and still feel affection. Had he kept up with Kimberly all along, or had this been a final goodbye of some sort? What did Kimberly have that Bernie didn’t that drew Calvin in like that?
It didn’t matter—cheating was cheating. Bernadette had expected fidelity in their marriage, and Calvin had wholeheartedly agreed. The less to hide the better, he’d said. And if she wasn’t sure how well she could trust his love for her, she could definitely trust his ambition. And they both knew that in order to get where they wanted to go, fidelity was imperative. She’d never be able to trust him again after what she’d witnessed. But she still wanted to know. Blast it, how could he be making out with Kimberly mere minutes before he was supposed to be saying his vows? What kind of man did that?
Bernie leaned her head back. Her life had been so carefully planned. She was going to marry Calvin, and they were going to make their bid for the White House. Bernadette would learn the family business for when she eventually took over from her father, and one day when Calvin’s presidency was behind them, they’d run the Morgan dynasty together. And perhaps she’d been naïve, but she’d honestly believed that she was beautiful and intelligent enough to capture her husband’s heart. The flames to their romance might have been fanned with money, but she’d expected monogamy. But now everything—absolutely everything—was going to be different. And that included her running the Morgan family business, because she’d just infuriated her father so badly that he might very well change his mind. She passed a hand over her face.
Liam had taken Ike back to his place across the street earlier in the evening. That mechanic had been kind to her. Heaven knew how crazy she’d looked when she’d driven up. After he and the toddler had left, she’d gone to the washroom and seen herself in the mirror for the first time; it wasn’t a pretty sight. She had makeup streaked down her face from crying, her hair was in tangles, and the dress was dusty and torn.
She’d wrestled her way out of the dress—popping a few buttons and managing to tear the skirt even further—and then sat on the closed toilet lid and had a good cry.
Vince’s wife, Tabby, was used to this. Vince had always had some girl on the side—that was just the way he was.
But Bernie wasn’t as tough as Tabby was. She couldn’t stand next to Calvin in a campaign, declaring him to be twice the man he really was. She wasn’t that good a liar, and she didn’t care to be.
“Hot chocolate?”
Bernie roused herself from her thoughts, and looked up to find her aunt standing in front of her, a cup of frothy cocoa in her hands.
“Thanks.” Bernie took the mug with a grateful smile. “I haven’t had unnecessary calories in five months in order to fit into that stupid dress.”
“Then time to make up for it,” Lucille replied with a low laugh, sinking onto the sofa beside her. “I’ve got pie in the kitchen, too.”
Bernie took a sip. “I couldn’t do what Tabby does.”
“Vince’s wife?” Lucille asked. “How do you think she’ll react if she finds out about Ike?”
Bernie shook her head, then glanced out the living room window again toward Liam’s house. “She probably already knows.”
Tabby was the genius behind Vince’s political campaigns. She acted meek, beaming up at her tall, meaty husband, but somehow she’d managed to disconnect her heart from the game. How did a woman do that? How did she support a man whom she knew was a cheater?
“You aren’t like her,” Lucille concluded.
“No,” Bernie replied. “I’m not. I couldn’t just stand there and pretend everything was perfectly fine when it wasn’t. I actually thought Calvin would be faithful.”
“I’m glad you came,” Lucille said with a sympathetic smile. “And I’m glad you aren’t that good an actress. It says something about you that you can’t fake it.”
“My parents wouldn’t agree with that,” she replied in a low voice.
“What did they tell you about me?” Lucille asked. There was tension in her voice, and she looked away.
“Oh, you don’t want to know that.” Bernie laughed uncomfortably. Her father had never had anything good to say about his sister.
“No, I do.” Lucille looked back. “I always hoped your dad would come around one day and make contact. He never did. Then I hoped that you’d get curious about your aunt...”
“Why didn’t you come around?” Bernie asked.
“I wasn’t welcome. I was also a little scared. I didn’t know what he’d told you.”
Bernie grimaced. “He said you were a social and political liability.”
That was the kind way of putting it. What her father had actually said was that Lucille was low-class, and even with money, she acted like a poor person with nothing to lose. He said she was grasping and selfish, and he suspected that she had some untreated mental illness.
“My father told me about your grandmother’s engagement ring,” Bernie said after a moment. “Is that really what started this whole feud—a ring?”
“It was more than a ring.” Lucille’s mouth turned downward, and she fell silent.
“What was it?” Bernie pressed.
Lucille heaved a sigh. “It was your father’s domineering ways. He didn’t ask me for the ring, he demanded it. He told me that unless I came with a sincere apology for my insulting behavior and the ring, then I was dead to him.”
“And you couldn’t do it.”
“I had my pride,” she replied. “I still do. He demanded that I genuflect like the household help, tug at my cap like a chauffeur. He’d inherited the whole shebang, and I was slotted in below him. He liked that role—ruling us all. And I didn’t.”
Bernadette could understand that, actually. Her father was a prideful man, and he took his position in society and in the family very seriously—perhaps more seriously than anyone else did. A lot of people would have complied with that demand, but they weren’t his sister.
“I get it,” Bernie said. “But you walked away from an awful lot of money.”
“I still get my lifelong allowance from my father’s inheritance,” Lucille replied. “It’s enough to live on now that Arnie’s gone. I didn’t walk away from that. I walked away from the duties, the social obligations. I walked away from the houses that would be paid for by my brother—and all the strings that came with them. I refused to be handled. And Milhouse wouldn’t bend. So—” She spread her hands. “It is what it is.”
She’d refused to be handled. Bernie had just done the same thing when she’d turned off her phone and driven west. Her parents had always “handled” her, and until today, she’d never minded. She’d done her duty, shown up at cocktail parties and dinners and made nice with various politicians. She was a general media favorite, and she liked the attention.
But now she wouldn’t do what they wanted. She wouldn’t smile for the press and say something sweet and submissive like, “Calvin and I are so sorry to disappoint everyone today, but we’ve done
