“You are so smart, Caleb. You have thought of everything.” I sat down on the bed and pulled him down to sit beside me. We scrolled through the many photos Nan had taken, until we decided on the one we wanted to share. Caleb sent it off to Victoria with instructions to forward it to the head of PR at Blackstone Global for release to the press with the simple message:
Caleb Blackstone and Brooke Casterley were married this evening in a private ceremony at Stone Church chapel on south Blackstone Island.
The picture was of us in the doorway of the church, the interior backlit with the candle glow, and the scattered rose petals clearly visible upon the floor. Caleb’s lips were pressed to the back of my hand as I smiled up at him with love.
To our close friends and family, we sent a different message:
We took the advice of a very wise man, and decided to hold on to our happiness, and each other, starting tonight. With much love, Caleb & Brooke Blackstone xoxo
After the second text was sent, Caleb powered off his phone and pulled me into his arms.
He showed me how much he loved me, as he had done from the very beginning when we’d first met.
My gentleman lover with the dirty mouth and the romantic sensibilities, who couldn’t remember what a meatball was called, and who knew nothing about shopping at Target before he met me.
My filthy rich billionaire, who concerned himself with villages in Africa in need of fresh well water more than how to make the next dollar.
My husband who loved me and who would be the father our future children adored and respected.
My wonderful, amazing, perfect man.
EPILOGUE
Caleb
February
You have always been just like your father. I never understood his fascination with the help.” My mother waved her hand in a graceful circle toward Brooke and Ellen. “JW’s philanthropic notions with his charities and good works to help those less fortunate were deeply in him. You’ve followed right in his footsteps, Caleb.” I knew what she was doing. Her skills at delivering an insult while making it appear as if she was simply being charming were almost legendary. I decided to call her out on it.
“Okay, since I am just like my father, is that why you sold off his treasured Blackwater without ever mentioning to me you were selling, because you knew I would object?”
“No, Caleb. I sold Blackwater for the reason that it was mine to sell. Your father gave it to me to do whatever I saw fit.” I could hardly believe it, but I’d seen the documents to prove that she was, indeed, telling the truth. Why would Dad give her Blackwater in the first place, though?
“Why keep the news of selling from me?”
“I didn’t really. I just put it up for sale and didn’t discuss it with you. It’s not like you showed much of an interest, Caleb. It’d been years since you even went there, until you met Brooke that is.”
She waved her hand in our direction again, as if she were bestowing her grace upon poor peasants begging for a favor. It annoyed me greatly. “Do not go there with Brooke.” I was barely able to keep a lid on my temper. You would think with how incredibly, seriously wrong my mother had been about Janice that she wouldn’t even consider showing anything but kindness toward my beautiful girl. But that would mean conceding, and in her twisted view, it put her on the losing side. Very fucked-up ideology to liken us to combatants in a battle, but sadly those were the rules she played by—and they were ironclad. Losers were given no quarter and even less sympathy. No second chances.
Janice, for instance, had been shunned by the tribe and would never be welcomed into Boston’s inner circle of society again. Despite the actual fucking restraining order preventing her from coming within two hundred feet of us, I’d made sure her wings were clipped. It was either agree to leave the country or face a messy trial inside a Boston courtroom. A courtroom with plenty of drooling media hacks lying in wait to deliver the most unflattering picture of the day to the eager public, whose sole entertainment was watching celebrities go off the rails—she figured her psycho shit out real quick. Janice might be crazy, but she wasn’t stupid. She chose Hong Kong.
My mother did not heed my warning tone and turned away to take a sip from her wineglass. “I don’t understand what the fuss is with selling Blackwater. The old place brought in a fortune. All’s well that ends well.”
“What the fuck, Mom?” I exploded. “I want an explanation, and I want it now.” I stabbed my finger down on the table. “Why did Dad ever give Blackwater to you in the first place?”
She scowled at my f-bomb. “Language, Caleb, remember how you were brought up, please.”
“How I was brought up . . . hmm . . . that’s interesting, my dear mother, because I don’t really remember you being very involved with me. Dad was, of course, but I only remember nannies and babysitters reading to me, or giving me baths, or any of the normal things mothers do for their children.” I wished I didn’t have to ask her the rest, but I needed to know. “Why have I felt, for my whole goddamn life, that you resented me—that you could barely tolerate being around your own son?”
“Caleb, this is not the time, nor is it the place, for this discussion.” She looked around the room at all the faces. My brothers, my sisters, Herman and Ellen, Brooke, James, my cousins—all of them waiting to hear from her. Everyone was uncomfortable and yet frozen in place. I felt the same. All of the ugly was about to come spewing out in front of everyone, and I did not care.
The fuckin’ bell had been rung. Fuckin’ loudly, too. There was no unringing it.
“Madelaine, you need to tell him the truth,” Herman said. “JW is gone, and the boy deserves to know.”
Every eye in the room turned toward my uncle, including both of mine, as all of the hairs on the back of my neck tilted straight up.
Along with the axis of the earth.