Married in Michigan

by Jasinda Wilder

  I focus on using the dustpan to scoop donkey shit into a bag, but I’m definitely eavesdropping.

  The spokeswoman of the prostitutes nods. “Yeah, we all signed one. No talking about him, or this party, or any of his friends, or anything that happened. We sell the story, we get sued.”

  Mrs. deBraun nods, somehow managing to seem both pleased and nonplussed at the same time. “At least he had that much sense.” A noise from the second room draws her attention, and she glances at me. “Are there more?”

  I nod. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She sighs. “The snake is gone, I hope?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She eyes the mess I’m cleaning up. “That is positively vile.” A disgusted sigh. “Will the rug be salvageable, do you think?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know yet, ma’am. I should have a better idea in a few minutes, though. I’m nearly done cleaning up the poop.”

  She glances at the bedroom, from which male grunts can be heard. “Yes, as am I.”

  I snicker at that, and then go back to work. Once the piles of shit and garbage are bagged and set with the rest in the foyer, it’s obvious immediately that the rug—an expensive hand-woven import, by the looks of it—is beyond salvage. I slide the furniture off it and move the rug aside—the hardwood floors underneath are stained, and I go to work trying to fix the situation. I remain focused as Camilla finishes ushering the last of Paxton’s guests out of the penthouse, and then she floats serenely over to the couch, settling to sit down on it.

  I wince. “I, um…I wouldn’t sit there, ma’am. The couch was part of what Mr. deBraun’s friends used to contain the donkey, and I don’t know how clean the couch is.”

  She shoots up, swiping at the seat of her dress with both hands, which come away covered in slobber, hay, and who knows what else. “Oh my, how disgusting.” She wiggles her hands, and then rushes to the kitchen sink to wash her hands, and then sighs at me. “So, the rug?”

  I wince again and shake my head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll bring it downstairs and work on it, but I’m honestly not hopeful. It’s pretty stained.”

  Another long-suffering sigh, French-manicured fingers dimpling against her delicate temples. “That rug was a personal gift to me from the Sultan of Brunei.”

  I blink. “Sounds like it was expensive.”

  A slant-wise look at me, smacking of disbelief. “Have you heard the term ‘priceless’, Miss Poe?”

  Yes, she knows us all by name, from housekeeping to janitorial staff to chef to clerk. “Oh,” I say. “In that case, you may want to have someone who’s an expert in priceless rugs try to fix it. I would just be spraying it with Resolve, scrubbing, and hoping for the best.”

  This earns me a faint ghost of a smile. “Yes, an expert would be best, I believe.” She pours herself a mug of coffee, leaning her backside against the edge of the kitchen counter, and eyes me speculatively. “I think you’ll have earned quite a bonus for this cleanup, Miss Poe. Paxton has thrown some wild parties in his day, but this one takes the cake.” She snorts. “A live donkey. Someone’s idea of a joke, probably.”

  I’m not certain what response if any is required from me, so I just smile, shrug, and keep working on the stained hardwood with a hardwood floor cleaning and polishing agent and a rag.

  “More coffee?” I hear Camilla say, which is answered by a single grunt. I risk a quick glance to see Paxton with a towel wrapped around his waist, hair a gloriously beautiful mess, desperately sipping at a fresh mug of coffee; the pot is empty, which means in five…four…three…two…one…

  “Miss Poe?” Camilla says.

  “Yes ma’am. I’m on it.” I toss my rag over my shoulder and head into the kitchen to make more.

  Which means brushing past Paxton. He smells…good. How can he smell good? He’s been partying all night. He probably screwed one or all of those hookers. He’s still drunk. He has no right to smell like expensive cologne.

  I make a fresh pot of coffee, and as I brush past him once more, I catch his eyes on me. A quick glance, and I’m dismissed.

  Nothing special.

  Nothing to see here.

  That’s my job—to be invisible, unnoticeable. Sometimes, though, a girl wants to be noticed, especially by a gorgeous, naked man who I know for a fact has a monster…ahem.

  Work, Makayla. Work. He’s an arrogant, lazy, spoiled, entitled rich white asshole.

  He’ll never even look at me again.

  And, as I go back to scrubbing the hardwood floors, he indeed doesn’t spare me a second glance. As a housekeeper, I’m little more than furniture to someone like him.

  I keep working, ignore the brooding, beautiful, silent man in the kitchen, and his mother, who is visibly displeased—the entire penthouse seethes with her displeasure.

  I don’t envy the tongue-lashing I’m certain is coming his way.

  A subtle glance at Paxton tells me he knows it as well as I do—his shoulders are hunched, and he’s curled in around his coffee mug like it can protect him from his mother.

  “It’s time we had a serious talk about your lifestyle, Paxton.”

  Oh boy, here we go. Front row seats.

  3

  “No thanks, Mom,” Paxton drawls. “I’ll pass.

  A snort. “I’m sure you’d like to. But unfortunately for you, this one isn’t negotiable.”

  A groan. “Must we, Mother? Now?”

  Her voice raises just a little to impinge on his hangover headache, I’m certain. “Yes, Paxton, now. We’ve allowed you your dalliance, up until now, your father and I have.”

  “Can this wait until I’ve eaten something?” Paxton mutters.

  She huffs, whips out a cell phone and dials a number. “Good morning, Julius. An egg white omelet with spinach, whole wheat toast, and a side of sweet potato hash. To the penthouse, thank you.”

  Julius is the chef assigned to the penthouse when it’s occupied, and he’s a wizard with eggs—if he likes you, and you ask him nicely, he’ll make you an omelet after your shift, and god, the things the man can do with eggs and cheese are simply sinful.

  Paxton groans. “Egg whites, Mother? Do I look like I need to watch my weight?”

  I suppress a snicker at that, because he clearly can afford to eat a less-than-healthy breakfast. He’s ripped, without an ounce of extra fat anywhere on his body.

  “Honestly, how you’ve managed to retain your physique with the way you live your life is beyond me.”

  Paxton growls. “I work my ass off, actually. I’m in the gym ninety minutes a day, four days a week, and I run five miles the other three days.”

  “And yet you drink your body weight in alcohol most nights.”

  “Less than you’d think, actually. I host the parties, but I don’t get hammered at all of them.”

  Camilla snorts. “You’re still drunk, Paxton. I’m not stupid.”

  “Yes, I am. This was one of the rare nights I cut loose.” He sighs. “I’m not as irresponsible as you seem to think.”

  “The media sees you as irresponsible and untrustworthy, Paxton. There have been articles in the Huffington Post, Vox, Variety, People, and Time about how you’re essentially a good-for-nothing playboy, less relevant and useful than even a reality TV star.”

  “Who cares what the media has to say?” Paxton snarls. “I sure as hell don’t.”

  “You sure as hell should, as a matter of fact.” A heavy, significant pause. “Unless you’ve changed your mind regarding your political career.”

  “I’m one of the youngest members of the House of Representatives, Mother.”

  “And if you want to continue past the House, you need to clean up your image, Son.” Another of those somewhat sad, long-suffering, condescending, mothering sighs. “We’ve discussed this before, Paxton, but it’s reached critical mass. This latest party of yours is proof. A donkey, Paxton? Really?”

  “A practical joke by Robert, Mother.”

  “Well, I admire the fact that yo
u have friends across the aisle, and we’ll need to leverage your bipartisan reputation certainly, but your Republican friend’s practical joke ruined a Persian rug hand-woven two hundred years ago, a rug which was a personal gift to me from the Sultan of Brunei himself.”

  “Oh. Well. I’ll pay to have it replaced.”

  “It cannot be replaced, Paxton,” Camilla snarls. “It was priceless and irreplaceable.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother.”

  “There was also a snake in the tub, I’m told?”

  A groan. “Crap, I forgot about that stupid snake. I told Drake not to bring it.”

  “Well, animal control has it, now.”

  “That’s Drake’s problem, not mine.”

  “The point is, this has gone on long enough. It’s time to stop behaving like a careless frat boy. It’s time to settle down.”

  During this exchange I’ve done my best on the hardwood floor, and have moved on to cleaning the furniture—vacuuming the donkey hair off the couches, polishing the coffee table, stain removal from various parts of the furniture—and all the while I’ve been listening to Camilla’s tirade, and a few stolen glances tell me Paxton is pretty much tuning her out.

  “If you want to make the move to senator, and especially if you want to put yourself in position for Speaker or Majority Whip, you need a much cleaner image.” Camilla pauses. “You need a wife, Paxton.”

  “I don’t want one.” Paxton sips coffee, as if this declaration is all he needs to say on the matter.

  “You need a wife,” Camilla repeats. “You need a woman to soften your image, to give you the appearance of someone who has sowed his wild oats, making you relatable to the younger voters, but who has gotten serious and has the maturity to look at the issues clearly and responsibly.”

  “I can do that without getting married.”

  “Well, our staff of political advisors think differently.”

  “Your staff of political advisors just want to make more work for themselves. Grooming my image means they stay employed.”

  “You’ve been photographed with a different woman every weekend for the last four years, Paxton.”

  “So?”

  “And there are the photos from your vacation to Santorini.”

  “Which is why everyone signs NDAs now. Nonissue.”

  “It is an issue. Every time your name is brought up in the news cycle, those photos come out.”

  “I don’t care about the news cycle.”

  “Then you don’t understand politics, Paxton.”

  “I took my seat in the House when I was twenty-nine—I was single, I was in the news, and I attracted trouble. Yet I still got voted in.”

  “The Senate is different, Paxton. The stakes are higher, and so are the expectations.”

  “I’m not playing the game your advisors want me to play, Mother.” He sips coffee again, clutching at the towel; I turn away before he catches me staring.

  Camilla sighs, and lets the silence build.

  “What, Mother?” I hear the impatience in his voice. “I know you have something else to say.”

  “It’s time to settle down, Paxton.”

  “You’ve said this already.” Paxton grunts. “I’ll tone back the parties, okay? And I’m sorry about your rug. For real.”

  Another pause, and even I can tell her silence is that of a loaded gun preparing to fire. “We’ve made a decision on your behalf, Paxton.”

  This gets his attention. “You have, have you?” Amused, more than anything. “And what might that be?”

  “In one hundred and twenty days from today, there will be a wedding.” This time, the pause is positively explosive. “St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan—and you don’t want to know what I had to do to get that slot—with a reception at the Plaza. The invites have gone out already, and to a who’s who of politics, music, and Hollywood.”

  I detect a faint note of rising panic in his flat, modulated voice. “Who’s the lucky couple?”

  Another, longer, tenser, thicker pause. “You, Paxton.”

  “But I’m not getting married, Mother.”

  I can’t help but pause in my cleaning of a window in the living room, ears pricked, doing my best to not stop and outright listen.

  “Ah, see, that’s where you’re wrong, my son.” Her voice is…somewhere between crackling with icy cold, and razor-sharp. “You are. The wedding is yours—and it is nonnegotiable.”

  He’s caught speechless. “I…but…” A sharp inhalation. “I am not getting married. I’m not dating anyone, because I don’t date. So who, pray tell, would I be getting married to, in this theoretical wedding of yours?”

  Camilla’s sigh is soft and slow, but no less somehow audibly threatening for all that. “Paxton. Dear boy. Allow me to be crystal clear.” I dare a peek: she’s cupping one of his stubble-scruffy cheeks in a manicured hand, a condescending smile on her perfect face; I immediately turn back to wiping down the window. “You will be at the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in one hundred and twenty days from today. You will say ‘I do’, you will exchange vows, and you will become a married man. If you wish to continue receiving the support, both personal, political, and financial, of the deBraun family trust and board of advisors, you will take a wife, and you will cease your philandering, and clean up your playboy-every day is a party-devil may care mess of a life and image. As far as the world is concerned, you will become a family man. Your wife will appear on your arm, in photographs, on the town whether in DC, New York, LA, or anywhere on this planet. You will not be seen with any other women, you will not be connected in any way to any other woman ever again. There will be no scandals of any kind attached to the name Paxton deBraun.”

  “Mom—”

  “I’m not finished, Paxton.” A sharp snap of her voice. “You do have a choice in this matter, so don’t try to paint this as being left without a choice. Your choice is to get married and stay married, and remain in the good graces of this family’s considerable support, or if you wish, you may make your own way in this world, using the resources, influence, and finances you’ve made for yourself.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

  “Do I sound like I’m kidding?”

  “Fuck.” He snarls under his breath, a vicious, feral, curse-laden sound. “How am I supposed to find someone to marry me in four months?”

  “We’ve arranged a…fallback.”

  “Oh no. No way.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hell no.”

  “Cecily Amador-Richards is a beautiful, successful, intelligent young woman of impeccable breeding. She would make an excellent wife to an up-and-coming senator…and an invaluable asset for someone considering an eventual run for…say…the Oval Office.”

  “Mother.” His voice is venomous. “I wouldn’t marry that fucking snake of an ice-cold bitch if she were the last woman on earth.”

  “That’s a little excessive, Paxton.”

  “It’s nowhere even close to capturing how much I despise her, Mother.”

  “You’re harboring a grudge, Paxton. Let bygones be bygones.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You have no idea what happened, and I’m not about to tell you, but let’s just say I wouldn’t touch her with a twenty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole. And I would wager a case of Rolexes that she feels the same way.”

  “Then you owe me a case of Rolexes.” I hear a rustling of paper, and risk another quick glance to see Camilla withdrawing a folded letter from her purse. “In her own hand, signed, sealed, and delivered.”

  “No one seals letters anymore.”

  Yet, another stolen glance tells me the letter is indeed sealed with wax. I’ve finished the window, and move on to the next one—farther away, so I have to listen even harder; this is better entertainment than Real Housewives.

  There are a few moments of silence as Paxton reads.

  “Un-fucking-believable.”

  “Must you be so vulgar,
Paxton? I know I raised you better than that.”

  “Oh please, Mother. Boarding academy and military school raised me, not you.”

  “Now, now, Paxton, let’s not bring up that old warhorse of an argument.”

  “How the hell did you all convince Cecily to agree to this?”

  “It’s a perfect match, that’s all. Anyone can see how you two are made for each other.”

  “Meaning, her family is holding her inheritance over her head, too.”

  “I’m sure I have no idea what agreement she’s made with her parents. I know she was…reticent, at first, but she’s come around.” A significant pause. “As will you.”

  “You make a good case for a vow of poverty, if not celibacy, Mother.”

  “Oh, come now, Paxton. It can’t be that bad.”

  “She fucked my best friend in my bed on my boat, on our three-year anniversary.”

  “You cannot claim innocence on that score, Paxton. I know this for a fact.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t sleep with her best friend, and I didn’t do it for all-access passes to Coachella.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “Harry confirmed it, after I knocked his fucking veneers down his fake-tanned throat.”

  “He was just trying to pass the buck, Paxton.”

  “She’ll suck as many dicks as it takes to get her fifteen minutes of fame, Mom. She’d trade her soul for likes on Instagram. She’d send her entire family to a mass grave if it meant being more relevant than Kim Kardashian.”

  “Paxton!” A whip of a command. “Enough. There may be bad blood between you, but that’s going too far.”

  “Okay, fine—she’d sell her parents. Maybe not the entire family.”

  “Paxton!”

  “I’m not doing it, Mother! I’ll live under an underpass before I’ll go near her.” His voice is hard as steel, and as icy as his mother’s. “Trust me on this one: I will not marry Cecily—no matter the cost.”

  “Then you’d better bring your own girl, Paxton, because this is nonnegotiable. Cecily, a Kardashian, a hooker from one of your parties, I don’t care. As long as she toes the line and plays the game our way. You will get married, or you will be cut out of the will, the trust, everything. We won’t disown you, in the sense of never speaking to you again—you’re our son and we love you. But we will cut you off. This is hardball, Paxton.”