insipid fool who barely spoke above a whisper? I knew you could never spend the rest of your life with someone like that, not to mention the fact that she’s poor.” She turned up her nose as if being poor was an offense.
“She’s not poor; in fact, she can buy and sell you twice over and still be a millionaire.”
“What’re you talking about?” I saw the first crack in her armor. Since she puts so much stock in wealth and family standings, I wasn’t surprised.
“Do you know who her father is? Sterling Winthrop, the famous architect.” I dropped the name and watched her blanch. “How did you find Ann Winthrop without learning that?”
“I don’t… you’re lying, she can’t be.” Watching her crumble at the fact that Giselle had a wealthier pedigree than her was satisfying but not satisfying enough. I want to make her bleed. It took everything in me not to put hands on her, but I knew of better ways to make her pay for what she did. I started to speak when I saw movement in the doorway and turned, thinking it was Giselle.
My heart dropped at the thought that she’d overheard all of the nasty things Dana had said about her. I never want her to face such ugliness again. But it wasn’t her who stepped into the doorway and walked across the room to stand in front of Dana before slapping her hard across the face. “Mom!” She lifted her other hand to smack the other cheek, and the sound reverberated around the room.
I took a step forward to get between the two of them. “Stay where you are. Someone needs to do this, and you’re not going to do it because of some archaic nonsense about hitting a woman, and my daughter is too much of a gentle soul to take out this trash.” She moved in even closer on a stunned Dana until there was barely a hair’s breadth between them.
“You are the reason I missed the first year of my grandson’s life. You are the reason my son almost lost his wife.” She poked her in the chest with each word, it seemed, making Dana take a step backward with each attack, which was no use since mom kept coming at her. “I want you out of this house; you’re not to go back to work, you’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me; I work for…”
“Calen?” Mom just said, my name.
“You’re fired,” I answered. What else was there for me to do? Mom was right; as much as I want to throttle Dana, I wouldn’t put hands on a female. Seeing mom tearing into her was very satisfying, though.
“There, you’re fired, you’re also no longer needed on the charity committee, that’s a place for my daughter. Is she connected to anything else with our name on it, Calen?”
“Uh, no, I don’t think so.”
“Good, we’ll keep looking, and if anything else pops up, we’ll take care of it. Now get out of here and forget you two ever knew each other.”
Dana looked at me as if expecting me to go against the tyrant, but I just shrugged my shoulders. “You got off easy. I’d have done a hell of a lot more.” And still plan to, but she doesn’t need to know that.
“Calen, how can you throw away our years of friendship? How can you choose her over me?” There were genuine tears in her eyes, and I admit I did feel a slight pang of pity because there was obviously something wrong with her wiring. Mom didn’t have that sympathy gene; it looked like.
“Is this a leftover from all the drugs you did in college, or the harder ones you’re doing now? He’s been around you for fourteen years and never even looked at you in that way; get a grip.”
“Drugs? What drugs?” I looked between the two of them at sea.
“She snorted her way through college, among other things. If you look between her toes, you will find the needle tracks, I bet.”
“Mom, how do you know all this?”
“Did you really think your father and I would send our only son off to university without vetting everyone in the vicinity? Why do you think I never liked her? She comes from a good family, was smart enough, pretty enough if you like that sort. At least on paper, there was no reason for me not to like her. Thank heaven you never had any romantic interest in her or who knows what I