Just a Little Jilted & Their Temporary Arrangement
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Joss Wood
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11
One
It is summer and I, Avangeline, am eighty-two years old. I am standing in God’s waiting room. I know and accept this... There are only two certainties in life, some wit opined, and that’s death and taxes. Death will come sooner than I like and, dear God, I’ve paid a lot of taxes.
Then again, I’ve made a lot of money. Billions...
But how much, I keep wondering, is a secret worth? Do I get a discount if I have two?
“World’s smallest pair of handcuffs, honey.”
Eliot Stone, her face covered by her veil, looked through the six-inch strip of the car’s open window into the tanned face of a bicycle courier, gray hair peeking out from under her bicycle helmet.
She frowned, unsure whether the courier was talking to her or not. But when the biker placed her fingers on the edge of the limousine’s window for balance and looked straight into her eyes, Eliot had no doubt she was the focus of her attention.
“Are you talking about marriage?” Eliot asked her, fascinated by the wisdom she saw in those deep brown eyes. The woman had clearly seen a lot of life, and not all of it had been good.
“Fancy day, fancy dress, fancy shoes, I bet. But it doesn’t mean nothin’ when you look so unhappy, girl.”
“That’s more than enough,” Ursula Stone muttered, leaning across Eliot to jab a scarlet nail on the button to raise the window. She scowled at Eliot. “I told you not to open the window, Eliot!”
“I just wanted some fresh air,” Eliot replied, watching as the cyclist ducked in and out of traffic, her slight figure bobbing and weaving. The older woman lifted her middle finger when a truck nearly cut her off, and Eliot managed a small smile, enjoying her in-your-face confidence.
Where else but in New York would someone presume to tell a bride on her wedding day that she looked unhappy?
Ursula—Eliot hadn’t called the woman “Mom” since her early teens—turned to the videographer and photographer who sat on the bench seat at right angles to them. “Mark that exchange to be deleted,” she barked.
They nodded, knowing Ursula was very much in charge of this production. She and DeShawn’s manager had negotiated a deal to sell their wedding photographs to a popular fashion magazine and the video—from the rehearsal dinner to them arriving at their honeymoon destination—to a popular entertainment network. Their exchanged vows would be seen by millions of people around the world.
All Eliot had wanted was a small wedding, with a handful of close friends. On a private beach somewhere, far from the intrusive lenses of the world’s press. Her wishes had been, as they often were, ignored.
“Your dress turned out rather well,” Ursula stated, pursing her thin lips. “Of course, there’s nothing we can do about the fact that you are so overweight, but we can photoshop the images to make you look normal.”
This was her normal weight, Eliot wanted to shout. This was a good weight, a healthy weight—but she knew that nothing she said would change Ursula’s mind. She was, in Ursula’s view, fat.
And, unfortunately, the fashion world she’d been a part of for so much of her life—and the casting agents and creative directors, the designers—agreed. While the industry now occasionally featured plus-size models in their campaigns, they didn’t make allowances for once skinny models who’d picked up weight. Her face and body were her brand...
DeShawn, her long-term partner and fiancé, had liked the original version of her brand and wasn’t thrilled when her ranking as one of the world’s top supermodels plummeted.
Frozen to her seat, she stared down at her magnificent engagement ring, which she’d moved to her right hand in anticipation of receiving DeShawn’s wedding band. Her engagement ring was a flawless, princess-cut, two-million-dollar, fourteen-carat diamond ring. And she hated it. It was too cold and too ostentatious and, because she’d picked up weight since he’d bought it for her, the band cut into the flesh on her ring finger. Last night she’d had to use soap and a lot of pulling and tugging to transfer it from one hand to the other.
Eliot rested her head back against the leather headrest and wished changing ring sizes was the worst of her problems. Her modeling contracts had dried up, and her mother/manager/agent nagged her incessantly about returning her previous, waif-like weight. DeShawn emailed her diets and exercise regimes and, on his orders, his PA booked her into a “fat clinic,” another passive-aggressive way of telling her that she was no longer attractive, that her weight was an issue.
At least now there was a medical explanation. When the weight gain had started, along with the exhaustion, sore muscles and brain fog she’d experienced over the past year, Ursula had been quick to blame it on laziness and lack of discipline. It had taken an official doctor’s diagnosis to convince her that something more was going on—specifically, the lack of thyroid hormones in Eliot’s system. She now took a daily replacement hormone, was more energetic and her mind felt clearer, but she hadn’t managed to shed the excess pounds.
The truth was, she didn’t want to go back to her old size. She wasn’t a naturally skinny model and the older she got, the more she needed to play the restrict-my-calories game. Despite her diagnosis, she felt heathier than she had been since her early twenties. She felt more positive, her energy levels had increased and she and woke up feeling refreshed. Not fixating on food came with more benefits than she’d ever realized.
But, of course, there were drawbacks, too. Because her increased size was a big-freakin’-deal to her image-conscious loved ones.
They loved the supermodel look, the too-thin clotheshorse who strutted down the catwalks of Milan, London and Paris. They wanted the old Eliot—the lingerie model, the one with the sunken eyes and collarbones, the jutting hip bones and the twig-like legs. She knew she’d never again feature in an international lingerie campaign, stride down a catwalk or appear nearly nude on billboards in Times Square.
Starring in the wedding video and the ten-page spread in Vogue Magazine would, most likely, be her last big campaign...
Campaign? God, this was her wedding she was talking about.
No, it was her mother’s wedding, not hers. She pretty much hated everything about it, from the five hundred guests, to the black-and-white theme, to the choice to not actually walk up the aisle of a church. And the rotten cherry on top of the awful sundae was that they were getting married at the Forrester-Grantham Hotel, which brought back too many memories of Soren Grantham, the man with whom she’d spent three magical nights at a private villa in Villefranche-sur-Mer. Those sun-drenched days on the French Riviera were the last time she remembered being seen. And heard.
As herself, and not just as a pretty face. Soren had focused all his attention on her, had listened to her...
That mental and emotional connection, along with toe-curling, earthshaking sex, had made him ghosting her all the more baffling. Never hearing from him again hurt far more than it should’ve for what was, at its core, an ultra-brief affair.
She didn’t want to think of Soren today. Not on her wedding day.
So it really would have helped if her mother had chosen a hotel that didn’t have his name right above the door.
“How are you feeling, Eliot?” the videographer asked her.
She looked into the camera and didn’t flinch when the camera’s flash hit her eyes. She was far too professional for that.
She knew the answer he wanted... She was feeling excited, a little giddy, hopeful for this new chapter in her life. That she couldn’t wait to be DeShawn’s wife. She opened her mouth to answer him, wanting to tell him that none of this felt real, that she felt like she was shooting a commercial or starring in a short film for some luxury brand. She was desperate for someone to yell, “Cut!”
How would they react if she told them she was acting her ass off, the star of a production she felt no connection to?
The hero/bridegroom felt like a stranger, just another man who’d snagged the lead role. She hadn’t chosen the costumes; instead of the poofy, princess-style dress, she’d wanted something a little more unusual, more boho. She didn’t know three-quarters of the cast, and the guest list was populated by people who were barely more than acquaintances. She’d wanted wildflowers but got white roses. She’d just wanted Madigan as a bridesmaid, but she had five more acquaintances—dark haired models—who’d walk up the fake aisle in front of her and pose in her wedding day pictures.
She hadn’t been heard when she gave input into her own wedding day... She was never heard. No one saw past her pretty face and her 34-23-33 breasts, waist and hips. Though, these days, she was more of a size 36-26-36.
Eliot had allowed herself to be overruled, to be persuaded into what everyone else thought was best, because giving people what they wanted—her mother, the casting directors, the heads of campaigns—was her job. They asked her for a look, a walk, or a pose and she obliged.
And over the years, her need to please had spilled over into her personal life and here she was, the leading lady playing her role and feeling disconnected on what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life.
And soon she’d place her wrists in, like that bike courier had said, the world’s smallest pair of handcuffs.
The limo slowed down, and Eliot lifted her head to look out the window, realizing they’d reached the fancy portico of the Forrester-Grantham Hotel. A doorman, dressed in a top hat and tails, stepped forward to open the door to the limo.
Looking past him, Eliot caught a glimpse of a tall, broad-shouldered man walking up the steps to the lobby. His back was to her, but the shape of his head, the nut-brown hair and his swimmer’s build reminded her of Soren.
Then again, all tall, broad, dark-haired men did.
With him, so long ago, she’d felt like herself, the very best version of who she was. But then he’d left, and it felt like the person she was with him was swamped by the Eliot people needed and wanted her to be.
She’d waited a few weeks to see if he’d get in touch again, tell her that he wanted more than a fling, but when he didn’t, she’d moved on, dating extensively. Then, shortly after her twenty-fifth birthday, DeShawn swept her off her feet, and within months they were living together. Admittedly, they’d never been an emotionally intense couple, but they’d gotten along well enough...before her health issues started. Over the past year, their relationship had cracked, then fractured. Instead of talking, trying to find a solution to their ever-increasing distance, they’d slapped a Band-Aid over what was a gaping wound.
She because she was a people pleaser, he because... God, she had no idea why.
With DeShawn, she felt like another record label, another Grammy, another acquisition or status symbol. Another accessory, the star on top of his Christmas tree, or a luxurious but unneeded birthday present—not necessary but a nice addition.
Occasionally noticed, rarely admired and sometimes half-heartedly played with but not, on any level, needed. Or considered. Or valued.
Surely she was worth more?
And why was she only admitting all this to herself minutes before she was expected to say, “I do”?
As yet another stretch limousine pulled up under the impressive portico, Soren Grantham greeted the doorman and stepped into the impressive bi-level lobby. The Forrester-Grantham Hotel oozed old-world charm from the grand chandeliers to the impressive, wide staircase that dominated the lobby, reminiscent of English country houses. It was a landmark hotel on Madison Avenue, and a home away from home for European aristocracy, international politicians, celebrities and powerful captains of industry.
“Soren!”
Turning at the sound of his name, Soren greeted the head concierge with a smile. Garth was in his sixties now and he’d started as a table clearer in Avangeline’s nearly forty years ago, employed by his grandmother when he was just sixteen years old.
“You look stressed,” Garth told him, dropping the plummy accent he used with the other guests and allowing traces of his Brooklyn roots to slide into his speech.
“I’m fine, Garth,” he told him, ignoring the curious glances from many of the guests walking through the busy lobby.
“Are they here yet?” Soren asked after a few minutes of catching up.
“They are waiting for you in Avangeline’s,” Garth replied.
Soren looked right. Jack had sent him photos of the recently redecorated restaurant named after his grandmother, and he liked the light and fresh colors of cream and duck egg blue. It was the second time Avangeline’s had been renovated in ten years by Fox and Jack and he preferred this look to the gray and gold it had been before.
When their grandmother had owned it, her signature colors had been pink and green, very eighties and, in his opinion, horrible. Bad décor or not, the famous restaurant had started his grandmother’s meteoric rise to become one of the world’s top restauranteurs and hoteliers. At the height of her power, she’d owned a chain of exceptional establishments around the world. This hotel was the only one she’d kept, renting it out to a consortium to manage after she sold her empire to focus on her grandchildren following the deaths of her sons and their wives.
Hard to believe he’d lost his folks twenty-five years ago, when he was just nine.
Garth pulled him back to the present. “Shall I show you through?”
“No, don’t bother...” Soren caught the disappointment in Garth’s eyes. He wanted to show everyone in the hotel and restaurant—some of the richest and most powerful people in the country—that he, Garth Gosling, was on friendly terms with one of the most celebrated sportsmen in the world. He didn’t need to be wearing his stack of Olympic swimming medals to draw attention. He was recognized everywhere he went, especially here, on his home turf.
“Lead on,” Soren told Garth, sliding his hands into the pockets of his dark gray pants.
Garth’s chest puffed out, Soren noticed, amused, as the man led him to where Jack, Fox and Merrick sat.
Jack and Fox—and Malcolm, when he was alive—were Soren’s cousins, but having been raised by their grandmother after being orphaned young, they considered themselves brothers in every way that counted. Merrick, the son of Avangeline’s housekeeper, was another, albeit non-blood, brother.
Malcolm should be here... It was incredibly unfair that the best of them, their leader, their brightest star, had lost his life in a high-speed bike accident just short of his twenty-fifth birthday.
Soren swallowed the lump in his throat as his brothers stood up and manly hugs were exchanged, backs slapped. Soren chose to sit with his back to the room and immediately released a long sigh. Around these men he could be himself, relax, chill.
They, along with Avangeline and Jacinda, Merrick’s mom, were the only people he trusted. Ever. The only people he could love. Because love, unfortunately, was synonymous with loss. In his mind, it was always better to hold back than to run the risk of loving someone and having them leave you.
“We’ve just ordered, Soren,” Jack told him. “What would you like to eat?”
It was day one of his three-week break from training and he didn’t need as many calories as he normally did. He ordered a normal portion and three sets of eyebrows rose.
“Are you ill?” Merrick asked him.
“If I retire, I’m going to have to learn to start eating like a normal person,” he said, testing the waters. Retirement was constantly on his mind, but he hadn’t broached the idea with his family before...
“No way are you ready to retire,” Fox scoffed, sounding dismissive.
Jack shook his head. “What would you do with yourself?” he demanded. It was a fair question and Soren didn’t know the answer.
“You’ve got far too much gas in your tank to think about giving up swimming,” Merrick said, adding his two cents’ worth.
Because they didn’t think he was being serious, and he didn’t correct them, they swiftly moved on to another subject.
Soren sighed. He found expressing himself difficult so didn’t tell them that, before he renewed team and sponsorship deals, he was taking a break, to give himself time to decide whether he was going to commit to another two years of competitive swimming. Only his trainer and business manager knew he was considering walking away from his career while he was at the top of his game.
After winning just one medal in the 2012 Olympic Games—as part of a medley—he’d annihilated his competition in the 2016 Games, taking home three gold medals. After doubling his Olympic medal haul in Tokyo in 2021 and setting two new world records, he was thinking it might be time to throw in the towel. He was having to train harder and longer to maintain his form, stay fit and hit his times. His body was aging and by the time 2024 rolled around, he suspected he might struggle to stay competitive. Maybe it was time to accept that his life as a world-class swimmer was winding down...
But accepting that was tricky when he had no idea what came next, or who he’d be in his post-swimming life. Swimming was all he knew; he didn’t have much of a life—or any life—outside of the sport. When he wasn’t in the water, he was in the gym or catching up on his sleep. He had the occasional one-night stand with other athletes who treated the act as he did: it was a way to scratch an itch, an hour or two of pleasure in between training sessions.
He needed to have another plan in place before he walked away from his career—something he could throw his considerable energy into.
His brothers, if he asked them, would make a place for him in their astonishingly successful organizations. But he didn’t want a handout. Like his grandmother, he liked to see the fruits of his labor, and to stand and fall by his own efforts.
He should be able to talk to his brothers about this, but he found articulating his thoughts difficult. Soren, preferring to keep his thoughts in his head, only spoke when he felt it worth it to do so—and he especially struggled when it came to a conversation about anything deep or meaningful. Emotional intimacy was terrifying. There was a reason why he was called Ice Man by his swimming colleagues. He wasn’t the least bit warm. Or approachable.
There had only been one person, outside of his family, who’d made a crack in the sheet of ice he’d built around himself...
Jack glanced at his watch and shifted in his seat. “Got someplace you need to be?” Fox asked him.
“We have the Stone-Connell wedding starting in twenty minutes in the Cairanne Ballroom,” Jack replied. “It’s been touted as the wedding of the year, and I need to touch base with the event staff a bit later.”
The hotel was one of the city’s top wedding venues, a favorite amongst New York A-listers.
Wait, hold on, did he say Stone? Soren frowned. “Are you talking about Eliot Stone, the supermodel?”
“Yeah, that’s right. She’s marrying DeShawn Connell, the music producer, this afternoon,” Fox confirmed.
Eliot was getting married? What the hell? That was all kinds of wrong.
Soren sat back, feeling like he’d just done a ten-mile training session at speed, short of breath and chest heaving. Why was he reacting like this? He’d said goodbye to her eight years ago—after three days of sun, sea and stunning sex in the south of France—at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport and then, through sheer necessity, put her out of his mind.
He hadn’t seen or spoken to her since then and did not have the right to be upset about her marrying anyone else.
But he was, dammit. She’d been the only one outside of his family to crack his icy layer...and wasn’t that the reason he’d ghosted her? Because she was the only woman who could distract him from his training, from his goal of becoming one of the best Olympians of all time?
“Anyway, we need to talk about Avangeline,” Fox said, resting his forearms on the table. “I’m worried about her.”
It took all of Soren’s effort to turn his attention from Elliot’s imminent marriage to his octogenarian grandmother.
“We asked her lawyer to talk to her about writing her will but Avangeline refused to see him,” Jack told them, looking concerned.
Soren sighed, worried for his brothers. It had been Malcolm’s idea to reestablish the chain of restaurants Avangeline had sold off when she’d taken them in—and she’d gifted Mal, Fox and Jack with this hotel and loaned them the start-up capital to renovate and reinvent the business. She had a loan account with the company, owned shares and was a director. Avangeline had also loaned Merrick the capital to establish his wildly popular chain of food trucks serving healthy fast food across the US and Europe. Like the others, there were implications for Merrick if Avangeline died intestate. Without her leaving specific instructions, his brothers’ companies would be tied up in legal red tape for years.
“She’s dealt with lawyers all her life. She knows how important it is to cross the i’s and cross the t’s,” Jack muttered.
“That’s not all of it,” Merrick said. The apprehension in his eyes had hairs rising on the back of Soren’s neck. Somehow, he knew that whatever Merrick said next would have a huge impact on his family going forward.
“I took a call from Mom a short while ago. She said Avangeline has company at the moment,” Merrick stated. “And her guest is the recipient of Mal’s donated liver. This Alyson Garwood might be someone preying on Avangeline, angling for money.”
Soren saw anxiety flash in Merrick’s eyes and he frowned, instantly on high alert. Fox was the powerhouse of their foursome, the guy who got things done. Jack was the negotiator, the face of Grantham International, and Soren was the introvert, the loner. Merrick, especially after Malcolm’s death, saw himself as their protector, the guy who would step in front of a bullet for his non-blood brothers.
And Merrick was, uncharacteristically, jumpy.
“What else, Merrick?” Soren demanded.
Merrick ran his hand over the lower portion of his face, a gesture that revealed his unease.
“Personally, I think it’s bullshit but apparently this woman claims—”
They all waited for Merrick to continue. Then waited some more.
“Well, what did she say?’ Fox demanded.
Merrick shook his head. “I genuinely think it’s better you hear it from her, not me. It concerns your brother.”
Fox glared at him. “Stop talking crap, Merrick. Malcolm was as much your brother as he was ours.”
A mixture of gratitude and sadness appeared in Merrick’s eyes. “Normally, I’d agree with you but this is on a deeper, weirder level. I think you should hear what she has to say from her mouth, not mine.”
“Since Malcolm is acting mysterious, someone needs to go to Calcott Manor and see what’s going on,” Fox said, his expression grim.
“We can’t, Fox. We’ve got functions to oversee and a hotel to run. And we have a board meeting first thing in the morning,” Jack replied.
“On a Sunday?” Merrick asked.
“It was the only time we could all be present for the next three months,” Fox explained.
“It needs to be you or Fox, Jack,” Merrick said.
They seemed to have forgotten that Soren was on a break. He trained in Florida but he’d planned on heading to Calcott Manor anyway, as he explained to his brothers. “I’ll go up this afternoon, see what’s going on. I’ll confront this Garwood woman and see what has Merrick spooked,” he told them, rolling his eyes at Merrick. “And I’ll try to speak to our stubborn grandmother about making a will.”
He took in their relieved expressions and the easing of tense shoulders, and was glad he could help, just a little. He wasn’t a part of their businesses but he’d step up for his family whenever they needed him to.
He’d move mountains for them if he could. And even if he couldn’t, he’d find a way.
Tenacity, perseverance and determination—he had more than his fair share of all of those, he thought, tucking into his lobster-and-prawn ravioli pasta. . He didn’t fail, it wasn’t in his nature and he’d get to the bottom of whatever was happening at Calcott Manor. Of that, he had no doubt.
Soren was just one bite into his meal when all hell broke loose.
