Page 7 of The Contract Marriage

The main house no longer smells like the fresh roses and beeswax of my childhood. Now it’s artificial air freshener as cheap as the interloper herself. Inhaling deeply to stop a scream welling in my chest, I close my eyes briefly at the sight of all the flashy gold-foiled furniture. What couldn’t be covered in gold—like the throw pillows—is covered in an awful faux leopard print. Maybe I should be grateful she didn’t drape the house with blinking lights as well.

“Wow,” Tyler breathes in awe.

It takes all my self-control not to roll my eyes. I chose him for crassness hidden underneath a pretty wrapping, but being next to his naked avarice is still painful. Eyes on the prize, Olivia.

“This is incredible. Is everything real gold?”

“Yes,” I say. “And with the price of gold being what it is, the furniture has appreciated quite a bit over the years.”

My sarcasm flies right over his head. “Damn!” he says with the joy of a man discovering a pirate’s treasure. “Amazing.”

A corner of my mouth starts to curl in contempt, but I quickly mask it with a proud smile. “But this isn’t really that much. The real value is in the antiques. Those, we keep hidden. Too valuable to be seen.”

“You have antiques?”

“Yeah. Mostly Victorian, I think? And some Ming vases. Have you ever seen one? They’re stunning.”

Tyler perks up. “Wasn’t there one that got auctioned for, like, twenty million?”

“Twenty-one. At Christie’s.”

He licks his lips. Doubt he realizes it, though.

Just how much does he owe the casinos? Some of them aren’t known for civilized collection.

“Oh my goodness, why didn’t you announce yourself, Olivia?” comes Deena’s overly bright voice. She trots toward us in a magenta satin dress too tight to be worn in public and black heels more befitting a stripper than the mother of the would-be bride. She looks exactly like Brielle, if you aged my half-sister about two decades. The copper hair has been dyed to look more golden, and she’s styled it into a French twist. At least her makeup is respectable, although the glittery green eyeshadow is more suitable for a teenager than a woman in her fifties. But underneath all that must be something that caught and kept Hugh’s interest—mutual trashiness, possibly…? “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Sorry, but you apparently dismissed the staff for the day. Nobody could tell us where you were.”

She lets out a gratingly cheery laugh. “Oh no, this is just family. I didn’t want too many servants around, although Mrs. Moore is in the kitchen, just in case.”

I say nothing. Our longtime housekeeper wasn’t home when Mom fell down the stairs. But she’s always been loyal, slipping me extra snacks whenever she could. I’ve quit interacting with her much because Deena and Brielle don’t like it when the household staff treats me with kindness, and I don’t want Mrs. Moore to be put in a difficult situation. She has a son with a congenital heart condition, and she needs the health insurance from her job because her husband is a freelancer without benefits.

Deena looks at Tyler with an expectant gaze. “You understand, don’t you?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

He gives her an ingratiating smile as she puts a hand over her impressive bosom. She gained a couple of cup sizes in the last fifteen years. The magic of Beverly Hills surgeons.

“Let’s eat. Brielle’s waiting, too.”

She leads us to the main dining room, as though she’s the rightful mistress of the house. I paste on a smile, all the while imagining how her expression will change when she realizes she won’t be living here anymore.

Soon. Within a year, I’m going to make her, Hugh, and Brielle tear their hair out in regret over messing with me and my family. They’ll end up living a life worse than death. After all, losing something is worse than never having had it at all.

Deena kept the original cherry table and the wide-plank wood floor in the formal dining room. Unfortunately, that’s where her restraint ended.

Bitter hatred thumps in my chest at the degradation she’s brought upon my childhood home. A polyester gold damask tablecloth covers the beautiful wood. The gorgeous, whimsical wavy glass on the Palladian windows that face the garden has been replaced by clear modern panes. Even the candle-style armed chandelier didn’t survive her destructive drive. The new crystal one is so big and ostentatious, she might as well have hung a disco ball.

The garden no longer blooms with the gorgeous mauve and white roses Mom took such meticulous care of. Instead, pots and pots of purple phalaenopsis orchids sit outside. Deena probably heard somewhere that rich people have that particular orchid in their homes and decided to have them, too, except they don’t do well in the L.A. climate. I actually feel sorry for the gardener—and the flowers.

But maybe it’s better this way. It won’t bring back the sweet childhood memories of my time with Mom and my close friends. I used to invite them over for tea parties and more. One of the girls, London, never missed one. But everything ended when Mom was gone. Deena wouldn’t let me have any friends over, saying it’d create too much work for the staff. Now that I’m older, I can see that she probably just wanted me isolated and helpless.

Hugh is already at the head of the table. The man still has a pretty face—lined now, slightly leathered from playing too much golf under the sun. Laugh lines fan from the corners of his pale gray eyes, but then why wouldn’t he be happy? He’s living off the trust of his late wife, who he cheated on for over a decade. And he dyes his hair.

On weekends he prefers lounging around in shorts, but since Tyler’s visiting, he’s put on long jeans and a button-down shirt in the same shade of green as Deena’s eyeshadow. At least it isn’t glittery, thank God.

“Olivia!” Hugh says with a beaming smile. He spreads his arms, trying to hug me.