A Bad Boy is Good to Find - By Jennifer Lewis Page 0,1
she passed. She’d left early to avoid the Friday night Hamptons-bound traffic, but now she wished she’d stretched the journey out as long as she could. She knew tonight wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing in her life was ever easy.
For a start, it was no picnic being an “heiress.” Everyone expected you to live up to some image of ultimate glamour they had in their head from reading too many princess stories as a kid. You were supposed to be a willowy blonde with roses in your porcelain cheeks and elegant hands that itched to play symphonies. You were supposed to be outgoing, confident and easy to talk to. Demanding and slightly arrogant, yet sweet and lovable.
If you’re not all that stuff, then that’s your problem.
She hit the exit for Southampton too fast and had to turn hard.
Sometimes you weren’t a willowy blonde, you were a “big boned” brunette. Sometimes that “arrogance” was really insecurity, and your best talents were for things that no one appreciated.
And sometimes you fell in love with a person who wasn’t exactly the handsome prince your parents had in mind.
At that point you just have to take charge of your own goddam life.
She slammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt, her bumper inches from a doe’s chest. The stunned deer stared at her for a moment, then scrambled—hooves scraping on the tarmac—back the way it came, over the high privet hedge of an expensively manicured yard.
They all looked the same, these “cottages,” because a gazillion dollars only bought you so much around here. A few thousand square feet of paneled oak and granite countertop and chemical-soaked lawn, the smell of the sea hovering off somewhere beyond the privet.
It was good that she’d come early, and not because of the traffic. Hopefully she’d catch her mother before she dove into a second bottle of wine.
She pulled into the driveway, gravel crunching under her tires and anxiety twisting in her belly.
I don’t care what they say.
I love him.
I’m going to marry him.
“You are not.” Her father’s harsh tone made her jump, since he rarely issued more than a disinterested rumble in her direction. He hadn’t moved, or even looked at her. Just stood there, in his “summer weight” suit, an unlit cigar in one hand.
She wobbled slightly in her high heels. “I don’t understand why you don’t like him. We all had a perfectly nice time last weekend, you said so yourself.”
“That was in front of him, dear,” said her mother from the far side of the room, where she refilled her glass with unsteady hands. “You’d hardly expect us to insult him to his face.”
“I don’t know why not. You think it’s more polite to wait until he leaves, then stab him in the back?”
She’d seen that they didn’t like him. The too-polite smiles. The too-witty conversations. Con saw it too, but he asked her to marry him anyway. He loved her in spite of her parents.
“No one enjoys a confrontation, Elizabeth.” Her father surveyed her over the half-moons of his reading glasses. “There’s no need to stir up drama.”
“But why have a confrontation at all? What’s wrong with him?”
“We don’t know anything about him. Where he comes from, his family.”
“He’s from Louisiana,” she protested. “What does his family matter? I’m not marrying them.”
Her father gave a dismissive snort.
“Why are you sneering? Because his family is from the South?” Heat rushed her chest at the thought of them discriminating against someone so good and kind.
Her father removed his reading glasses and started to polish them. Anger bubbled up inside her as she saw that—once again—he planned to simply ignore her.
She groped for something to impress her father. “They’re descended from French aristocracy!”
He even has the family crest tattooed on his…
Never mind.
“It’s not so simple, dear.” Her mother shot a glance at her father. “There are things to consider. Your legacy, for example…” She paused and sipped her wine. Looked almost nervous.
“My legacy? Who are we kidding here? We’re garbage bag tycoons. The only reason we’re sitting on pots of money right now is because grandpa perfected the disposable bin-liner. People take our product and shove it in the trash can, literally, so excuse me if I can’t take it too freakin’ seriously.”
“You will not use language like that in my presence.” Her father lit his cigar, and her lungs recoiled as acrid smoke rolled toward her. “And as you know only too well, Hathaway Industries is one of the foremost manufacturers of household