“I’m coming to get you, Charli. And then…”
The blue dot slowed, yet at the bottom of the screen I could see that her pulse was increasing.
I enlarged the map, zeroing in on her location.
The dot moved again. It was a private lane.
Deloris was right. That bastard took her back to Montague Manor.
I sent a message via Facetime.
“I CAN SEE SHE’S AT MONTAGUE MANOR. LET ME KNOW IF YOU GET IN.”
EACH STEP WAS a piece of every nightmare I’d ever had.
Though my exterior remained calm, the perfect Montague, my insides twisted and pushed upward… filling my throat with the acrid taste of dread. I swallowed continuously as I put one foot in front of the other. I inhaled as a sense of drowning overwhelmed me. Looking around, I knew that no one within the manor would throw me a life raft. I was alone in a sea of people.
Eyes peered my way briefly before looking respectfully down. The walls of the grand entryway were lined with Montague staff, obedient soldiers at their posts, reinforcing Alton’s unquestioned command. People I recognized—both from my past as well as my last visit—and many more that I didn’t stood at their positions, creating a path toward Alton’s office.
“Hello, Miss Alexandria.”
“Welcome home, Miss Alexandria.”
My anxiety built with each greeting. Knots upon knots formed in my stomach as my heart raced. Pressing my lips together, I dutifully nodded toward the familiar and unfamiliar faces. Memories in this same hall—of my haircut as well as other injustices—flashed through my thoughts momentarily, mixing the past with the present. Each recollection was a cue, well played by my stepfather, to reinforce that this was his domain and in it everyone bowed to him.
My designated path through the foyer took me past the grand stairs and toward Alton’s office. With each step I lost a shred of my newfound independence. The pieces were breadcrumbs that could lead me out… but breadcrumbs were transient and easily swept away. Soon they’d disappear, just like Charli.
I straightened my shoulders. Alexandria Charles Montague Collins was home.
Seeing the last member of the staff positioned near the door to Alton’s office made my feet still. The lump that had formed in my throat burst as tears teetered on my lids. Her dark eyes said volumes, yet not a word was initially spoken.
This wasn’t the place or the time.
I knew that.
Nevertheless, with everything inside of me, I longed to fall against Jane’s chest and be wrapped in her embrace.
“Not yet, child. We will. We’ll talk. I’ll help. I always have.”
Her rich supporting tone filled me, though her lips never moved. No one else heard her encouragement; it wasn’t spoken with her lips but with her heart. Yet through our connection, I heard every word. Not only heard, but I took it in, willing it to give me the strength to continue.
Nodding ever so slightly, I lifted my chin.
Let the dog-and-pony show begin.
Jane nodded. Not enough that most would notice, but I saw.
Swallowing past the dryness in my mouth while wishing away the moisture in my eyes, I stood before the large door.
“Miss Alex, I’ll get your room ready.”
Her true voice washed through me, a river of warmth in this cold, dark place. I turned toward Jane. Alex. Unlike every other greeting, she’d called me Alex.
“Thank you, Jane. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Our gazes met in silent communication as the door to Alton’s office opened, diverting my attention.
“Alexandria, come in,” Suzanna’s voice cut in, taking away the warmth and insulation of Jane’s greeting. Something in Suzanna’s tone was different. I couldn’t pinpoint it, but if she were heartbroken over my mother, in that millisecond I didn’t sense it.
While I debated my greeting, I stepped through the threshold and stopped.
Nothing could have prepared me for whom I saw.
Standing near the large windows was the one person I never expected to see in my house, not without my invitation. As she turned my direction, I scanned my best friend. Out of context, people and things become unfamiliar. How, after four years of living side by side with the woman before me, could she suddenly seem a stranger?
I didn’t know nor could I fathom.
Silently, indignantly, her posture straightened. Her petite, toned body, modestly covered with a pink linen dress, stiffened. The simple but elegant dress hugged all the right places. It was lovely, but not a style she’d ever before worn. Her hair, now a shade of auburn, was smartly twisted behind her head, and her shoes were the perfect accessory. Around her neck was a simple string of pearls.
Chelsea Moore was beautiful.
She always had been in my eyes.
Yet today was different. Staring back at me wasn’t my best friend, but a sad, haunting reflection. If we’d been dressed to match, I may have even entertained the idea that I wasn’t seeing her, but my own image reflecting in the large window.
However, the day wasn’t done. The sun outside was still shining and the windows weren’t dark. The room went silent as we stared at one another. In her hazel stare were too many emotions to register.
I was here, in Savannah, in Montague Manor, because of her text message. Yet in that moment my overwhelming thought was relief that I’d finally found her. I had visual confirmation that she was well. The other people in the room, Bryce and Suzanna, faded into the surrounding mist as I hurried toward Chelsea.
“Oh my God, Chelsea.” I reached for her shoulders and pulled her close.
Her head shook as she stiffly accepted my embrace.
I pushed her to arm’s length. “What the hell is going on?”
“Alex… Alexandria,” she corrected. “I’m sorry.” Never had she called me by my birth name.
Bryce stepped closer. “It’s nice of you to finally join us.”
The small hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention at his greeting. He sounded more like Alton than himself. The knots in my stomach tangled tighter. This was a fucking nightmare, one I didn’t see ending soon.
“Yes, Alexandria, welcome home.” Suzanna’s greeting returned the entire room to focus.
I moved my gaze from Chelsea to Bryce to Suzanna and finally to the room. Everything was the same as it had always been. The unchanged bookcases covered the walls while heavy draperies fell beside the windows. It was but another piece of the Montague fortune, regal and ostentatious.
To me the beauty was absent. It had never been present. In my mind, the ornate woodwork and bold regal colors were muted by shadows. Never had I held the appropriate esteem for the finery of Montague Manor. It wasn’t a mansion. It wasn’t beautiful. It was a prison and the reality was too overpowering to ignore: I was once again its prisoner.
My chest expanded, pushing my breasts toward my blouse, but I couldn’t inhale. Something had changed. As I struggled to fill my lungs, I realized it was the air. It felt different.
Is that even possible? Does air feel like anything? Can it be felt?
It wasn’t as if a breeze blew. On the contrary, the air in Alton’s office was still, heavy, and stagnant.
As I looked around the room at the occupants and the surroundings, they all moved. I once again had the sensation of being the odd person out, the only one without stage cues. This time I wanted them. I wanted a script in my hand or a teleprompter in the corner—anything for direction.
Hell, I’d take a damn compass.
My phone had a compass, but Alton still had that.
Coming to my rescue, Suzanna motioned toward the long table. “Dear, let’s all sit. Your father will be here soon.”
I shook my head. “Suzanna, what can you tell me about my mother?”
“It’s good that you’re here. She needs you.”
“What does that mean? Alton said she’s… she’s mixed up?”
Suzanna reached for my hand. “Alexandria, I
hate to be the one to tell you this, but she’s delusional. I suppose as her friend, I should have seen it. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
Without giving it too much thought, I pulled back the heavy chair—my assigned seat—and sat. “For how long?”
Suzanna’s lips came together and her eyes dimmed. “That’s the thing, we aren’t sure. Now we’re questioning everything. Has she said anything to you that seemed out of the ordinary?”
As I contemplated our last few conversations, Bryce sat at the far end of the table and Chelsea sat a few chairs down from me. As Suzanna hovered near my mother’s seat—the place a Montague had always sat—the arrangement felt wrong.
“Can you think of anything that she may have said that seemed odd?” Bryce asked, rephrasing his mother’s question.
My head moved from side to side as I stared at him. “Why are you here? And you?” I asked Chelsea. “I mean, fine, Suzanna, you’re Momma’s best friend, but I don’t—”
“Family, dear,” Suzanna said, lowering herself to my mother’s seat. “We’re all fam—”
“That’s my mother’s—”
“And we were asked to be here,” Bryce added before I could make my protest known.
“Told to be,” Chelsea muttered under her breath.
By the way Bryce turned toward her and his expression flashed, he’d also heard her.
“Wait,” I said. “I want answers.” No longer content to stay seated, I pushed my chair backward and stood. “This isn’t from my mother, but from… Facebook… news articles… what the hell is the deal with the two of you?”
Chelsea’s chest rose as her chin fell. The stagnant silence resumed until Bryce met my gaze.
“We’re glad you’re home. I love you.”
I placed my hands on the table. Wrinkling my nose, I narrowed my eyes and stared his direction, as if by squinting I could understand his words. “Obviously,” I mocked.
“No, Alexandria, I do. I always have.” He looked at Chelsea. “She knows. I never lied to her. But you wouldn’t talk to me. You wouldn’t respond to me. Over the last four years I traveled many times to California to see you.”
He what?
“During those trips, Chelsea met with me. She would tell me that you didn’t want to see me, explaining how busy you were.”
He laid his arm on the table toward Chelsea. Though her gaze hadn’t looked up from the table, she lifted her hand and placed it in the palm of his. As their fingers intertwined, he continued, “We grew close. It’s been going on for a few years. We never intended for it to go this far, but well, I had to explain to the courts that I couldn’t possibly be the person responsible for Melissa’s disappearance. I was in California with Chelsea.”
“What?”
He lifted her hand and brought her knuckles to his lips. The action revived the knots in my stomach, tightening and re-forming in gaggles of tangles.
“Didn’t Melissa go missing around the same time that Chelsea was hurt? Do you know who hurt her?” I asked.
Still, my best friend’s gaze stayed fixed upon the table.
“I know that I was glad I was there for her,” Bryce said. “I only wish I wouldn’t have left her alone that night.”
“B-but you called me from Atlanta the next day. I remember your saying that. I was in the airport on the way to see her. You couldn’t have been in California.”
“I was. I lied. We still didn’t want you to know.”
My knees gave out as I slid back to the chair. “Chels? Tell me. You’ve never lied to me. Bryce has. I want to hear it from you.”
A tear fell from her hazel eyes as she finally met my gaze. “I’m sorry. I have lied to you.”
A weight landed on my chest, its heaviness crushing me as I scrabbled for breath.
“Do you two…? Do you love each other?”
“I told you,” Bryce said. “I love you. I always will.”
“What the fuck? You’re a pig. You’re holding her hand and professing your love for me? That doesn’t make any sense. And you’re some sick fuck if you think it does.”
“Alexandria! Language,” Suzanna reprimanded.
I momentarily turned toward my mother’s friend. After only a second, I shook my head dismissively and turned back to Chelsea.
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true,” Chelsea confirmed.
I tried to recall, but the pieces weren’t fitting together. “But in your hospital room, you said he was there and that you didn’t recognize—”
“I knew you’d run into him in the lobby. I wanted to throw you off.”
“No, no… this isn’t right. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Why?” Bryce asked defensively. “You can be screwing someone on the side, but I can’t?”
“Are you kidding me? Lennox isn’t on the side.” My volume rose with each phrase. “And besides, you’ve been screwing people on the side since we were in high school. I recently heard about your behavior at the academy. Chelsea, Millie, how many of my friends? Does it turn you on to know you’re fucking my friends?”
“I don’t know; does it turn you on to know you’re with a criminal?”
“Children!”
Suzanna’s reprimand went unnoticed as I countered, “He’s not a…”
My words faded away as we all turned toward the opening of the office door. The air that was just heated plummeted to an uncomfortable chill at Alton’s icy stare.
“Alexandria,” he said, calling me out over Bryce, “that’ll be enough! It’s time you start behaving like the Montague you are and not some spoiled brat or brokenhearted schoolgirl. You have a position to maintain, which doesn’t include tirades.” He took a step into the room and shut the door behind him. “The staff can hear you all the way to the foyer and beyond. Your mother would be disappointed at again another example of your poor behavior.” He placed his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t make me correct you again in front of family and friends.”
Daggers flew from my eyes as my skin was repulsed by his touch. It took me a minute to realize that Alton had the same effect on Suzanna and Chelsea that he had on me. Both of them were perched on the edge of their seat, waiting for the king’s next decree.
Slowly he walked to the highboy and lifted a crystal decanter. Pouring the amber liquid into a tumbler, he sighed. Silence prevailed as he lifted the glass to his lips. His eyes closed and Adam’s apple bobbed as he drank, never pausing until the contents were gone. Again he poured, but this time he turned back toward the table. With his tumbler over half full, he carried it to the head of the table and moved his gaze from Suzanna to Bryce to Chelsea and finally to me.
I wanted him to say something to Suzanna about where she was seated, but he didn’t. Instead he took a deep breath and sat.
“This is better. I expect continued silence as I explain.”
ALTON’S VOICE RESONATED through the office. “What I’m about to say may come as a shock. It may seem archaic, but I guarantee it’s true and legal. Ralph Porter volunteered to be here to show you the documentation, but I told him it wouldn’t be necessary. No one in this room would refute my claim.”
It was a dare, one I wasn’t stupid enough to accept. I had no idea what Alton was about to say, but whatever it was, when I could, I would most certainly be requiring documentation.
“This all began after Russell Collins died,” Alton went on, speaking to me. “Your grandfather was concerned about the future of Montague—everything Montague. You can understand how anxious he was about leaving it in Adelaide’s hands. He wanted to know, needed to know, that a capable man was in control. He chose me.”
“He chose you?” The words slipped out before I could censor them.
Alton’s gray eyes captured mine. “Do not interrupt. Do you remember your two questions?”
Do I want to see my mother? And do I want her to get better?
“Yes,” I said, raising my chin.
“Unless your answer to either of those
is no, do not speak until I’m done. Is that clear, Alexandria?”
How the hell do I answer that?
I nodded.
“Very well. As I said, your grandfather chose me. I’ve always had Montague’s best interests at heart. As CEO and the majority shareholder in Montague Corporation, I’ve spent the last twenty years seeing to its success.”
I wanted to point out that his shares were really my mother’s and mine, but now didn’t seem like a good time.
“Charles was a smart man. He didn’t believe in leaving anything to chance, not Adelaide’s choice in a husband, nor the next generation.”
The casual jumper I’d worn to class this morning had a long-sleeved top and on my legs were gray tights. The outfit was perfect for the cooler New York weather. In the SUV waiting for Deloris outside Magnolia Woods, it had been too warm. Now, in the depths of Montague Manor, I was once again chilled. As his statement settled over me, goose bumps materialized under the long sleeves and knit tights. “W-what does that mean?”
I jumped as Alton’s palm slapped the shiny surface of the large table, the reverberations echoing as a reminder of my required silence. I pressed my lips together and focused on him. No longer did I care that Suzanna, Bryce, and Chelsea were present. In the depths of my bones I understood that whatever Alton was about to say would have life-changing repercussions.
“As I was saying…” He took another drink of his whiskey. “…even the next generation. As was the case with Charles and Olivia, Adelaide and I won’t live forever. Montague is a family-owned corporation. It always has been. It remains so. The majority of stock must be held by Montagues. Charles’s last will and testament provided that in the case of only female heirs, their husbands would have the voting power over their stock. I’ve had the proxy for your shares, Alexandria; however, that will end when you turn 25. Prior to that time, it’s essential that you marry so that your husband can be proxy of your shares.”
Marry? What the hell?
My mind immediately went to Nox. We weren’t ready for that step. Besides, I doubted that was Alton’s plan. As his decree sank deeper into my soul, I understood that this whole thing was archaic and felt confident that my grandfather couldn’t dictate my future from his grave. No one had that right or privilege. This had to be illegal.