Chapter one
Daphne
“Oh,Daph!Youhave got to try this one on.”
I smiled at my sister-in-law, her enthusiasm almost enough to break through my cloud of self-imposed melancholy. Plastering what I hoped was an enthusiastic grin on my face, I turned and tried to fawn appropriately over the dress she was holding up. The blue number with its criss-crossing straps and delicate ruffles did nothing to relieve the low throb of my ever-present heartache, but I didn’t tell her that.
“It is really pretty, Penelope,” I replied delicately, not wanting to hurt her feelings. My phone pinged in my hand, announcing a text from my mother. I ignored it. “But I really don’t need a new dress for this thing. I didn’t even want the party in the first place.”
The fact that my mother was forcing me to participate in this ridiculous event was ludicrous, but not at all surprising. She never cared about what I felt or thought, just what all her friends felt or thought about me. I was so tired of the act; other people’s perception was the currency of my mother’s life, and she was cashing in on me big time. The only time I felt like I had been myself—the truest version of myself—was in Nevada. Those months I spent going to school there was the first time I could remember living free, without the cutting looks or judgmental comments from everyone in my mother’s circle.
Penelope gave me a sympathetic look and placed the dress back on the rack. Moving across the store towards me, she linked her arm through mine and proceeded to drag me down the next aisle, on the hunt for the next potential winner.
“No, you don’t need a new dress,” Penelope said, her smile indulgent. “But should you happen to see something that catches your eye, you can totally scoop it up. Plus, I really want to shop vicariously through you today. Lord knows none of my clothes are fitting right these days.”
She said it like it was a complaint, but Penelope smiled as she rubbed her hand over her slightly rounded belly. When she surprised me with the news that she and Stone were expecting, I was completely over the moon for them. I couldn’t wait to see Stone holding a baby; he’d probably be terrified the first time Penelope placed an adorable squirmy infant in his hands. I hoped she’d get it on video.
But at the same time, I was saddened that I wasn’t living in Nevada anymore. I was going to miss all the special moments with my little niece or nephew when they arrived.
But Las Vegas wasn’t for me anymore. It couldn’t be.
“I don’t know why my mother is insisting I have a graduation party,” I went on, trailing my fingers over the racks of dresses and gowns as I wandered the store, not really seeing any of them. My phone continued to ping with notification after notification. “I’m already older than all the other graduates because of my gap years. And it’s not like she cares about my degree.” The truth of that statement hurt more than it should after all these years. My interior design degree was a sore spot for my mother; she very loudly professed the Pennington women hired decorators; we didn’t become them. Of course, when it came to her daughters, my mother had always focused herself on our marriage prospects, not our job prospects. As far as she was concerned, college for me was only necessary until I landed myself a rich husband. Then I could settle in as the dull and simpering trophy wife she always aspired for me to be. The fact that I actually wanted to get an education was completely beyond her comprehension.
That was probably why she always got along with my older sister Constance better. Those two were like two peas in a designer labeled pod.
At least they had been.
Not anymore, if the state of my incoming texts was any indication.
“I bet she’s really proud of you,” Penelope said, attempting to ease the sting of my mother’s indifference.
I snorted. “Yeah, being someone’s second choice really feels like an accomplishment.”
“I’m sure you’re not her second choice, Daphne. But since all that stuff happened with your sister and her husband, your mom probably just wants to shift focus for a while.”
“You’re sweet, Pen, but if I could, I would turn back the clock and get Toddrick’s father out of jail. It would save me the hassle of dealing with my mother and her society page cronies.”
“I think you mean phonies,” Penelope laughed lightly, and I smiled.
“Yeah, same thing.”
Now that my sister was the absolute disgrace of New York society, or so my mother feared, that meant I was her new pet project. When Constance’s husband Toddrick had gotten himself fired from my father’s company—well, I guessed it was my brother’s company now—Constance had become persona non grata in my mother’s eyes, shaming the family with her dreadful scandal.
Pennington Hotels was a very successful company, and my father was only too pleased to pass the reins to my older half-brother, Stone, about two years ago.
This, of course, was unacceptable to Constance, who thought that everything in the world belonged to her, no questions asked.
Toddrick being fired would have been bad enough for Constance’s image, but when his own father, a prominent stockbroker, was arrested for embezzlement and securities fraud at his investment firm, well, my mother felt that distance from Constance was what was best for the family right now. Distance meaning Constance was living in shame in an apartment in Tribeca, of course.
For me, it meant a never-ending string of text messages and appointments and parties, all to make sure to expose me to the very best potential husbands that New York had to offer. If my mother could no longer hold Constance up as her prized possession, she was going to polish me up and do her damnedest to make me into a little Constance clone. Take me out of storage and dust me off, the daughter without a scandal.
“I still can’t believe Mr. Grover was running a Ponzi scheme,” Penelope mused, holding up another beautiful gown, this time in green. “Didn’t those go out of style in, like, 2009?”
“Right? Like, live in the now.” Shaking my head, I huffed out a sigh. “Still, I do feel a little bit bad for Constance. She thought she was set for life with the Grover fortune coming their way. Now, she’ll have to come crawling back to daddy. Either that, or find herself a new rich husband. And, as my mother keeps telling her, no one wants a thirty-five-year-old divorcee.”
“Sheesh,” Penelope groaned, linking our arms again. “Your mom pulls no punches, does she?”
“Well, she speaks from experience. After all, when my dad divorced her, she was a thirty-five-year-old divorcee.”
If only my mother were aware of how horrible Constance really was, and what she had put Penelope and Stone through back in Las Vegas. In all honesty, it was a wonder Stone even let her stay out of prison, but I think that had more to do with my dad than anything else. I knew Stone would do anything necessary to protect his wife.
Glancing at the adorable blonde holding my arm, I resolved to put all my family drama aside for today and just enjoy my time with Penelope. I was so glad she was here right now; between finishing my last year of school and all that she had going on in Nevada, I hadn’t seen her as much as I’d wanted to, not since her wedding.
My heart stuttered a beat or two when I thought about that night, the beautiful ceremony and reception at The Alamo, how happy my brother looked, his smile so bright as he stared at his bride. But what stuck out the most was how incredible the man beside him had looked, standing firm and loyal at my brother’s side but staring at me with fire in his eyes as I walked down the aisle.
I nodded my head at Penelope, only half listening as she tried to pull me out of my funk by telling me all about her flight from Las Vegas, how hard she was working to convince her mother to move to Nevada, and all the antics of my grouchy brother, but all the while, my mind was still in the past.
The night of the wedding.
The night he broke my heart.
Again.