Page 32 of The Bourbon Bargain

“You want to give them a distraction by hosting a wedding?” Hayes asks slowly.

“I want to throw the wedding of the century, you deceitful man. They won’t be able to contain themselves.” Mama actually smiles like she relishes the idea. “And we need to do it next weekend. A New Year’s Eve wedding.”

“Mama, I say this with respect, but have you lost your mind? There is no way to plan the kind of event you are talking about in a week. It’s impossible.”

“When money is no object, anything is possible, and we have more money than we know what to do with,” she replies, and I gape at her unlikely disregard for what would otherwise be a taboo subject. Fairchilds do not discuss money, no matter how much we have.

“The Mansion is still ours through the end of the year. We can make it happen. We will call in whatever backup we need, we have the staff, and I have a planner already on retainer. This will happen, and it will be next weekend.” Her voice is firm. There is simply no arguing with this hurricane of event planning schemes.

“Daddy, please tell me we aren’t doing this.” I look to my normal ally against Mama’s most absurd machinations, but he just shrugs a shoulder at me and looks defeated. Daddy is simply no match for Caroline Thackery Fairchild when her heart is set, and her plans laid.

“Your mother is insistent, sweet pea. There is no stopping her, unfortunately. I tried. Now we just hold on for the inevitable storm to roll through.”

“Hayes, please tell her this isn’t necessary and will just put us in the spotlight even more,” I say appealing to his natural inclination to keep a low profile in a last-ditch effort to stop the situation from completely getting away from me.

“I wish I could say she’s wrong on this, but she has a point.” Even he has turned on me. “We can have a wedding to make your mama happy and to draw some more positive attention toward Olympus. What do you say, angel, would you marry me all over again, even if it’s in front of all and sundry?”

The fight goes out of me when I see the unsure look on his face. Here he is, doubting my feelings for him and maybe even wondering if we can survive everything that has been thrown our way in the short time we’ve been together. He’s probably thinking a big wedding could be the bandage our relationship, and his business needs.

Mama’s voice draws my attention away from Hayes. “I’m willing to strike a bargain with you. Be a willing participant in this wedding—the way I want—and I will relinquish control of the trust. It’ll be yours to do with as you wish, as will your inheritance,withoutmy interference.”

Shock of a different variety settles over me, and I feel my mouth gaping. Mama wouldneverwillingly relinquish control over the tightly held Thackery trust that she has wielded like a weapon against me on so many occasions to get me to fall in line. For her to tell me my participation would grant me access to the inheritance that has always been held over my head to make me behave, is a shot at freedom I never expected. It’s not even about the money—marrying Hayes made me a billionaire in my own right—it’s about the chance to remove one last shackle that would effectively sever the control Mama has always held over me, forcing me to be compliant and codependent. She knows the exact way to get me to concede, once again. The gleam in her eye shows me she knows she’s won before I can even respond.

“Fine,” I sigh in defeat. “But I’m picking my own dress and Alex will be my man of honor without any additional bridesmaids.”

Mama claps her hands. “Good. I’m glad you could see things my way. We have a tasting appointment with the caterer and baker tomorrow at noon, followed by an appointment with the florist at three. We can squeeze in a dress appointment before the tasting or after the florist, but you’ll have to hold back at the tasting so you’re not bloated if you choose that option.”

Mama quickly appraises my oversized green Christmas sweater as if looking for my current shape and being dissatisfied at not being able to tell if I have gained any more weight since my debutante ball.

“I’ve already had Cecile at the bridal shop pull every dress on the rack in your size, but it may still be slim pickings.”

I bring my hands to my forehead, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes as my head spins. Good lord, Mama had the audacity to set events in motion before she even approached me about the subject. Her confidence in her ability to wear me down and get me to capitulate to her demands is a disturbing insight into our dysfunctional relationship. I’m about to recant my acquiescence just by sheer overwhelm alone, the trust be damned. And I haven’t begun to imagine all of the possible ways Mama will be leading the charge this week. This is a mistake, and it will be awful.

“Mama, I—“ I start, but she cuts me off.

“I have a photographer from New York booked already. She has an impressive portfolio and a great eye. She will shoot your bridals two days before the wedding, so I booked a hair and makeup artist for both days, also.”

I drop my hands to the table and push my chair out with a scrape, earning me a squawking protest from Mama. I turn and run out of the dining room and up the stairs as she calls after me. I’m fleeing my mother, who has overstepped once again, but it’s not a new response from me. I have a bad habit of running from my problems, but right now, it feels like the only option when the alternative is to sit at the table and have her grind my independence into dust under her Jimmy Choo heel.

I feel the hot tears of frustration gathering and I am about to lose it. I would have said a few unkind things to her had I stayed at that table and continued to listen to everything she has planned for me. I fling myself onto the giant four-poster bed in the bedroom as the first fat tears leak out of my eyes. They slide in hot tracks down my face and into my hair while I stare at the ceiling, decorated in plaster trim work above me. The bed dips as Cerberus hops up, slowly making his way over to me and dropping his massive head across my middle with a sigh.

“I can’t take it, big guy. Mama has no boundaries at all.” I run my hand along his silky head and pet his stubby ears as the tears subside. He chuffs in response and nuzzles my ribs.

I don’t know how to separate the entwined relationship my mother and I have into a semblance of something healthy. She is a thorny vine wrapping around my trunk and choking out the life from any budding flowers of independence that may have bloomed if given half a chance. Instead, I’m a stunted version of myself, unable to make even the smallest decisions without being told I’ve done it wrong and she will save me by making me do it over until she approves.

If I could have planned my ideal wedding it would have been very close to the elopement Hayes and I had in Las Vegas. Just us and Cerberus, somewhere beautiful, like the Elysium Garden on the rooftop of The Abyss. I would wear a dress of floral lace taken from Nanny Fairchild’s own wedding gown, put flowers in my hair, and walk through the greenery of the garden to Hayes, waiting at the waterfall in front of the Titan Arum, to a string quartet playing Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dreams. Hayes would wear a classic black-on-black tux and would look incredible with his eyes matching the verdant greenery around us.

So, I may have thought this out a little, even if I told Mama I was happy we eloped. I’ve found myself daydreaming about this very thing a few times over the last few weeks, and there may have been a brief moment in time—like within the firing of a synapse in my brain brief—where I thought I could have this very dream when faced with the possibility, now, of having a big wedding. It was quickly snuffed out by Mama’s manipulations.

I know for a fact that the wedding I dream about wouldn’t be anything close to the monstrosity Mama is conspiring to throw, and it makes my heart heavy. Do I let her take over once again, giving up the hard-won independence and distance I’ve put into our relationship so recently so she can have the event of the century, as she called it? Is unfettered access to my trust worth it?

There is so much I could do with that trust. It is exactly what I could use to ensure the Elysium Garden Project takes off and becomes the philanthropic delight it should be. I could use it to pay for the salaries of permanent gardeners and staff, ensure we could provide a living wage to those in the community who would work the produce stands and need the urban oases the most, and feed the neighborhoods they serve without worrying about where the money to do so would come from. I may not need the trust myself, but others sure do, and there’s no reason only Hayes’s money should be going into a foundation we are creating together. I need to secure that trust so I can make bigger things happen with this new dream of mine. And that means I have to bend to Mama’s will once again. My heart sinks with this realization just as quickly as it rose at the prospect of all the good it could do to have access to the trust.

“Glad to see Cerberus is being of assistance,” Hayes says, sitting on the edge of the bed and ending my loop of questions. “I can send him down to the dining room to remove the unwanted interlopers if you want.”

I smile, though it still feels sad. “I’d like to see Cerberus try to defeat Mama. He may have met his match in her.”

“That’s actually a good point.”

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