out of his room, but at least he had finally shut up.
“You know what? At this rate, even if our marriage crumbles and he offers me a billion dollars to divorce him, I still won’t do it, just to spite you.”
“Get the hell out!”
Huffing, Jasmine turned and stormed out of the bedroom, too angry to face the rest of the dark bungalow. Nevertheless, she slammed the door behind her and left Adam to his misery.
Ethan was leaning against the couch, drinking from the glass Jasmine had left in the kitchen.
“Oh… shit.” No duh they woke him up with that commotion. “I’m sorry about that.” Ethan may not blush very often, but Jasmine could make it up on his behalf. Like now, when she blushed so hard that he must have seen it even in the darkness.
His figure moved languidly through the night. If he was angry, he didn’t let on. “Future mother of my children, huh?”
Jasmine sighed. “Don’t ask me how that’s going to work, Signore Vasectomia.”
Ethan crawled back beneath the covers of the sofa bed before pulling back her side. I’m allowed in after yelling at your father, huh? No love loss, apparently. “Where did you learn to say that in Italian?”
Jasmine got in bed, but only tentatively wrapped her arm across Ethan’s chest. “I learned a lot of random things in Milan. Like how your ex-girlfriend probably didn’t want to marry you because you don’t have tits.”
He chuckled. “Now you’re deflecting from what happened in there by trying to make me think of tits.” His hand stroked the spot between ear and neck. Jasmine was soon lulled into a sense of security she wasn’t sure was real… or false. “It’s almost working.”
“I’m sorry. Your father must really hate me now.” Jasmine was only a little sorry.
“Hate you? Oh, my sweet, sweet flower.” He rolled on top of her, not to dominate her sexually, per se, but to at least smother her with some affection. “You’ve got it all wrong. He doesn’t yell at people like that unless he likes them. Because he only likes people that are worth arguing with.”
Jasmine blustered in disbelief. “Likes me? Arguing? That was not arguing. That was…”
“My mother used to trade verbal blows like that with him before she died.” Why in the world was Ethan laughing over such a horrible thing? “My father used to say that he missed her ‘offbeat tone.’ I believed him, too. That man isn’t happy unless someone is challenging his authority. That’s why he hates the idea of having people wait on him and won’t let me hire more than the housekeeper. Says they aren’t worth his…”
Adam threw open the bedroom door and marched over to the sofa, nostrils flaring. “If I go to this wedding,” he began, checking the screech in his throat, “you better damn well promise me I’ll never have to go to any others!”
Ethan made an OK sign and held it up to his father. Jasmine was too busy being frozen to her fiancé’s chest. “Not a problem. Like you, I am a one woman man.”
“You better damn well be,” Adam mumbled, retreating back to his room with a huff. “I ain’t got time for more than one woman in a life.”
It all made sense. Everything made so much sense since coming to South Carolina.
Chapter 11
There were only four more weekends until Jasmine and Ethan’s wedding, and each one was dominated by activities that had nothing to do with spending time together.
On the first weekend, Jasmine had her bridal shower. Out of every event she had coming up, this was the one she dreaded the most, even though Monica had taken up the responsibility of hosting it so Selena could throw the bachelorette party the next weekend.
So while Monica was sure to have the loveliest party waiting for Jasmine at the Warren Estate, it wasn’t really for her. Aside from Monica, the only women that Jasmine had any connection with were Kathryn, Eva, and Adrienne, who showed up a fashionable half hour late. (Eva managed to be a whole fifteen minutes late to a party being thrown in her own damn home.) Luna humbly passed when Jasmine told her what kind of bridal shower it would be and promised to have their own party later. Selena decided to sit this one out so she could “focus on the bachelorette shindig,” and Nadia was nowhere to be seen. Probably because of Eva, whatever was going on between them now.
The other women? Some of them were the same ones that came to Monica’s bridal shower, but for the most part, it was a ton of middle-aged and a few younger women whom Jasmine had met once or twice, if that.
Monica apologized long beforehand that this had to be a matter of course. Jasmine was expected to participate in a party for the higher social echelons sometime before her wedding. After all, these women had been invited due to their standing and their dealings with Ethan’s business, but they were far from friends, or even acquaintances.
However, they were much nicer to her now than when she hosted Monica’s party – and now Jasmine saw where she went horribly wrong with her friend’s poor shower.
First of all, the shower was held in a large salon on the second floor of the East Wing, where Henry and Monica kept their personal chambers. The tables were laden with silver, sapphire-lined cups, and golden spoons that Monica explained came from Colombia, a wedding gift from a real estate magnate who did frequent business with the Warrens. They were declared exotic, and the next week Jasmine would hear all sorts of whispers from women trying to score Colombian gold because “Lady Warren has it, why can’t I?” Some would remind such women that, “She also has a brothel. You want that too?”
Every maidservant who worked in the East Wing was in attendance that day. Dressed in pristine black and white uniforms – French maid without being too French maid – they were silent but observant, anticipating when a woman would need more tea or when either Jasmine or the exuberantly pregnant Monica would need assistance getting up. She wasn
’t incapable, mind, but these maids were trained in France, or Thailand, or something… and couldn’t function unless they were doing their job. Jasmine swore she heard both origin stories during the course of her shower.
Monica was originally going to have one of these maids record Jasmine’s gifts, but to both of their surprise, Francesca Blake stood up and offered her handwriting services. She flashed Jasmine a flowery smile as she settled in between Monica and Adrienne, holding a Moleskin notebook and pulling a five-hundred dollar fountain pen out of her purse.
Jasmine didn’t know what she would use half of these gifts for.
Crystal, embedded with diamonds, came from a woman she had only met in passing. The referral to one of the most elusive personal stylists in Hong Kong, of all places, came from a Cantonese woman who was there visiting – Jasmine didn’t even know she had been invited to the wedding, since “Jade Young” could have been anyone. (“A referral is worth about two-thousand dollars,” Monica muttered to Jasmine. “I met that man once. You’ll love it, if you ever go out that way.”) Francesca Blake bequeathed a golden platter she claimed to have come from the Habsburg royalty. (“Queen Elisabeth owned this herself. I know this, because my great-grandfather was one of her closest confidants and inherited this after her assassination.”) Eva gave her a large black lacquer box handcrafted in some remote mountains of Japan. (“Don’t open it here… oh, never mind.” Monica was too late. Jasmine had already seen the hand-woven shibari ropes coiled inside. She quickly closed it again, blushing.) Kathryn handed over the deed to a condo in Torino she no longer had any need for. (“It was one of my mother’s residences that she handed to me. I never go to that part of Italy. I know you and Mr. Cole will appreciate it.”) Jasmine didn’t want to know how many millions it was worth, and Kathryn had waved it in her direction as if it were a pittance.
