Page 75 of Hottie on Her Shelf
Chapter Fifteen
Tonight sucked.
Fitz had told Everett this would happen before he left. Everett had laughed so hard and so long that Fitz had been forced to hang up on him.
Tonight was the traditional mayoral candidate dinner, graciously hosted by Swan Cove scion Preston Montgomery. A tradition of sitting in the fishbowl of a restaurant so other diners could parade by, press the flesh, and, as Everett put it, bend the knee to the king. Of course, he was referring to Preston, not the actual mayor.
It was a tradition that had begun more than a century ago…even though nobody had run against the Montgomerys since that first time. It was a ridiculous, embarrassing, self-aggrandizing tradition that Fitz fucking loathed.
Tonight, though, it was so much more than that as it was Fitz’s parents having his opponent/God-forbid-they-label-it bed partner to dinner.
There was bad.
There was the Red Sox losing the pennant in Game 7 bad. There was losing your internet before a Zoom meeting with the entire country’s mayors where you were supposed to give a speech bad.
And then there was tonight. A whole new level of utter shit. Awkward and messy and stilted.
Oh, and not to be forgotten was the fun-fact dump Bronson Shepherd had gifted him abouthis dad and the secret cleanup of his uncle’s mess. It was a fight Fitz hadn’t had yet. He was still mulling over the strategy of broaching it at all. The events were in the past, and there was no revisiting. The wrong had been righted, with the money repaid to the town and the books cleaned up. Clean enough that Fitz had never caught so much as a whiff of the wrongdoing.
So, Fitz was stewing and second-guessing himself, both as a mayor and as a son.
The waterfront restaurant hosting the train wreck of a night was like a second home to Fitz and his family. Magically, even without reservations, the best table in the place was always available for the Montgomerys. Not a table by the wall of windows looking out at the Atlantic and the marina. No, the prime spot was right in front of the enormous stone fireplace, which roared year round. Everyone walked by it from the host stand, and again on their treks to the bathroom. It was a see and be seen kind of table.
And it’s where he sat tonight, with his parents and, you bet he’d harp on it, his as yet unlabeled lover/opponent.
Hallie looked gorgeous. She’d confided that she’d borrowed the white lace top from her friend Ana and the flowy blue pants from Megan. Fitz had to consciously keep moving his eyes off of her because he just wanted to drink her in, which definitely would’ve tipped off his parents seeing as how he’d never brought a girl or woman to dinner with them before.
“How did this tradition start, Mr. Montgomery? Of your family hosting the mayoral candidates?” Hallie scooped some of the lobster thermidor out of the shell.
Yet another tradition. Nobody got to order individually. The hosting Montgomerys decided the menu for the entire table. Fitz had forgotten until Hallie looked at him, confusion wrinkling her nose, when a waiter set down the iceberg wedge salad without taking her order.
Fitz decided it was less of a tradition and more of a total dick move. His dad asserting his power every chance he got. Of course, he was pissed at his dad now, so his objectivity wasn’t at peak performance.
His mom set down her knife and fork, then patted the ubiquitous pearls resting at the neckline of her peach and cream block sweater. “We had an outsider marry into the family. There’d been a few lean years, and Robert Dufort brought a healthy influx of capital when he proposed. He’d been a blockade runner during the Civil War.”
“For the North?” Hallie asked.
Aww, it was sweet how she assumed the best. Fitz wasn’t holding his breath on that score, however.
“That was the thing with blockade runners.” Preston gave an avuncular “let’s not nitpick” chuckle. “They didn’t so much choose sides. They simply followed the money. Which, in part, was why he was so agreeable to changing his last name to Montgomery as a condition of the betrothal.”
Fitz had never heard this story. Or maybe he had years go, but his grandfather had tended to drone on and on and on with family history. Frankly, he was glad he’d been in ignorance about this particular ancestor. “So, if you cut through the crap, he was hiding. A traitor. Running from the authorities.”
“Not running.” Preston smirked. “Looking for a place to relocate. A place to settle down and start fresh.”
His mom continued the moral whitewashing. “And marriage to the right woman guaranteed him that. Robert was, by all accounts, a savvy negotiator. It was his idea to insist on being mayor. And it kept the office in the family once he changed his name. A win-win all around.”
No way.
Clearly, the moral ambiguity in his family hadn’t started with the situation with dear old embezzler Uncle Jeremiah. Fitz desperately wanted to shoot Hallie a doyou believe this bullshit? look. Couldn’t risk it, though. He sure couldn’t wait to debrief with her tonight.
In bed.
Naked.
Son of a bitch. Those thoughts were off-limits while sharing a dinner table with his parents.
This wasn’t his first rodeo of a public argument. Fitz kept his voice modulated, his eyebrows high, and a isn’t that interesting uptick to his lips. “You call a man who didn’t have the strength of principles to pick a side in a war that tore this country apart a winner?”
