Virtue & Vanity (3 page)

“Isabelle,” I said and instantly got distracted by those green eyes. They were magnificently beautiful and scary at the same time. I blushed because of the sole fact that I was gracing this man’s presence. “I’m Isabelle.”

I almost added ‘your highness’ because he exuded an air of royalty. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find a single flaw in his appearance. He was suited, tall, handsome—and terrifyingly beautiful. His face seemed to be a work of art. His brown, satin skin, flawless facial contours that appeared to be boyish and rough at the same time, as well as his short, black hair which was simple, yet perfectly styled, made him look like a model from the cover of a magazine. 
Why on earth would he want to marry a girl like me?
 I glanced at him with a huge question mark rising above my head, and my confusion grew as I was subjected to the meticulous inspection of his bright, scrutinizing eyes. His composure radiated an unmistakably unyielding attitude. This man bowed to no one, that much was clear. And his coldness served him well as a weapon of intimidation.

“Sebastian,” he said in a voice that was stripped of any emotion.

Almost instantly after introducing himself, he let go of my hand as if I disgusted him and sat across from me at the table. I returned to my seat, feeling uncomfortable and not knowing on what to focus my gaze to escape his interrogating eyes, so I directed it at the floor again.

“She’s quite a catch, brother. Don’t you think?” Dianne continued with her earlier tormenting. Sebastian’s eyes focused on me for a moment, and then glanced at Dianne.

“Not quite the catch as your husband is, sister,” he replied in a cold tone and it was clear he aimed to hit Dianne where it hurt. She exhaled angrily, rolled her eyes and looked away.

Nobody was saying anything and if something didn’t happen soon, my nervousness would become unbearable. At last, a group of maids walked in and started serving dinner. One of them announced that we were having a mushroom truffle soup which would be followed by an exquisite salmon stuffed with 
fromage frais
 and the desert would be
crème brûlée
. I didn’t understand what half of it meant and hadn’t ever eaten anything from the announced menu. It was yet another bitter reminder that I didn’t belong there, and probably never would. But how could I make my mother understand that I could never be happy with those people? She wouldn’t listen anyway, since the only thing she ever cared about was money.

“Isabelle, right?” His voice startled me from my thoughts. It was commanding and it meant that I had to look at him, and I honestly didn’t know if I could at that moment. But I lifted up my head, met his mysterious gaze and nodded in response.

“How was your trip to New York?”

Normally it would be a question one would ask to show courtesy or interest in another person, but there was something in his tone of voice that made me think he had no genuine interest in me whatsoever.

“It was okay. Everything went according to plan.” I bit my lower lip again to hide my discomfort, but I felt I couldn’t hide from him.

“Have you ever flown in a plane before?” he asked as if he knew the answer to his question.

“No…” I didn’t know how to address him; he was still nothing but a terrifying stranger. “No, Sir, I haven’t. That was my first time.”

I blushed because calling my future husband Sir seemed like such a ridiculous idea, but I didn’t feel comfortable enough around him to call him anything else, and he obviously wasn’t about to correct me.

“First time...” There was something in his voice that accentuated an inappropriate undertone of his words. “What a surprise,” he said ironically and looked away from me.

Everybody started eating their soup but to my dread there was a bunch of cutlery surrounding my plate, and I had no idea which spoon to use. I looked at Helen to see which spoon she was using, and somehow managed to recognize the right one in the pile around the plate.

“Do you like truffle soup, Isabelle?” Helen intended to ease my nerves but her attempt only led to yet another admission of my inexperience.

I smiled shyly. “I don’t know, I’ve never eaten truffles before. I’m looking forward to trying it though.”

“I think you will like it. Well, maybe not at first.” She smiled back. “It takes some time to like truffles. Well, generally, everything that has anything to do with liking or loving takes some time.” She nudged Sebastian, who was sitting next to her, but he only glanced at me shortly and showed no intention of responding to Helen’s comment.

As we moved on to the rest of the meal, I had a lot of trouble finding the right cutlery for the salmon dish. It was so obvious that I had no idea how to eat my meal, I earned another mean chuckle from Dianne, and Sebastian was also thoroughly observing my every move. The frustrating fight between me and the salmon resulted in my shaky hands cutting the damned fish with a knife that had obviously been wrong, and intended for something else entirely.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Sebastian turned towards his father and his words cut deep into my heart—a simple, cold message that meant I disgusted him.

My face reddened in shame and I dropped the knife and the fork from my hands, deciding that I was done with eating for the evening. Helen looked at me apologetically and tried to mend the damage her brother’s words had caused.

“It’s alright Isabelle. Sometimes even I have difficulty with eating properly. Use whatever you want. I will explain it to you later.” Her warmth was the only thing keeping my sanity.

“Thank you. I hope I’ll get the hang of it,” I replied in a small, humble voice. I just wanted to get out of there.

“Haven’t you used spoons or knives in Rosemont before?” Sebastian’s impatient and insulting cold voice startled me and for some reason it hurt so much to be mocked by him again.

“Of course, it’s just that... I still don’t know the purpose of everything.” I managed to reply through my shaky breath.

“Well, that means you’ve come unprepared!” His eyes glared at me.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, because I was at the verge of crying and he looked like he was completely annoyed by my meek presence.

“Remorse is not a quality I value in people, Isabelle. You should refrain from making mistakes instead of leaning towards apologizing for them. What if I took you on one of the business dinners with me and you embarrassed me like you’ve embarrassed yourself tonight? I do hope that reason will prevail in this family for once and that we’ll stop marrying gold-diggers from that redneck town.” He glanced at his father and rolled his eyes at him.

“Sebastian, that’s enough,” Catherine interrupted him, clearly feeling offended herself, because if Theodore was an Everett heir, she had to have come from Rosemont as well.

There was a moment of silence but it was too late for me to compose myself. I had lost the battle and fat tears started running down my cheeks.

“Crying,” he raised his voice and started scowling me again, “is another trait that won’t get you far with me. Childish and completely without manners—exactly what I expected!” He shook his head at his father and effortlessly said those cruel things about me.

It seemed as though that man had no ability for compassion. I guess he had a cold pit where his heart should have been. He and his family were obviously accustomed to walking all over other people. Everybody was staring at me by that point, and no matter how hard I was trying, I couldn’t stop crying. For the first time in my life, I felt so ashamed for simply being me. I felt angry with myself because I was so inadequate and so worthless, compared to this beautiful, cruel man sitting across me. Every tear I shed emphasized my pain and instead of washing away my embarrassment, it had only prolonged it. Helen looked at me with empathy gleaming from her stare.

“Stop.” She formed the word with her lips, but never uttered it. “Be strong.” It was another silent plea from her lips.

At last, I stopped crying and I prayed for that dinner to be over. I begged whichever force on earth there was for the Everett’s to finally send me away—away to my heartless mother who would lash out at me because I’d ruined her plans of getting rich. Still, I felt relieved after what had occurred that evening, because I knew that chances of Sebastian marrying me after the dinner fiasco were equal to zero.

Chapter Five

Coming back to Rosemont turned out to be more difficult than I thought. Mother was intent on getting every single detail from me, but I felt so shattered and desperately ashamed after everything I’d been through in New York, that I informed her there would be no marriage. She was furious, telling me I was selfish and that she’d known I would deliberately ruin everything. But how could I make her see that I was at the mercy of a man who was way out of my league? I was simply beneath him. How could I convince Mother that nobody had ever shamed me like Sebastian Everett had? He’d called me a gold digger and I had nothing to say in my defense. The reason I had been sitting at his dinner table was marriage and I was driven by anything but love, so that’s precisely what I was—a shameless gold digger. That was exactly what my mother had made me out to be.

Despite Mother’s intolerable fury towards me, after some time, my life slowly settled into a dazing everydayness. I’d blocked out everything that had happened in New York and had decided to try and convince Mother to allow me to attend the local college. It took me days to collect the courage to talk to her. One day, she seemed to be in a relatively good mood so I decided to tell her about my intentions. I approached her while she was in the kitchen.

“Mother.”

“Yes?” she asked indifferently.

“There’s something I want to talk to you about.” I had no idea how to ask her to support my plans.

“Oh, is that so?” It was like a dark cloud covered her ray of sunshine, and she wasn’t in a good mood anymore. “Go ahead.”

“Well, I... I was thinking and... I wanted to ask you if maybe we can talk about... about—” I was stuck, too afraid that the slightest hope I had would be shattered to pieces.

“About what, Isabelle? Spit it out already. I haven’t got all day to waste.” She was getting agitated and that wasn’t a good sign.

“Mother, you know how I’ve always loved literature, and that my dream was to study...”

“Wait!” she interrupted me and went towards the kitchen window. The most important sentence I had uttered in my entire life was left hanging in the air.

There was an expensive car parked in our driveway and Rosario Moran was getting out of it. Seeing her again sent shivers down my spine. 
What on earth was she doing there?
 Whatever it was, I knew it must have something to do with the Everett’s prolonging my humiliation somehow. My mother ran to the door ecstatically and opened it before anyone even bothered to ring the doorbell. I listened to their conversation from the kitchen.

Mrs. Moran greeted Mother and explained why she came to visit us.

“I apologize for coming unannounced, but my only intention is to inform you that the Everett family has approved of Isabelle’s marriage to Sebastian and that we should take care of the necessary paperwork as soon as possible.”

“What great news! Please, would you like to come in? We can take care of everything now if you wish.”

Mother’s enthusiasm to marry me off seemed to have surprised even Rosario, who was accustomed to these kinds of arrangements.

“No, I’m sorry, I am in a bit of a hurry. I still have to prepare everything. Are you free tomorrow? We could take care of everything in the afternoon, if you don’t have any other plans,” Mrs. Moran offered.

“Of course,” Mother said in a cheerful voice. “Tomorrow afternoon sounds perfect. We’ll be waiting for you.”

“I’m very glad to hear that,” Mrs. Moran responded without returning her smiles.

“Until tomorrow then, it was great to see you again.”

“Likewise,” Mrs. Moran said before she left.

My heart sank and I had to lean against the wall not to collapse. 
What kind of cruel games was God playing with my life?
 The moment I decided to try and make a difference for myself, my worst nightmare comes knocking on my door. Sebastian had made it clear that he despised me, and it was beyond me to find any reason for him to marry me. This had to be some kind of a sick joke. Tears streamed down my face and I began drowning in despair. I was so scared of what the future held for me.

“Isabelle, you will not believe...” Mother entered the kitchen ready to share her joy with me, but stopped when she saw how upset I was. “Isabelle?”

“Please, for the love of God, ask anything—anything you want, but please don’t ask me to marry him,” I begged her with everything I had.

“Isabelle, sweetheart,” she hadn’t called me that since the last time Mrs. Moran came to visit, “I understand you might feel a little scared about everything that is happening to you lately, but soon you will be thankful I persuaded you into this marriage. Trust me.”

“Persuaded me? You are making me do this against my will. Please, just leave me alone.” I yelled.

“Isabelle, I am much older and wiser than you are. Let’s not play these childish games anymore. Just accept this wonderful opportunity life has offered you.” Her voice was filled with menace.

“But you don’t know what he’s like. He—he doesn’t even like me. He can’t stand me!” I desperately tried to make her understand.

“Don’t be a fool Isabelle. A man’s affection has to be earned.”

It stung like fire to hear her say that, because I had nothing to offer to that man to make him love me, or even cherish me like Helen had said.

“I see nothing I do or say will make you change your mind, Mother. So, I give up. You have won. You have condemned me to a life of misery.” I wiped my tears and started walking away.

“Isabelle…” Mother grabbed my wrist to stop me. “What did you want to talk about earlier?”

Why didn’t she just put a dagger through my heart?
 I started laughing because the irony wasn’t lost on me. Then I swallowed a big lump that was forming in my throat. There was no point in discussing my wishes anymore.

“Nothing, Mother. That is, nothing that’s important anymore,” I said vaguely and headed towards my room.

Stuck with my loneliness, I didn’t have enough strength to do something about my situation. Lying in my bed, I let my heart sink. Not having to feel was all I wanted in that moment. It felt like I had no one in the world. Even Ashley, my dearest sister, had become a stranger in the last weeks. Honestly, I didn’t want to blame her, because she wasn’t guilty of anything, but my bitterness ran deep. Ashley would get everything I had ever wanted. She would be educated and she would get an opportunity to make a life for herself, while I would be paying for it. My mind didn’t dare to think about what my marriage to Sebastian Everett would be like. Instead, it felt better to lie awake, staring at the ceiling and counting stars until sleep claimed me.

***

When I joined Mrs. Moran and Mother the next day, they were already discussing the terms of the prenuptial agreement which had to be signed before the wedding.

Since we weren’t in a position to demand anything or to make any changes in the contract, Mother urged me to sign everything without reading it first. Appalled by her demand, I tried to protest, demanding to read the contract that would seal my miserable fate, but one threatening glance from my mother was enough to make me comply without any resistance. In reality, I objected out of sheer necessity to spite her, and not because I wanted to study the contents of the arrangement. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t have cared less what that contract required me to do. All I knew was that I was always going to be owned by someone—a slave being passed from one master to another. Going through slow motions, I signed my name on each and every page on that lengthy document, while my mother’s eyes burned on my hand. After having made sure I signed all the papers, Mrs. Moran reached into her briefcase and laid a small jewelry box on the table.

“Open it,” she urged me.

I reached for the box and opened it. Inside of it was a huge, shiny ring. The kind of ring you noticed in the shop window but knew you would never be able to afford it. The kind of ring you dream your Prince Charming will put on your finger one day to claim you as his own. I felt something heavy in my heart, but once again swallowed my pain and smiled.

“This is your engagement ring,” she clarified. “You are required to wear it at all times from now on. Alright?”

“Yes, I understand,” I said quietly.

“Oh, this is so exciting,” Mother said with happy tears in her eyes. “Congratulations, honey.”

She pulled me into a hug and I could have sworn that Mrs. Moran noticed how stressed out I was at that moment.

“The only other thing I have to inform you about is the date of the wedding. It will take place in New York on Theodore’s sixtieth birthday, that is, in exactly three and a half weeks from now.”

“Three and a half weeks?” I was shocked it was happening that soon.

“You are not expected to take any part in preparations for the wedding. Your only obligation will be the dress fitting. As for your other duties, you are required to fly to New York as soon as possible. Mr. Everett has appointed a number of private tutors who will help you transform into an accomplished businessman’s wife.”

I knew exactly what that meant—lessons about cutlery usage so I wouldn’t embarrass him when we attended his precious business dinners. Mrs. Moran gestured at me to put on the ring. The heavy ring on my finger meant that I was officially engaged, and that my life as I knew, or imagined it, was definitely over. The Everett’s expected me to pack my bags and move to New York in two days. Mother and my sisters, together with the rest of the family, would join me three days before the wedding.

***

My days in New York went by in painful slowness and I couldn’t focus on anything that would get my mind off the wedding. At night, I would lay awake, wondering if something could have been different and I felt sorry for myself, because a bride wasn’t supposed to be dreading her own wedding. Helen was the only one who sometimes kept me company and I liked spending time with her. A small part of me hoped that Sebastian would come to visit me or at least give me some sign that he didn’t completely hate me, but I quickly realized that I might not see him until the day of the wedding. To say that I felt trapped was an understatement. Since the Everett family didn’t want to create any media frenzy over our wedding, I was expected to stay away from the public as much as possible, which meant that I was confined to the solitude of my hotel room for the most of my stay.

The tutors hired by Sebastian made my life a living hell. I had to learn how to walk, talk, eat, dance and use appropriate gestures for different opportunities. Almost a week before the wedding, one of the tutors I hated, Mr. Andre—the annoying Frenchman who taught me how to use the cutlery and walk properly—announced that he would be videotaping me that day because Sebastian wanted to see how I progressed. My cheeks immediately turned red and I wasn’t sure whether it was from shame or fury. So he was set on humiliating me again. This time, I swore I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

A plate with some kind of a fancy meal was served to me and Mr. Andre sat across from me to see if I would use the proper cutlery. At first, I hesitated because I couldn’t believe that he was actually making me do that, but his impatience was growing with each passing second.

“Today, Isabelle! I haven’t got the time to waste,” he said in his ridiculous French accent.

For a moment, I thought about defying Sebastian’s wishes, but after realizing it would only make matters worse, I complied and showed him I could use the damned cutlery and act like a freaking lady, just like he wanted me to. However, he noticed the rebellion that was building up inside me, because I rolled my eyes at him more than once.

“Respect, Isabelle, is the only thing that’s expected from you in this marriage. You seem to have a lot of difficulty learning that,” Mr. Andre spat out.

“Maybe it’s the same thing I expect from everyone else. Maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult to respect my future husband if he decided to treat me like a human being and not a dog he needs to train.” My voice was quiet and insecure but I was glad I had stood up for myself.

“As Confucius said—respect yourself and others will respect you. The question is, 
ma chérie
, will you ever be able to extort such respect, knowing that you’re selling yourself in exchange for a lavish life of luxury? I think you know what that’s called,” he said in a teasing voice.

I looked away. He was right. I was a coward and I had a feeling that the man I was going to marry would never let me forget that.