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WHEN I STEPPED INTO the elevator and pressed the button for Alex’s floor, I was a nervous wreck. Rowe would be there tonight, which would present its own share of challenges since it seemed inevitable to me that we’d have a confrontation at some point during the evening. Moreover, Bernie and Blackwell were convinced that I’d make Page Six, which meant that they really did think that I was about to cause a stir.
And if I was to be honest with myself, they probably were right.
All of the news coverage that occurred when we went missing, and then the massive coverage that hit when we were found alive, and then the press conference we held when we’d finally returned home had worked to quietly create a firestorm of attention that was about to be unleashed upon Alex and me tonight.
I may have stood alongside my husband and in front of the press when we first returned to Wenn, but that was for the world to see—and because Alex had kept the conference so brief, no one had asked me anything.
Tonight would be a far more intimate experience as I’d be mingling with a host of people that I knew or who, at the very least, knew me. And because of that, Alex and I would be hammered with a crush of questions about all of it—what was the crash like, how did we manage to survive for two weeks on that island, what was it like there, how did we manage to escape? The answers to these questions were already well documented, but these people viewed themselves as insiders, and they would want to hear it from our own lips, over and over again, throughout the night.
It was enough to make me want to have a martini now—not just at the party—if only so I could settle my nerves before we arrived at the event.
As the elevator slowed, I thought, Why not have one now? Being a few minutes late is hardly going to rattle any cages. And after the day Alex has had, he probably could use one, too.
The doors whisked open, and I was about to step out in search of my husband and a drink when instead I stopped cold in my tracks and just stared at the man standing across from me.
Stephen Rowe.
He was dressed in a tux, and when his eyes flicked up to meet mine, he appeared as startled as I was. I looked up at the dial to check the floor I was on, and saw that I had somehow pushed the button for the forty-seventh floor, obviously out of habit. Rowe had taken this floor for himself, banishing Alex and me to our new offices on the fortieth floor. How stupid could I be? How could I have done this?
“Well, this is a surprise,” he said.
“And an unpleasant one at that,” I countered.
“If it’s so unpleasant, Jennifer, why are you here?”
“Old habits die hard,” I said. “I’d forgotten you’d moved us to the fortieth floor. I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s the problem with most hicks from Maine—they don’t think. And by the way, nice sling and bling. Who says you can’t put lipstick on a pig?”
The doors started to slide shut as he said that, but I reached out a hand to stop them before they could close.
Really, Rowe? A hick and a pig? Game on, motherfucker.
I stepped out of the elevator and approached him.
“You can call me what you will, Stephen, but what you’ll never be able to call me is a cheater, which is a word I can absolutely use to describe you.”
“Are we really going to go there again, Jennifer? You’ve got nothing on me. If you did, you already would have come forward with it. You know, like the day after your husband kicked down the door to my office. That would have been a good time—but neither of you did so for a reason. And we both know what that reason is. So, why don’t you just put your threats of revealing my supposed infidelity to bed already?” He smiled at that. “Or so to speak. It’s a waste of time. You were bluffing on that dance floor, and we both know it.”
“If I was bluffing, then why did you suddenly fall in line when I challenged you with it, Stephen? Answer me that. Because I saw the fear in your eyes when I told you what I knew, and it was real. I threatened you with what I knew, and when you heard all of the sordid details of what I had on you, you did exactly as I told you to do. If someone had said those words to me—that I’d cheated on Alex and that they had proof—I would have laughed in their face and left them standing there on the dance floor, knowing they had nothing on me. But you didn’t—and to echo your words, we both know why—you’ve been having a two-year affair with Janice Jones.”
“How about this?” he asked. “Why don’t you just come forward with the information you have on me? Spill it to the world. Or is that out of the question because you don’t have shit on me?”
“After tonight, you’ll see otherwise. There’s a reason we came back from Maine to go to this party, Stephen, and it’s all about you.”
“I’ll just consider that another empty threat.”
I smiled at him as the elevator doors swept closed behind me. “Do as you will.”
“You know,” he said. “You’re in my employ now, and I could fire you if you keep this up.”
“So do it. Or maybe the reason you haven’t done it yet is because you believe it’s always best to keep your enemies close. I believe you have a reason to keep me as close as you do, Stephen. And we both know what that reason is. Best to keep an eye on me, don’t you think?”
“Here’s what I really think,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“That tonight, your miscarriage is going to be the talk of the party.”
My lips parted in shock, horror, and surprise upon hearing his words—I felt a stinging jolt of humiliation that this man, of all people, possessed my deepest secret—but then I quickly composed myself. I would give him no personal satisfaction for somehow finding out what never should have been found out.
“I know that you’ve kept it a secret for personal reasons, but guess what?” he said. “With a few anonymous texts sent to the right people via a TracFone about an hour ago, word already is spreading. Phones are starting to ring. People are talking, some of them gasping. Worse for you, the people arriving at Henri’s party are now buzzing with the news of your loss. You’re about to be humiliated in ways that you never saw coming.”
He held out his hands and shrugged at me. “I mean, think of it, Jennifer. What will people be saying? ‘Is she able to give Alexander Wenn the heir his previous wife denied him of having?’ ‘Because of the crash, could it be that she’s now physically unable to do give him a child that will carry on the Wenn name?’ Think about what that will do for your reputation within Alex’s set, which is all about extending the family name. I say that it will lead to nothing good because you’re going to be marked as a broken woman. Tonight, you’re going to take another hit to the gut—and I’m happy to be the one to have orchestrated it, especially after the way you set me up on that dance floor. So, here’s the takeaway, Jennifer—Don’t fuck with me.”
“There are rumors and there are facts,” I said with steel in my voice. “All I need to do is to dismiss this as a rumor, and you’ve lost.”
“Oh, I haven’t lost,” he said. “You see, I sent physical proof of your miscarriage along with those texts...”
“What proof?”
“Let’s just say that there was a certain person at Gleneagles who was willing to send me a PDF of your medical records during your stay there—for a steep price, of course, but who cares? It was worth it. From reading those records, I learned plenty. Was I expecting to find a miscarriage tucked in there? No—but I have to say that it was a welcomed bonus.”
“This is going to backfire on you,” I said to him.
“I seriously doubt that. In fact, I plan on enjoying the show tonight. You’ll see. You’re going to be reminded of your dead baby all night long.”
I swallowed hard when he said that, and I tried to keep it together as I absorbed what he’d done to me. Then, he took a menacing step toward me, and I watched a dark cloud come over his face.
“The banter has been fun, Jennifer, but now let me be straight with you. Wenn is mine now—get used to it. Drop your investigation of me, stop prying into my personal life, or I swear to God I will make things even worse for you and Alex. Trust me on this. I’ll make each of your lives hell.”
“Step away from me,” I said. “Get out of my personal space.”
“Or what? Are you afraid of me, Jennifer?”
Before I could answer, he laughed and gallantly moved aside with a grotesque kind of flourish. “The elevator’s right there,” he said. “You should use it now before things get a whole lot worse for you.”
* * *
WHEN I WAS IN THE ELEVATOR and the doors had closed, I punched the button for the fortieth floor, and the elevator sank along with my stomach. A moment later, the doors opened, and when I saw Alex standing just beyond them with a quizzical look upon his face, I burst into tears of anger and sadness, and felt an overwhelming sense of rage that I felt sure was about to consume me.
“Jennifer,” he said as he hurried over to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
We backed out of the elevator, and I told him what had happened.
“Rowe did what?” He looked behind me at the bank of elevators, and I knew what he was thinking. “Where is he? Still in his office?”
“He’s probably gone by now. He was in his tux. He was leaving for the party when I stupidly selected his floor thinking it was still our floor.”
“You can’t expect me to stand here and allow him get away with that, Jennifer. He deserves to have his head bashed in for what he did to you. Let me do it.”
“Don’t,” I said. “He’s not worth it. And I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of letting him know just how much he got to me. I’m sorry to be so upset. I am. This isn’t who I am. I’m stronger than this. It’s just when he said that tonight people would be gossiping about my ‘dead baby’ and wondering whether I’d be able to give you the heir you deserve, it did me in. It spoke to my darkest fears.”
I looked down at the compact and lipstick I had in my free hand and, in an effort to diffuse the conversation, I said, “Would you carry these in your pocket for me tonight? Obviously, I can’t take a bag.”
He took them from me. “Of course.”
“This is ridiculous,” I said, gently running a finger beneath each of my eyes so as not to ruin Bernie’s efforts. “What an asshole.”
“You’re in no shape to leave for the party now.”
“I just need a drink. That will calm me down. If I could just be alone with you for a few moments and have a martini before we leave, I’ll be fine.”
He took me by my free hand, and I felt his fingers close against my own. “Come with me,” he said. But when he said it, I heard the undercurrent of rage in his voice. I knew, that more than anything, he wanted to leave me now, find Rowe, and kick his ass for me. But he didn’t—and I was grateful for that. The last thing I needed was for Rowe to call the police on my husband and have that become news.
When we reached Alex’s office, he made us both a martini, and when he was finished, he handed me mine. I had no plans to sip it. Instead, I took one mother of a pull from it, and then closed my eyes and took a deep breath as the alcohol sank into me.
“Let’s sit down,” Alex said.
I sat in the chair opposite Alex, and saw a mixture of fury and concern on his face. Beats of silence passed between us. Each of us sipped our drinks. When I finished mine, I felt more in control of my emotions—and even more focused on how important it was that we speak to Epifania and convince her to tell us about her friendship with Janice Jones. We couldn’t leave the party without knowing where she was right now.
“He’s going to pay for what he did to you,” Alex said. “Physically.”
“It’s not worth it,” I said. “He’ll call the police on you, and then what kind of a PR nightmare will we have on our hands? All we need to do is to get to Epifania and see if she will help us. I think she will. I’ve always been kind to her. She knows that. If she happens to know where Jones is and she tells us, then we’ve won the evening. Screw Rowe. The texts he sent out earlier were below the belt, but I’ll handle the sympathy—fake or real—as it comes. And it will come—I know it will. But it is what it is at this point. All I care about now is ousting that son of a bitch from Wenn—crushing him by exposing the truth of who he is so you can take back ownership of Wenn and fire him from the board. Then it will be over. We need to look at the big picture, Alex—and that’s it.”
“I still want to pound his face into a wall after what he said to you.”
“And I love you for that, because I know that you would. But we can’t. Trust me on this—we’ll get him. We’ll nail him. And when we do, we’ll expose him for who he is and ruin him.” I stood, turned to the mirror above the bar, and checked my face. To my surprise, it was fine. I lifted my hair off my shoulders, slung it down the length of my back, and then, despite knowing how difficult tonight was going to be, I just sucked it up and turned to Alex. “Let’s go,” I said. “Let’s get to Epifania. And then let’s get him.”
