I laughed at myself, bitter to the core.
Priscilla used to be our family's part-time nanny. Like Clay, she was only four years older than me.
She was all fire, in both figure and temper, and she'd breathed life into a house that had been dead silent for years.
When I first found out she'd become my father's girlfriend, I pushed back hard.
But the day my cousin sneered that I was a motherless bastard, it was Priscilla who charged at him with a wine bottle in her hand, splitting her own forehead open in the process.
She told me my father was the gentlest, most decent man she'd ever met.
Age couldn't stand in the way of real love, she said. She truly cared for my father, and she truly ached for me.
So little by little, I let her in. I treated her like a confidante and poured out every secret I had.
And now she was saying it again. That all of this was my father's fault.
How absurd.
“Don't touch me. You're filthy.”
I wrenched my hand free, my voice shaking.
“Get out. Don't stain the path my father walks into his next life. The two of you will pay for this.”
When she saw me scrubbing my hand frantically against the hem of my dress, Priscilla's expression curdled.
Clay stepped in front of her, frowning.
“Priscilla already gave the wedding up to you. All she wants is to sign the paperwork. In everyone's eyes, you're still the future Mrs. Henson.”
“You're unstable right now. A little time to cool off will do you good. Priscilla will stay at my place for the next few days. But Margery, your father is dead. I'm the only one you have left to lean on. Don't be so willful.”
They left hand in hand.
In the portrait, my father's face was still so gentle, so kind.
And finally I broke, sobbing until I couldn't breathe.
“Dad, I'm such a fool, aren't I?”
“Played for so long by the man I loved and the friend I trusted, and I dragged you down with me.”
But I couldn't fall apart. Dad was gone. Someone still had to hold the company together.
Yet early the next morning, a text came in from my best friend.
“Margery, the sign outside your company building is gone. Are you changing the name?”
By the time I stormed into the chairman's office,
Priscilla was sitting on Clay's lap, wearing the mermaid wedding gown that was supposed to be mine.
Her neck and collarbone were marked with kisses.
Clay arched an eyebrow.
“What are you doing here?”
How rich.
They were sitting in my family's company, in the office that had once been my father's, asking me what I was doing there.
Priscilla shot to her feet, anxious, scrambling to explain.
“Margery, don't read too much into it. I can't have a wedding with Clay, and he said I'd look beautiful in it, so I just wanted to try it on……I'll go take it off and give it back to you right now.”
She made as if to head for the lounge, but Clay caught her by the waist and pulled her back.
“Give it back for what? It was tailored to your measurements in the first place. When we sign the paperwork in a few days, you'll wear this for the keepsake photos. Margery doesn't have your figure. She couldn't fill it out.”
“There are plenty of bridal shops out there. She can just grab one off the rack. If she really loves this one, we can alter the sizing and hand it down to her once you're finished with it. The wedding's at the end of the month anyway.”
This gown, Clay had flown overseas himself to have a designer make it.
Back then I'd worried he wouldn't know my measurements, so I'd gone out of my way to write them on a slip of paper for him.
But Clay had tossed it straight into the trash and kissed me hard, pretending to be offended.
“You think I don't know my own girl's measurements? Who do you take me for?”
“Your punishment is a kiss. Pay up.”
However sweet it had felt then was exactly how cold it cut now.
The "girl" he'd spoken of, it turned out, had always been someone else.
I drew in a deep breath and forced down the nausea as I asked：
“What gives you the right to have my company's sign taken down? And what makes you think you can sit there?”
Priscilla bit her lip and answered softly：
“Margery, Clay is now……the new chairman.”
