Page 14 of Love and Lies

“You know I have Dad’s memory,” I reminded my mother. My father had known the names of all his regular customers in every one of his twelve restaurants, and I’d inherited the gift. Once I met someone, I never forgot them or the stories they told, and my brain filed these things away to be regurgitated when appropriate. At less-formal occasions it was simply a good party trick, but at functions like this, it was part of my tool kit.

While my mother struck up a conversation with one of her business partners—someone who didn’t seem to care whether Trish remembered the names of her children or not—I scanned the room, catching a few eyes. Some of the girls were clearly hungry for a spectacle, no doubt wondering whether I was going to conduct myself in the same vein as before. The older guests seemed to be wondering the same thing, but looked rather on their guard about it. I couldn’t see the Westons anywhere, not the father or his wife and son; they’d obviously decided to avoid the whole thing. I did spot some close friends of theirs, though; other than a polite nod at myself and my mother, they didn’t grace us with a second glance.

The Coldwells were not universally beloved among the families of the New York elite—some of them thought their money was better than ours because they’d been part of the upper class for generations and were against any kind of progress. They thought building projects like my mother’s were a blight on the skyline, that modernizing was as undesirable as it was unnecessary. But there weren’t many who held us in as much contempt as the Westons. Most of them knew it was better to have Trish Coldwell on their side. That had always been the way of things. I was probably the only person in the world who had ever openly rebelled against her.

My mother finished her conversation and came back over just as the event got started and we were ushered to our places.

The tables were beautifully set, and naturally our seats had to be in the middle of the room—centrally located and visible to everyone. I undid the button on my tux and took a seat, examining the name card that had been placed upon my napkin. Jessiah C. Coldwell. My stomach rumbled softly, but there was no hoping for a full plate any time soon. I knew how these things went. Just then, right on cue, the mayor stepped up to the podium to begin his address.

The speeches in Trish’s honor were long-winded, as usual, and given by people who loved to hear themselves speak—beginning with Mayor Roscott and ending with the head of the New York City Planning Commission. Each of them praised my mother in the highest terms, speaking of the new landmark she had gifted the city, while Trish sat there smiling politely, looking like a boss who didn’t know what to do with her face when her employees sang “Happy Birthday.” I knew how much she hated this kind of attention, but she put up with it because there was nothing she loved more than success. The fact that she was here—surrounded by the very people who had mocked her twenty-five years ago for announcing her intention to one day build the world’s biggest apartment block—brought her so much satisfaction that she would have sat through anything.

At last she stood to accept her award and say a few words herself, and I cast my eyes around the room. My gaze fell upon a young woman standing at the bar at the back of the room. She wasn’t staff—her dark, fitted evening dress and high heels gave that away—and unlike most of the other women here, she wore her long, dark brown hair loose, falling over her shoulders in soft waves. She was pretty—very pretty, even—her elegant face was slightly angular, which gave her beauty a particular kind of radiance. But there was another reason I couldn’t look away, despite the fact that I really should have been paying attention to my mother’s speech. She hadn’t looked my way once, but there was something in her gaze that held mine fast: anger. And pain. A combination so familiar that it hit me like a bolt of lightning. My heart began to race, and I felt the urge to get up and go to her. But of course I didn’t.

“None of this would have been possible without the support of my family,” Trish was saying, and I tore my eyes away from the girl at last. “My sons, Jessiah and Elijah, have often had to make do without me in the past—as did Adam, who is sadly no longer with us, and whom I miss every day. Nobody expects their son to die at twenty-two, simply because he fell in love with the wrong woman. Take care of your loved ones, I beg you—there is much to regret when they’re gone.”

They were uncharacteristically emotional words for Trish, and for a moment I wasn’t sure if she would lose her composure—but she didn’t, of course. She took a deep breath and continued on in more neutral tones, thanking the sponsors for her award and wishing everyone a pleasant evening before she left the stage. She was immediately surrounded by well-wishers, but when she looked over at me, I saw remorse in her eyes. Not for Adam’s death—or not in the way you’d think. No, it was for me—that I wasn’t the replacement for Adam that she wanted me to be. Because even though I was here tonight, wearing a tux and wrapping all of society around my little finger like I was born to it, we both knew I had no real interest in these people and was here purely out of obligation. Behind the facade, I was still the same teenager who’d never wanted to conform; the son who stubbornly refused to call her mom; the guy who wore tatty jeans, had too many girls, listened to loud music, and hung out with the wrong people. I sometimes asked myself if she’d have preferred if I had died instead of Adam. But I would never ask that question. I thought I already knew the answer.

My mother broke eye contact first, turning her attention back to the people around her. Some of them shook my hand as well, but most were waiting for an opportunity to congratulate Trish before dinner, so I stood up and retreated a little, brushing aside the pain I felt at the thought of my brother. Suddenly, I remembered the stranger at the bar. I turned to look; she was still there, but at that moment she set her still-full glass down on the bar, tossed some change in the tip jar, picked up her bag, and made swiftly toward the door.

I went after her without thinking. She was already in the foyer before I caught up with her.

“Hey,” I called softly. “Wait up.”

I don’t know what I was thinking, stopping her. She was clearly a society girl, not my type at all. But I couldn’t get over the look I’d seen in her eyes, so full of fury and determination—but sadness too. It had moved me in a way so unexpected, so deeply and intensely that I’d had no choice but to go after her. I had to know who she was. I had to know why she felt exactly the same way I did.

She stopped at last, and I smiled as she turned to me. But then I saw tears pooling in her blue eyes. Tears she quickly tried to hide.

“Are you okay?” I asked with concern.

She held my gaze, and for just a second or two, there was a flicker of something I’d been hoping to see in her eyes… before her expression changed, and I saw that look again, the one that had drawn me to her so irresistibly. Only this time her anger was directed at me. And an uneasy feeling crept over me.

Like following her might have been a big mistake.

7 Helena

What was I thinking? What on earth was I even thinking, walking into a room full of socialites where Trish Coldwell was getting an award? What gave me the crazy idea to stand at the bar, listening to that woman being praised for her stupid fucking commitment to New York City and her ugly fucking buildings? And why didn’t I just get out of there before she stood up at the podium and started talking about Adam, how she’d lost him, how much she missed him—yet another potshot at Valerie that no one in the room could fail to understand?

I knew the answer: I hadn’t been thinking at all.

My mind was blank, for certain, as I strode toward the elevators, desperate to get out of there as soon as possible. I’d let myself be driven by anger and the overwhelming urge to finally do something after being forced to sit by and watch for over two years. Blinded by rage, I’d scrabbled around in my closet for a dress and matching shoes, fixed my hair, and called a cab to take me to Rockefeller Center. My heart was going about two hundred beats per minute as I stood in the elevator, contemplating setting off the fire alarm, or wondering how else I might rain on Trish Coldwell’s parade. But in the end, I’d simply stood there, paralyzed, as she’d spoken. And then she mentioned Valerie, and I saw the sympathetic faces on all the other guests, and something in me finally snapped. Because I could feel, in my bones, that this woman’s smear campaign was working. Everyone believed her. I had suspected it, maybe even known it, but feeling it finally crushed me in the worst way possible. And I knew I had to get out of there fast, before I burst into tears in front of everyone in the room.

There were no elevators waiting, and my hand shook as I pressed the call button. Hang in there, I told myself. Hang in there till you get outside.

At that moment I heard footsteps approaching and a deep voice behind me say, “Hey, wait up.” More out of reflex than anything else, I turned around.

The voice belonged to an obscenely good-looking man—I could tell that much, despite being so flustered. He was tall, with blond hair that fell casually over his forehead, as if he were at some kind of beach party and not at an award ceremony in a tux. There was something wild and untamed about his whole demeanor, along with the look in his green eyes. I registered all of this in the space of one second, perhaps two. Then it hit me like a freight train—I knew who he was. Boy, did I know who he was. I just hadn’t seen him in a crazy long time, and anyway, we’d never been officially introduced.

“Are you okay?” he asked now.

A bitter snort escaped me. What a twist of fate that he, of all people, was so concerned about my welfare.

Jessiah Coldwell.

Adam’s younger brother.

I didn’t know much about him really, only what I’d heard through the grapevine: that he was the second Coldwell son, rebellious misfit and polar opposite of his brother, who’d had New York society on tenterhooks with his questionable behavior—all before my time. That he hated the city and had moved overseas as soon as he graduated from college. And I knew, of course, what he had said about my sister. Valerie was the worst mistake that Adam ever made! If it wasn’t for her, my brother would still be alive! The memory of his words filled my head. How could I have forgotten? How could I have forgotten him?

It didn’t take me long to come up with a response. The old Helena would have mumbled something under her breath, hectically pressed the call button a few more times, and fled the situation as quickly as possible. But I wasn’t that girl anymore. And this man standing in front of me—his family was in no small part to blame.