Page 89 of Always Us

“What do you mean?” He turns the shower on for me.

“You gave her a look and she just backed down.”

He smiles as he goes back to the sink. “Yeah, we kind of have an agreement when it comes to Lilly.”

“What’s the agreement?” I strip my clothes off and grab a towel.

“A few years ago I made some videos of Katherine, and just recently I told her about them and threatened to release them to the media.”

“Videos of what?”

“Her gossiping on the phone about her rich friends. Saying all this bad shit about them.” He rinses his razor in the sink.

“Why would the media care about that?”

“The gossip pages would care. Society pages. Whatever they call it. They’d eat that shit up. And Katherine’s reputation would be destroyed.”

I step in the shower. “So you’re blackmailing her?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I need to anymore. The organization will make sure she never attends another charity ball or any other high society gathering. And once my dad divorces her, she won’t be able to keep me away from Lilly.”

“You think they’ll still be allowed to get divorced?”

“I don’t know why they wouldn’t. My grandfather was the only one who forbid it and he’s gone now.”

“That’d be great for your dad if he could finally get rid of her.”

“It’d be great for all of us.”

We finish getting ready. Garret puts on a black suit and I wear a black dress. We walk down the hallway and I look over the banister and see at least 30 people downstairs. Everyone is wearing black. It’s so somber and depressing.

As we go down the staircase, I spot Victoria. She’s looking right at me and she’s not smiling. In fact she looks angry.

I can’t wait for this night to be over.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

21

GARRET

Jade and I come down the stairs and the first person to greet us is Victoria. I can’t stand the woman. She’s almost as bad as Katherine.

“Garret.” She puts her long skinny fingers on my shoulders and leans in to hug me. Not a real hug, thank God, but a distant hug, which I expect to get a lot of tonight. “My deepest sympathies to you and your family.”

“Thank you, Victoria.” Her perfume is filling the air around me and making me feel like I have to cough. I step back.

She smooths the side of her hair which is pulled back into some type of twisted knot. She probably paid someone hundreds of dollars to style it that way. When I was dating Sadie, she’d pay $200 to $300 to have her hair styled for the ritzy parties she made me go to in DC.

“It’s such a tragedy when death is sudden like that,” Victoria says, referring to my grandfather but also probably to her husband.

“Yes. It is.” It’s eerie that Royce was killed by my father just steps away from where we’re standing and yet Victoria has no idea.

“It’s a shame you couldn’t attend the funeral.” She makes sure to only look at me, like Jade doesn’t exist.

“The timing of it just didn’t work out.” I glance over at Jade. “I believe you’ve met Jade, my wife.”

“Yes, we’ve met.” Her eyes do a quick scan of Jade, then dart back to me.

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