Page 59 of Knocked Up by My Fake Fiancé
"I'm not doing that," I say automatically. "I don't have the time."
She shrugs. "Well, there you go."
"She's really that hard to please?"
Steph sighs. "Look," she says, waving her fork at me as she speaks. "It's not aboutyou, I want you to understand that. It's about what yourepresent."
"And what's that?"
"A mistake. Though my brother'll deny it, you look and act a lot like Marina."
"His ex."
"Yes. She was also beautiful, smart, and ambitious. She graduated from Harvard with a first in law, became a junior partner in a prestigious New York law firm, and after a couple of years of experience and networking, started out on her own. That was when Grayson met her. She was working for our holding company at the time. Something to do with branding and copyright, I think. Grayson fell madly in love with her, and eventually she moved in with him. They'd been together for a few years by that point, and I think she wanted to get married sooner, but he'd been kicking his heels, taking his time. If you know my brother, you know he always takes his time with things like that.
"Anyway, she was very similar to you… a working-class background and a can-do attitude. Totally self-made. Grayson introduced her to the family, and my mother instantly said, ‘No way.' She instantly disapproved of her, and put her foot down, but Grayson was stubborn and wouldn't let her go. In the end, they were forced to reluctantly accept her into the fold. He didn't give them a choice in the matter."
"And then what happened?'
She finishes her champagne and waves it vaguely at the server, who nods and brings her another. She takes a sip before she continues.
"Well, I have another brother. George. He's an idiot." She gestures with her glass. "He's typically in London, overseeing theEuropean branch of my dad's company, but he came back to the country during the time of their engagement."
"Wait a minute… Grayson's brother's name is George?"
"Yes, what's wrong with that?"
"Well… George and Grayson. Weird choice of names, that's all I'm saying."
She sighs. "It's like this," she says. Daddy's last name is really O'Reilly. Michael O'Reilly. He's from a long established Irish family, who came across the Atlantic in the seventies and built hos own empire from literally nothing but the few copper coins he had in his pocket. Get him on that topic and I swear you'll be there all night." She pauses a moment to take another sip of champagne, before continuing.
"When he met Mommy, they fell in love, but she's a Wolfe from a very ancient and high-class line of stewards to the royal family in England, and she refused to marry him unless he adopted her name, instead of the usual way around. Well, he loved her enough to say yes, and anyway, by then he'd kinda caught the Wolfe disease — thinking we're better than everyone else, I mean. I was named after Princess Stéphanie of Monaco because she's actually one of my godmothers. George was named after the famous line of kings that our family had served back in the day, and being the eldest son, Grayson inherited the family name. It's a medieval term meaning ‘steward of the estate' that was conferred on our family by our royal patrons in the Middle Ages."
She drains her glass and flashes our server a meaningful look. "So, now you know," she says, smiling brightly. "You can't go far in my family without tripping up on some dull historical nonsense that Mommy thinks is important.
"Anyway, back to the story. Grayson and Marina were going through a difficult patch at that point. You know, the sort of thing… they both had their work stressors, and they would bringit home and fight about it. Then they'd not speak to each other for the next day or so, and they basically did all that petty stuff couples do when it's not going so well. At the same time, Marina and George were working together on a merger, and they were getting closer and closer."
Oh God. A pit starts to form in my stomach, and I have a bad feeling that I know where this story's going.
"One thing led to another, and Marina and George started sleeping together behind Grayson's back," she says.
"Bitch." The word tears out of my chest with enough heat that it makes Stephanie smile.
I try to restrain my reaction. I mean, I probably have no right to judge her. I wasn't in a relationship with them, and I'm only hearing one side of the story.
But I always have a visceral reaction to cheaters. For me, it's one of the most cowardly acts (outside of abuse) you can commit in a relationship.
"Yeah, not good," Steph nods in agreement with my outrage. "I was the one who caught them, actually. They were fucking in his office. Right there, across his desk. Tacky as hell. George tried to convince me to keep it a secret, but I wasn't about to do that. I went straight to Grayson. He didn't believe me at first. He thought Mom had put me up to it, or that I was just messing around. It wasn't until I showed him the video I had taken of them that he believed me. I was videoing at the time. I'd bought him a gift and I burst into his office to surprise him. I wanted to capture the look on his face when he saw my gift. Well, I certainly captured the surprise on his face." She says it flippantly, but her smile looks forced, like it's a painful memory for her to recall.
She puts her glass down, her finger tracing the stem thoughtfully. "I'll never forget the look on Grayson's face when I showed him it. His face just drained of all color. His wholeexpression shut down. It was like someone stabbed him in the heart, and since that moment, I don't think he's ever truly recovered from it." She sighs. "You didn't know Grayson how he used to be, but he wasn't like he is now. Yeah, he was still annoying and a workaholic, just like he is today. But he was a lot more playful, too. He had a wicked sense of humor and would pull almost as many pranks on me as I did on him, except he would more often get away with it because he's a whole load smarter than me."
I try to imagine a playful Grayson but fail utterly. Boy, he must have really changed.
"After Marina's betrayal, all that playfulness went away. She killed a part of him that day, and I almost wish I'd kept the whole affair a secret. Sometimes I wonder if he and Marina would have worked out their differences if I'd never intervened."
"No," I say instantly. "You can't think like that. It wasn't your fault, and it wouldn't have been better to keep him in the dark. You did the right thing."
"Maybe." She shoots me a bitter smile. "It's just hard, you know… seeing him like that and knowing I contributed to it."
