by Imani King
“Well he’s certainly heard of you. Or, at least, he’s heard of your father.”
I could feel rage boiling over inside me. What in the hell was this woman trying to say? She had no right to talk about my family.
“You haven’t called your father lately, have you dear? Such a shame when a child fails to keep in touch with their family.”
“What did you do?” I said, my voice venomous.
“It seems your father may have gotten himself into a little drunken scuffle three nights ago. Ordinarily this sort of thing is a few nights in a cell and some community service, this isn’t your father’s first run in with the police. Are you aware of the three strikes laws in this state? Your father certainly wouldn’t survive twenty years in prison, but Judge Watts can be so very strict…”
The implication in her voice was clear. With one wave of a hand, she could send my father to prison for the rest of his life.
“And he will send your father to prison,” Mrs. Lambert said, her eyes sparkling, “unless someone can convince the judge to be lenient.”
“My father wouldn’t do that. He would never hurt anyone,” I replied indignantly.
“You’d be surprised how easy it is to incite an alcoholic to throw a punch, dear.”
“You did this? You set him up!” I shouted.
“I merely sped along the inevitable. Your father was heading down a very dark road. Maybe prison will be good for him…”
“You wouldn’t do this,” I said, gritting my teeth together. “My father has done nothing to you.”
“Oh, I would do this, Gigi. I would do anything for the sake of my family. The question is, how far will you go for yours?”
“What do you want?” I asked, barely able to contain my fury. I took a moment to breathe. I had to calm down for the sake of my baby. The stress of this moment had my heart racing like it never had. Mrs. Lambert merely smiled.
“I’m a generous woman. Your father will be free to go home… if certain conditions are met.”
My heart shuddered. Certain conditions? I felt like I’d walked into a lion’s den and had to stop myself from shielding my stomach with my hand in that instinctive, motherly way I was already prone to. That would only make things worse for me. I knew it.
I swallowed. “What conditions are you talking about?”
Mrs. Lambert laughed, cackled even, at the question. That sound made my insides go cold with dread.
“Poor girl,” she said, pity in her voice. “It must be so hard.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me?”
“Living with a father like yours, I mean. Having to bail him out of a holding cell night after night, wondering if he’ll be okay in the morning. It must be very difficult for you. Even now, I can how much he burdens you, and yet, you’re so willing to do whatever it takes to help him. I admire your spirit.”
Mrs. Lambert’s smile had morphed into a wicked smirk, her eyes creased like a cat who was about to jump right on a big, fat rat. She waved her hand and continued.
“I’m not a monster. I will speak to Judge Watts and see to it your father is set free… And I am going to pay you to leave my son, Ms. Devereaux,” Dorian’s mother said, making sure to put a heavy emphasis on “Ms.” as well as use my maiden name. “I am going to pay you a lot of money to simply disappear from his, and all our lives and never trouble us with your presence again. You’ll be taking the baby with you, and you’re never looking back.”
“I’m not going to do that,” I protested. “Dorian and I—”
“Are nothing to one another,” she interrupted. “You don’t actually think that Dorian loves you, do you? Please—he’s my son.”
“Why would you do this?” My lips felt numb, and my voice was weaker than I wanted it to be. “Why?”
Mrs. Lambert, fixed me with a horrifying gaze, her lip curling into a venomous sneer. She looked like some kind of horrible nightmare beneath the falsehoods of her plastic surgery.
“Do you know what a legacy is, Ms. Devereaux? The thing that you leave behind after you’re gone?”
“I know what it is,” I snapped. “I went to law school, Mrs. Lambert.”
“Then you know that all that’s left of you is what you leave behind and who you leave it to. In which case, I will throw my fortune to the crocodiles of the Nile before I ever see it near your grubby, poor, colored hands. My line won’t be corrupted, not by you or anyone like you.”
I snorted bitterly. “And why the hell would I agree to this deal after a speech like that? If anything, I ought to announce our damn vows in the Sunday paper, you racist piece of shit.”
Damn, this baby was giving me courage. I’d noticed that ever since it was conceived, I’d begun standing up for myself, putting my foot down, demanding the respect I was owed. Motherhood was going to suit me. The question was whether Dorian would be there to notice.
“There’s that temper again. I bet you got it from your father. I wouldn’t recommend lashing out, unless you’d like to join him,” she said, lifting a hand to point at a security camera.
“Don’t do this. Not to me. Not to my family. I’m carrying your grandchild. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” I protested.
“It means enough that I will ensure that you and the child are in good spirits for the rest of your miserable little lives.”
Mrs. Lambert sat, crossing one of her long, slender legs over the other, her hands clasped upon her knee. “And Dorian will be thrilled at the idea of not having to pretend to loving someone like you.”
Was she right? Dorian had been distant since the Harmony incident. Did Dorian even want to keep up this little charade?
Once again, the shriveled-up witch seemed to read my mind. She smiled broadly, her ruby lips parting like the red sea over gleaming white teeth.
“Don’t you see, Georgia?” she purred, her eyes sparkling. “I’m doing you a favor, really. I could see right through you two from the very start. Everyone knew, darling, that your marriage was nothing—just a scheme my intrepid son cooked up to get his inheritance. Didn’t you notice how people looked at you two on the streets? How the sad employees of that awful courthouse looked at you two as you walked in, Dorian in a ten thousand dollar hand tailored suit and you in some low budget dress? You never would have fit in with us, darling, and you would have dragged my son—and the Lambert name—down with you when you fell.”
She stood then, smoothing out her black sheath dress as she approached, her steps even, hands still clasped tightly in front of her. She stopped only a few inches away, and I realized this was the closest Mrs. Lambert had ever deigned to get to me.
“And you would have fallen eventually, Gigi,” she murmured, like we were old friends, like she was telling me a secret that was for my own good.
My vision was blurry. My stomach was tight. I felt like I was going to throw up, and not because of the baby. Every one of Mrs. Lambert’s words hit home, bringing back all the fears, all the insecurities I’d entertained myself when I was alone.
What did Dorian see in me, besides a meal ticket? It wasn’t my family name—like Mrs. Lambert said, I had nothing and came from nothing. And I wasn’t the only woman in the world who could warm his bed. He’d been doing just fine on that front before me. Without me.
Knowing the vile bitch might be right didn’t stop it from hurting, though. I looked up at her through teary eyes, shaking my head. How was she so calm, so poised, while she ripped me to pieces right in front of her?
“How could you do this?” I whispered. “I’m your daughter-in-law.”
“And for the first time ever, Gigi, I am treating you that way,” Mrs. Lambert said, tilting her head to the side. “This is exactly what I would advise any daughter of mine who had gotten some silly dream into her head.”
“What about Dorian?” I asked.
“I’ll see to it that he produces an heir with a proper woman,” she replied with a huff. “If you care about your father’s future, Dorian is none
of your concern.”
I closed my eyes and turned away, unable to face her anymore. “Fine,” I said, my voice strangled and faint. “Okay.” The words were sour in my mouth, bitter, like blood and shame. “Leave my father out of this. Talk to the judge. I’ll take the deal.”
“Good girl,” Mrs. Lambert said, her eyes glinting maliciously. “I’m so glad you could see things my way, for the sake of your family.”
She stepped away, returning a moment later to hand me a small stack of documents, that horrible smile of hers never faltering once. “This is a trust in your name, and one to be set up for the child, and the annulment paperwork to rid us of this travesty of a marriage. I’m sure even with your meager legal experience you can see everything has been prepared to your satisfaction.”
I looked down at the documents and took them from Mrs. Lambert, along with the fountain pen she offered. I went over to a small table near the door, glancing through the terms of the contract briefly. It was all there, just like she said. Twenty million dollars, ten in each trust. Enough for the rest of my life. Enough to save my father’s house… Enough to give my child the life he deserves…
“I don’t have all day,” Mrs. Lambert said, her cool tone beginning to gain its screeching quality again, denoting her rising impatience.
It would have been too easy to say something, to snap back at her and get in my last word before I took her money and left, but I stayed silent.
I sighed and pressed the tip of the fountain pen to the paper and scribbled my signature at the bottom of both sets of documents, and the annulment, then shoved one of the copies back into Mrs. Lambert’s hands.
“I hope you choke on it,” I muttered.
“You can go now, Ms. Devereaux. Dorian no longer requires your services.”
I held tightly onto the trust paperwork, tempted to throw it right in the woman’s face and spit on it… but I didn’t. Instead, I turned away from her slowly and calmly walked toward the door.
“Oh, and Ms. Devereaux?”
I spun around one last time to catch her eye, imagining the flames burning beneath the surface.
“If I ever find you with my son again, I promise that there is no place dark enough on this Earth for you to hide. I will ruin you and your entire family. Your father, your brother, and your child. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
I didn’t give her the pleasure of an answer. With a slam of the door behind me, I left that evil bitch to her games.
I never much liked drinking, but at the moment, I couldn’t think of anything better to do. I sat on one of the couches in my living room, a tumbler of Jack in my hand that had been preceded by six more before it, each one more eagerly consumed than the last.
To tell the truth, I didn’t know who I was more angry at: myself for being so stupid, or her for leaving. I’d woken up three days ago to find her gone, no note of explanation or even a single voicemail or text message until the little package my mother delivered at my door.
Annulment paperwork. Signed by Gigi.
It was my own damn fault. Why the hell hadn’t I tried to apologize? I had my chance. She’d stuck around days after the goddamned Harmony incident. I could have talked to her… Now she was gone, and I only had myself to blame. If only I could get her on the damn phone.
With every drink I became more certain, more absolutely positive that Gigi had given on us entirely. It only hurt worse when I thought about the child that was on the way. I couldn’t just blame my mother for her role in this. I fucked everything up and there wasn’t any good way to make it better.
The thought of losing her made me sick. I wasn’t sure which was worse—Gigi stabbing me right in the heart, or knowing that my mother was right. We were doomed from the start. I’m not good at apologizes, and I’m even worse at long-term relationships.
I threw the last of my seventh drink back just as I heard the soft ding of the elevator doors opening up. Bile rose in my throat, along with an anger I don’t think I’d ever experienced before. I tried to swallow both, but the latter came flooding out of my mouth with just as much ugliness as the former would have.
“Where the fuck were you?” I asked, my voice hoarse from the whiskey.
“I didn’t think you would be here…” she said, hiking her purse up higher on her shoulder. Her gaze fell to my discarded glass. “Have you been drinking?”
“Answer the damn question, Gigi.”
She frowned. “Listen, Dorian, I—”
I didn’t let her finish. I couldn’t. I was too goddamn angry. “Why haven’t you answered your phone?”
She blinked. For a long moment she stared at me, those gorgeous, honey-colored eyes filled with a mix of pain, anger, and hurt, but I was far too drunk and too angry at the both of us to even care. In that moment, I hated myself for letting any of this happen.
“I’m not going through with this deal, Dorian.”
“I see that,” I said angrily, throwing the annulment paperwork onto the floor. “What about our child? What about us?”
Her eyes were welling up as she put her purse down. “Your mother…”
“What the hell happened?” I asked, my eyes going wide with incredulity. “You spoke to my mother without me? What in the hell were you thinking?”
“I can’t begin to explain Dorian,” she said softly. “I just need to do what’s best for my family.”
“She paid you. She fucking paid you!” I said, my chest feeling like it was about to collapse in on itself. I desperately wanted all of this to be an alcohol-fueled nightmare, something I could wake up from any minute now and go back to what I had hoped would actually turn into a happy marriage.
She looked at me, nose scrunched, completely fucking bewildered. “It’s not like that…”
“Don’t lie to me,” I said, getting louder. “I tried to make this work—to make you happy—and you throw it in my face.”
Gigi frowned at me like I was speaking in another language. “Dorian, I…”
“All I wanted was you. Don’t you see that?”
She stared at me, lips parted and her brows knitted together like I’d just sprouted a second head.
“I should have known that my mother was right about you.”
Gigi’s expression hardened again. “What did you just say?”
I cupped my hands around my mouth like she was hard of hearing. “I said that my mother was right about you. You betrayed me, just like she said you would. You’re nothing but a gold-digger looking for some big score!”
“No!” Despite her anger, despite the shaking of her hands, she shook her head vehemently and her eyes softened again. “That’s not it. Really, Dorian, I swear. That isn’t true at all!”
“Then why did you take the money, Gigi?” I asked, tears starting to form in the corners of my eyes. “Why did you sell out to my mother? Why’d you give up anything we could’ve had for… what, a few million dollars?”
“I—” she began, then swept her gaze away from me. “I can’t tell you that, Dorian. Just… trust me, okay?”
“Trust you?!” I shrieked, laughing like she’d just told the greatest joke in all the world. “How in the world can I trust you? You say you’re not some gold-digger, but you cut and run from something I actually thought the two of us could really make work.” I shook my head. “You’re the one that sold out. There isn’t a damn thing you can say to fix this.”
“You won’t even let me talk, Dorian,” Gigi said, stomping over to the master bedroom and throwing open the door. She was only in there for a few seconds, and when she came back, she had her laptop under her arm. “You’re drunk and you won’t even let me speak. I’ve spent too many years taking care of a fucking alcoholic father. I’m not about to do it again.”
“Your father?” I replied, momentarily confused.
“Yes my father. Do you even know his fucking name? Do you know anything about me, really? You haven’t even taken the time to ask.”
Without another word, Gigi
Devereaux walked out of view into the entryway, the ding of the elevator drifting across the silent room. I sat silently as she stepped into the elevator, the doors closing and the soft hum of the machinery filling my thoughts.
Going down, I thought, turning my gaze toward the foyer. That’s pretty much the only direction I’ve got left to go anymore.
I pushed myself up from the couch and stumbled toward the bedroom, my feet unsteady after all of the whiskey I’d thrown back over the last two hours. She was gone, and what the hell did I have left anymore? I couldn’t help be realize just how empty my life was, how utterly directionless I’d been all these years until Gigi came along. Now it was all over, and I didn’t think I could ever get her back in my wildest dreams.
