Star Promise (36 page)

The only meeting I had planned for the day was at the Minuet Dance Studio. It was the day of Olivia’s bogus charity luncheon, and judging by the glimpse I got of the inside of the dance hall as I passed the doorway, her plans were coming together nicely. Round tables and upholstered chairs had been brought in. There were masses of floral arrangements and rows of gift bags were lined up on a table in the reception area.

Olivia probably thought the details were classy and unique, but I’d attended enough functions to know that it was as stock standard and showy as any charity event – even the legitimate ones.

My lovely mother was nowhere to be seen, but Erin flew out from behind the reception desk as if I’d barged in waving a gun. “What are you doing here?” she hissed. “I don’t think you’re meant to be here.”

I was certain of it.

“Where’s Olivia?” My quiet tone matched hers, but void of panic. For the first time in weeks, I wasn’t worried about a thing.

“She’s in there.” She pointed to the doorway of the dance hall. “Please, you have to go.”

I peeked inside. Olivia was fussing with the table settings, probably mentally reckoning up her profit for the day ahead.

I grabbed Erin by the elbow and led her to the reception desk. “I have something for you.” I reached into my bag, pulled out a cheque and handed it to her. “This will more than cover the money she owes you.”

Her brown eyes bulged as she read the cheque. “You don’t have to do this.” She tried handing it back to me. “It’s not right that I take it.”

I pushed it back toward her. “It’s conditional, Erin,” I explained. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Like what?”

“I want you to go in there right now and quit,” I replied. “You don’t have to say anything more. Just quit and leave.”

“That’s it?” she asked.

I reached into my bag again, this time pulling out a business card. “Call this lady. Her name is Ella Daniels. I mentioned that you’re looking for a job, and she said she could use someone at her studio on a part-time basis.”

Erin took the card and studied it. “Why would you do this for me?”

“Because you’re a good kid,” I replied. “So will you do it?”

She didn’t answer, just walked into the hall and in a voice laced with both nerves and relief, announced that she was quitting.

I couldn’t see Olivia from where I stood, but I had no problem hearing her. “You’re needed here today,” she barked. “I thought you wanted your money.”

“No,” replied Erin. “Keep it.”

Poor Erin sounded nervous, which made me wonder what she thought Olivia could do to her. She wasted no time in finding out, hightailing it out of the room.

“Get back here!” screeched Olivia. “I’ll get you your money!”

Erin didn’t even hear. The front door swung shut and she was gone.

It was my turn to make a move. After a few steadying breaths, I stepped into the doorway. “I don’t think she’s coming back.”

My mother’s shoulders slumped as she breathed my name. “What are you doing here?”

I took a few steps into the room. “I thought you might need some help getting things ready.”

Her look of suspicion was perfectly understandable. What I didn’t understand was why it was so brief. “I’d appreciate a hand,” she said politely. “And I want to apologise for yesterday. Recitals are very stressful events.”

I swallowed hard, tried to suppress the urge to vomit. After all she’d put me through, she was still trying to play me. Olivia Kara thought I was an imbecile, or worse, some poor whipped puppy that she could beat and still expect loyalty from.

“What would you like me to do?” It took all I had to keep my tone polite, but I did it.

“We’ll start with the cutlery.” She pointed to a box on the table in front of me. “I’m sure you know how to set a lovely table.”

I reached into the box and picked up a bunch of forks. “Yes, of course,” I replied dryly. “The Décaries taught me lots of good manners.”

“It’s nice to see that things worked out for you, Charli,” she said in her usual condescending tone.

I stopped what I was doing to glower at her.

“That rundown old hovel you lived in with your father was an abomination,” she continued. “I felt sorry for both of you.”

The bunch of forks in my hand crashed onto the table. She’d just added a new dimension to the drama, and I didn’t doubt for a second that it was intentional.

“You’ve been to my house?”

“If you could call that shack a house.” She laughed derisively. “It wasn’t fit for farm animals.”

My brain went into overdrive, trying to piece a timeline together in my mind. Alex’s house was ramshackle when he first bought it. It took him years to repair it and make it the lovely little house it was today.

By my reckoning, I would’ve been three or four years old while it was in its worst shape. That meant Olivia hadn’t walked away from me once, she’d done it twice. It also meant that Alex lied when he told me she’d never had anything to do with me.

Olivia remained ice cold, setting cutlery as if we were having a casual chat about the weather. “You’re surprised,” she said. “I can tell.”

“Not really.”

That was a lie. I desperately wanted to know why she’d been to our house, but there was no point asking. I’d save that question for my father.

I picked up the forks, busying myself while I thought things through, but Olivia kept chipping away.

“I feel nothing for you, you know,” she said matter-of-factly. “I never have.” It was almost a relief to hear her say it out loud, but it didn’t make the blasé way she said it any less disturbing.

“It takes a cold woman to say that,” I replied.

Olivia looked at me. “Did you think I’d fall in love with you and want to make up for all the time we missed?” she asked. “You’re nothing more than something that once happened to me, Charli.”

This woman didn’t just dislike or resent me. She hated me with every fibre of her being, and even now I wasn’t sure why.

“What did I ever do to you?” I asked calmly.

“I had a full scholarship lined up,” she said irrelevantly. “The Australian Ballet Academy wooed me for a year. They even put my place on hold while I was pregnant.”

“So what happened?” I managed to make it sound like I didn’t care either way.

My indifference infuriated her. She thumped a stack of cutlery on the table. “Nerve damage from a poorly executed epidural,” she said bitterly. “I never regained my strength and precision. They dismissed me two months into my scholarship. I was seventeen years old.”

No wonder she despised me. I wasn’t merely an inconvenience. I was a career-ending injury.

In the most bizarre of circumstances, she calmed herself down, I picked up a stack of napkins, and we continued setting tables. I knew before I arrived that this would be the last time I ever spoke to her. For that reason, I wanted to make sure nothing was left unsaid. “I wish I’d never found you,” I told her.

“I’m sure you do, darling.” She let out a sharp laugh. “But I, on the other hand did quite well out of our short-lived reunion.”

I turned to the doorway, catching a glimpse of the hellishly expensive painting I’d forked out for hanging in the reception area. “I’m glad I was finally of some use to you,” I said.

The nasty, soul-destroying conversation could’ve continued for the rest of the morning. Olivia had enough hatred built up to keep burning me for hours, but it was finally time to save myself.

“You’re a sneaky, underhanded woman, Olivia,” I announced making her laugh again. “My father is good to the core. You should know that.”

She let out an exaggerated sigh. “He always was,” she said pityingly. “Poor naïve, Alex.”

“We butted heads a lot over the years,” I revealed, fussing with the vase of pink roses in the centre of the table. “I’m not always good like him.”

I could feel her steely glare demanding an explanation. After a long moment of keeping her hanging, I turned around to give her one. “I can be sneaky and underhanded when it comes to getting what I want. I must get that from my mother,” I suggested. “I’m especially good at acts of revenge.”

Sadly, I wasn’t even lying. I’d been more than capable of bad behaviour in the past. None of my impious deeds came close to hers, but common sense dictated that the tinge of wicked in my soul was inherited from her. I was just thankful I’d almost grown out of it.

Olivia cackled as if I’d said something hilarious. “Forgive me,” she said insincerely. “But a spoiled little Manhattan socialite trying to sound menacing is comical.”

I shook my head, tutting. “You really should’ve taken the opportunity to get to know me better,” I chided. “If you had, you’d know I’m the biggest misfit ever to hit the Upper East Side. There’s a reason I don’t fit in.”

I might’ve sounded calm and collected, but my heart was hammering, still unsure if I’d be able to pull off my plan and escape with my wits about me. It wasn’t my most well thought out idea, but I’d come too far to back down.

“Do tell.” She sounded calm too, but wasn’t.

“I’m trouble, Olivia,” I declared. “You should’ve stayed away.”

She threw her arms wide. “Look around, Charli. Reconnecting was a nice little earner for very little work. I got exactly what I wanted from you. As soon as I realised who you were married to, you became useful.”

I glanced around the room, pretending to take it all in. “Oh, yes. I can see how well this worked for you.”

Even if Erin hadn’t told me that the charity event was a scam, I still would’ve worked it out. She was far too excited for someone so soulless. People like Olivia don’t get keyed up over the success of charity endeavours unless there’s something in it for them.

“Fiona booked all thirty tables,” she said smugly. “Thousands of dollars in donations.”

“Very profitable,” I agreed. “It’s a shame you won’t see a cent of it.”

I watched her closely, studying her reaction. Her expression remained straight, but both hands gripped the chair in front of her as if she wished it were my neck.

It was time to put her out of the misery she didn’t even know she was in.

“I called in on Fiona this morning and told her to make sure not a single person turns up,” I told her. “She stopped payment on the cheque she sent you. You’ve been left high and dry, lady.”

That revelation hit with the force of a freight train. She staggered on to a chair. I mercilessly continued tormenting her.

“What did this charade set you back?” I wandered around the room. “A few thousand for the tables and chairs, another few thousand for the floral displays, and then of course there’s the catering.” I purposefully kept my tone upbeat. “I imagine you went with the theory that you have to spend money to make money, right?”

“You nasty piece of work,” she hissed. “I’ve spent a fortune on this.”

“I know.” I smiled. “Maybe you can sell your new artwork to cover it.”

“You bitch!” She cried out the insult, and ironically, it was the most emotion I’d ever seen from her.

“Today I am,” I casually replied. “Today I am my mother’s daughter, but you can rest assured it’s a one-off.”

“Just go,” she yelled, pointing to the door. “Get out!”

I wanted to run but took my time, purely to aggravate. My time with my mother was about to come to a permanent end, and I’d never felt more relief in my life.

“Goodbye, Olivia.”

Good riddance, Olivia.

When someone says they love you, you don’t necessarily feel it. But when someone claims to outright hate you, you feel every damn ounce of it no matter how hard you try not to.

I couldn’t face going to work. I didn’t think I could face anything at that point. In the poorest of form, I texted Bronson and told him I wouldn’t be in that day. His reply was quick, and on any other day it would’ve made me smile.

– You need sunshine and tequila in equal amounts.

I set off walking as if I had somewhere to be. I was desperate not to waste time analysing the past few weeks of my life. I didn’t want to deal with the knowledge that I was one half Alex, one half psychotic bitch.

The only thing I wanted to feel was anger. My life had been interrupted by a woman I’d had no desire to connect with in the first place, and not one skerrick of good had come out of it.

She’d shamelessly ripped off my boss, forcing me to cover her bill. She’d driven a wedge between Bridget and I that I didn’t know how to fix, and she’d made me worry that my dad was as much of a liar as she was.

I should’ve been brutally furious, but the rage just wasn’t there. Somewhere along the line I’d given her the power to hurt me, which was the most pitiful feeling on earth. I felt wounded and weak, and no amount of power walking in high-heeled shoes and a tight skirt was going to take it away.

I went with wallowing instead. I walked into the first café I came across, ordered tea and a big slab of chocolate cake, and hid myself away for the rest of the morning.

Bridget apologised to Charli just as I asked her to do, but it wasn’t exactly heartfelt. Her timing was good – we were sitting at the table eating breakfast – but she lost all credibility because of phrasing issues.

“Daddy said to say sorry for being mean,” she announced.

It was impossible not to see the flash of hurt in Charli’s eyes when she glanced at me. “Apology accepted,” she mumbled. “Thank you.”

It didn’t feel right. There was underlying tension that neither of them seemed to understand, but the picture I had was crystal clear. Olivia had played on Charli’s insecurity, which was masterful because she only had one. The only thing Charli ever second-guessed was the way she sometimes handled Bridget.

It was a cruel move to pit daughter against mother, but everything about Olivia was cruel. Our only saving grace was that we all knew it, including Bridget on a basic level.

Madame Kara was not worth the effort it took to worry about it. In time, the storm she’d created would blow over, the girls would forget about her and we would go back to being the tight-knit little family we were less than a month ago.