37. Gibson

37

GIBSON

S unday is the Fourth of July, and the day starts off misty and foggy. I’m out front, lying on a porch swing and reading a mystery I found in Larry’s library yesterday afternoon while Christian was still puking.

I wanted to stay and help him, but he made me leave, so I wandered. Now, halfway through the book, I’ve decided it’s either very poorly written or genius because for the life of me, I can’t figure out who the killer is. Full from the early brunch we all had together and buzzed from mimosas, I feel a morning nap coming on.

I turn at the creak of the screen door, hoping to see my favorite face, but it’s another beautiful young man instead.

Olivier Arnaud was once a well-known, trouble-making socialite living in one of The Eastmoor penthouses. I knew of him peripherally as someone who was often in the tabloids and at every major event with the usual suspects on the Upper East Side. Once wild and attention-seeking, he caused the ultimate uproar by abdicating his inheritance, writing a tell-all, and running off to Brooklyn to live in wedded bliss with his doorman. All I see when I look at him now is a young man who found where he belongs and doesn’t take it for granted.

He gives Christian a hard time for his close friendship with Drew, but anyone can see Drew’s own jealous affection for him. Not to mention the sexual tension. They disappeared for over an hour while we were sailing yesterday, and Olivier returned with a red neck and the beginnings of several hickeys on his chest. He’s wearing a shirt at the moment, but the bruises on his neck aren’t subtle.

Interesting.

I haven’t dabbled much in breath play—again, afraid I’d do real damage, but I wouldn’t mind someone— Christian —trying it on me.

“Am I interrupting a good part?” he asks.

“No.” I sit up, leaving him room to join me on the swing, which he does, sitting criss-cross to face me. I get the immediate impression this won’t be a casual chat. He’s clearly got something to say. “What’s up?”

“El and I were talking last night, and I wanted to bring something up with you if it’s okay. I don’t want it to seem like I’m meddling or whatever, but in the interest of Drew’s obsession with Chris’s well-being, I feel like if we’re all gonna be friends…”

“Go ahead,” I tell him. There’s no sense beating around the bush. This is either going to be about the club or Marianne, and he may as well spit it out.

“I haven’t really been part of the Uptown scene for awhile now, but El and Mal still go to a lot of events and follow the gossip. I assume you know Avery Lawther?”

I set the book down and fold my arms over my chest. “I do.”

“Right, well, she talks a lot. So everybody knows her husband cheated on her, and she’s got some plan to take him for all he’s worth.”

I nod.

“And Marianne’s helping out with this somehow? ”

Olivier sounds slightly clueless, so no major alarms are going off, but I don’t like the fact that my wife is being associated with the Lawther’s divorce, as ugly as it could potentially get.

“You mentioned Avery’s the one who’s been talking,” I say.

“Just between you and me—I’ve known about your marriage awhile, but not because it’s open knowledge or anything—it’s because Elodie—she had a few sessions or whatever you want to call them with Marianne a while back.”

“Ah.” At least half of my perceived masculinity disappears like a puff of smoke. “She must’ve been very young, then.”

“She was twenty-one,” Olivier says.

I nod slowly, taking this in. Elodie is probably around twenty-seven, twenty-eight now. So well within the timeline of our open marriage. I shouldn’t be shocked, or annoyed, but I’m both.

“El knows a lot of women who’ve been with Marianne,” he adds.

I try to sound unmoved. “Bored wives and rebellious heiresses, I’m assuming?”

“That’s kind of what it seems like.”

The assistants Marianne usually tries to stick me with are the heiress types, trying to get out from under their families’ thumbs.

“Except for Avery,” Olivier says.

“In what way?”

“This is gonna sound so intrusive, and I apologize, but do you have a prenup?”

There goes an alarm. I stiffen. “We do.”

One that heavily protects Marianne because she was the heiress when I married her. The fortune I’ve amassed has been during the course of our marriage, the initial investment in my business having come from her family who fucking adore me. “It’s complicated,” I add. The idea of her plotting against me , which is the vibe I’m getting, is deeply concerning.

But I always knew something was different about Avery, didn’t I? Especially over the last year. Marianne doesn’t make friends. She entertains and toys with young women, but in terms of trusting someone and forming bonds, that ability seems to be as stunted as her ability to express physical affection with me.

But perhaps it’s only men who render her incapable. Because she hates men. Believes they’re weak creatures of impulse trying to overcome deep-seated feelings of impotence—all of them—all of us . What she planned for Graham Lawther was arguably the most extreme, but she’s been using me to cut off powerful men at the knees for years.

Her stated reason for this, whenever I’ve questioned her, is she wants me to be the most successful, the most powerful. The most untouchable. And I’m a perfect weapon because I’m good at what I do and possess a ruthless streak of my own. It’s never mattered to me who I beat to a deal or outbid, only that I come out on top for the good of my own company and fortune. Marianne’s pleasure is the reward, and since all other paths for me to please her are closed, it’s always felt good to bring home a prize for her, her chosen enemy’s head on a silver platter, for example.

I’m wary of Olivier’s expression. It borders on pity.

“Are you telling me her relationship with Avery should concern me?” I ask.

“Senator Lawther was living with Silas for more than two years. There’s no way she just found out. She’s known.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

“I mean—I’m pretty sure I’d know something was wrong if Drew stopped living with me all of a sudden.”

“He’s a U.S. Senator. Don’t they all spend half the year in D.C.? Or traveling? Why are you so sure she knew?”

“Because Avery’s not as stupid as she looks,” he says.

I press my lips shut. I wouldn’t call Avery stupid. Vapid, perhaps. Shallow. But I don’t see her behind closed doors. I’ve never had a conversation with her beyond a short exchange at a cocktail party or charity event. As I recall from one of those, she went to Brown. No recollection of whether she graduated, or if she did, what her degree was in. But as a senator’s wife, I know she doesn’t work now.

Still, there’s been no indication from Marianne that she’s thinking of leaving me. Granted, things have been distant between us, more so than usual, since she rejected my pathetic invitation to Palm Beach, but she mobilized when I needed her for Fischer and expressed genuine concern for our old friend. I can’t believe she hates me enough to pursue an ugly divorce to run off and be with Avery Lawther, assuming that’s where Olivier is going with all this.

“Is this a feeling you have or is there something you’re not telling me?” I ask.

Olivier gives me a leveling look. “Elodie’s seen them together. Marianne and Avery. Doing more than talking.”

This still means nothing in the grand scheme of things. We’re both free to pursue physical relationships with others. Still, Avery is different. I’ve known this for some time. But something about this particular piece of knowledge pricks me in a sore spot.

“Does Marianne know about you and Christian?” Ollie asks.

“I assume she’s heard something about it,” I say. She has contacts at the club, and assuming she keeps any sort of tabs on me—if only to shield her own liaisons from me—she’d likely know I’ve traded my pets for my assistant.

“Would she be okay with it if she did?” Olivier asks.

“It’s new, I…” I can’t finish that sentence.

“Maybe new, but it’s hard to believe you’d be here if it’s just some fling.”

“Do me a favor and don’t tell him that,” I say, attempting some levity.

It works because he grins.

Meanwhile, the prick I felt earlier feels more like a tear, an internal bleed. I clear my throat. “You’re right, though. It is more than a fling for me. I can’t speak for him. ”

“Neither can I—he mystifies me—but going off the way he looks at you?—”

“Which is how?”

Olivier grins again. “You don’t see it? You’re constantly staring at him.”

“What does it look like to you?” I ask, positive I’m hemorrhaging by now.

“Like he’s yours.”

It’s a simple phrase spoken gently, and yet it feels like he just put a tight clamp around my heart. I run a hand through my hair and find myself nodding. “It’s been a wild few weeks,” I confess.

“I know the feeling.”

“Who fell first?” I ask. “You or Drew?”

He laughs. “Depends who you ask. But it was me. Granted, there was some shit holding me back, but not like what he was going through. And I wouldn’t have been able to name it at the time because I didn’t know what the fuck love even was, but he saw straight through me. And even the ugly parts were beautiful to him. When I realized I couldn’t scare him off…” He shrugs. “It’s not every day that someone accepts you in all your total imperfection. Your whole messy package.”

My throat constricts as I think about Marianne. What I accepted. What I never stopped loving. How I’ve devoted my life to reminding her she’s worthy of love like that. And those thoughts drift to Christian, and what I feel for him and from him. Our give and take. Our mutual craving. I’ve never felt anything like this for anyone but her . I’ve taken advantage of our arrangement to maintain my own sanity, but I have never once felt like my allegiance was torn—that my heart could betray her.

The thought pulls at me, and suddenly I’m caught in its undertow, sinking beneath the surface of this foggy day. My heart, a leaden weight, drags me under.

Because I doubt my ability to speak, I reach out, give Olivier’s shoulder a squeeze in acknowledgement of all he’s said and listened to, and I stand. Instead of going into the house, I head down the steps of the porch and walk down the driveway, veering off into the woods where the fog is thicker, and the light is dimmer. I’m grateful to be wearing jeans and long sleeves, but given how off I feel, I doubt I’d notice all the branches and brush slashing at me.

I’m a ways in before my legs grow unsteady, and I have to sit. There’s a half-rotted log I settle on. Luckily, it doesn’t collapse. The enormous lump in my throat suddenly dislodges, and a sound like a sob erupts from my chest.

My face is dripping wet before I realize it was a sob, and I’m crying. This is fucking new.

I’ve shed a few tears in my life, but this is…

A lot.

“Gibson?”

It’s Christian’s voice, but it’s far off still. I lift up my shirt, trying to clean my face, but it’s useless. I might not be wailing, but my eyes haven’t gotten the memo that I’m ready to be done crying.

“Gibson! Where the fuck are you?”

“Here,” I croak, and then more steadily, “Here.”

Brush rustles to my right, and I see him as a shape in the haze. “Gibson?” His voice is softer.

“I’m right here, Chris.”

He gets close enough that I’m able to make out his face, and he joins me on the log, straddling it. He’s got a scratch on his cheek and a twig in his hair, which I reach up and remove before smoothing the now tangled strands off his forehead.

Concern and confusion are etched on his perfect face. “What the hell is going on?”