Page 95 of State of Ruin

That is not our story, but no matter. She and I will set the record straight with the people who count (except for the Alchemy part, obviously), and the rest of the world can believe what it wants.

If my mother requires some Disney-fied version of our love story in order to tolerate Elyse, then I’ll happily let her have that—not because I care what she or Dad or any of their friends think, but because we plan on spending a ton of time at The Lindens, and I can’t bear the idea that my parents might give her a hard time for being exactly who she is.

That Elyse and her family are better human beings than my parents will ever be just adds insult to injury.

Honestly, it works in our favor that my folks like to preserve appearances at all costs. It means that they can brush their misgivings under the carpet and we can blithely ignore them.

My mom knows how to read the political, cultural, and social temperature of any room (appearances as levers, remember?), and her sources are all telling her the same thing: the press fucking loves that I’m marrying Elyse. Don’t underestimate how far that dictates my mom’s public endorsement of us.

Regarding the press, I suspect it’s partly the novelty factor—Elyse is not part of that closed circle of women from which I might have eventually and reluctantly been expected to make my choice—and partly that she’s a fresh new face in the cosmetics industry in her own right. They particularly like that she’s the new face of LANE, and there’s a lot of speculation about how I’m handling my fiancée working for Voss’s biggest rival.

The answer, as you well know, is that it’s called karma, bitch, and I deserve nothing less.

Also that I’m so fucking proud of her that I might burst with it.

Fairwater in late June is the perfect time and place to throw an engagement party. After all, it personifies Marion Voss’s entire MO, which is showing off without appearing to try. You might even say it embodies her entire MO (you’re welcome, Elizabeth).

The peonies may be over, but the roses are in full bloom, and the gardens resemble a David Austin brochure. The lawns are a perfect green velvet, and the obligatory banks of hydrangeas are exploding against the rear wall of the house: masses of Annabelle turning white and the tasteful blue-to-periwinkle excess of the bigleafs.

But, most perfectly, the linden trees that flank my house are at their best right now, in full bloom, their yellow-white blossoms throwing off the loveliest scent. Forgive a poor, lovesick fool for finding it auspicious that they are here to welcome the Bayonne contingent: Kurt, Sylvie, Fleur, Gloria, Reggie, and, of course, Jambon, who are my and Elyse’s guests at The Lindens this weekend.

The other surprise guest?

Luc.

a.k.a. the cousin-fucker, who will be bunking up with Sylvie. Elyse’s agent, Olivia, has introduced him to a buddy of hers at Vantage. They’re going to do some test shots of him while he’s here, so he may be switching up his career and his location in grand style. Watch this space.

Speaking of Sylvie, I may have had to revert to my old, dastardly ways in recent months, by which I mean I meddled. I ramped up Sylvie’s PT to four times a week, which meant that, by late January, she was in good enough shape that I could move Elyse out of her twin bed in Bayonne and into my bed in Manhattan.

I may also have pulled a few strings at work. You only have to spend five minutes with Sylvie to realize that she’s smart as fuck, and less than five minutes more to understand that it’s better if she channels all that snark and intelligence into her job and not into crushing her future brother-in-law’s ego on a regular basis.

So I hooked her up with our HR department with the promise that I wouldn’t interfere (I’m not stupid enough to meddle in the Ward sisters’ careers a second time). What do you know? She got a job in our digital marketing department based fully on her own merits. It only requires one day a week in the office… and it comes with an excellent healthcare package.

Back to the hydrangeas. They are everywhere on this perfect late-June evening: banked along the house and exploding from the vases dotted along the tables under the white open-sided marquees and in huge blue-and-white urns along the edge of the terrace. The lawn is strewn with fairy lights, an excellent band is playing, and my fiancée is the happiest and most radiant I have ever seen her in a short white sundress that has me positively feral.

My buddies are here: Kieran and Felix, Kieran sizing up the female guests quietly and Felix more vocally. Even by his standards, Felix is looking particularly smug today. I know I’ll regret asking him why, but I do it anyway and instantly want to punch myself in the face.

“Guess who got called in for a sit-down with Katrin this week?” he asks me with a self-satisfied grin.

I roll my eyes as Elyse smiles at him. She’s way too accommodating. “What did she say?”

“She has a sexy little project for yours truly.”

Elyse giggles. I purse my lips. This cannot be good. “Just say it already.”

He smirks. He’s enjoying this far too much. “A new member is joining and she’ll need a little… TLC. She’s high profile, if you get my drift, and she needs an induction.”

“Who?” my fiancée asks, eating right out of his sweaty, British palm.

“I’m not supposed to say.”

At this rate, I will detach my eyeballs from their sockets. “Like that’s ever stopped you.”

He looks around to check no one besides us is listening—they aren’t; he’s not that interesting—and stage-whispers, “Grace Sutton.”

Elyse gasps before clamping her hand over her mouth. I snicker and shake my head. “You sneaky bastard.” Grace Sutton is as A-list as they come, an Emmy-award-winning actress who’s starred in the show American Royal for what must be four or five seasons now: think a Kennedy-esque family based in Newport with Succession levels of dysfunction (or Voss levels, if that’s more clarifying).

The show is fantastic, Grace Sutton is hot as hell, and she’s⁠—