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Disorder wasn’t allowed in the world I grew up in, where everything was scheduled and orchestrated down to every minute of every day. Chaos, in its pure form, was too wildly unpredictable and created too much conflict. A temper tantrum rarely gave a child what it wanted in the end, unless the time and place were correct.
However, if done correctly, a child throwing a fit to get what it wanted could yield results. Exasperated results, but results, nonetheless.
Calculated chaos—that was my specialty.
“I’m so very sorry about my daughter’s behavior,” my father, the head of staff management at both the hotel and country club, repeated the same phrase over and over, each time growing higher in pitch. “I apologize profusely for her actions—it never should’ve happened.”
He wasn’t speaking to me, of course. After I pulled back from the kiss, my parents hustled the waiter and me from Alderton-Du Ponte Country Club to Massey Hotel & Suites quickly and as quietly. The club and the hotel were bridged by a long-windowed corridor that stretchedbetween the two buildings. We all sat in my mother’s office now, a room that had floor to ceiling windows covering the far wall. During the day, it overlooked the beautiful rolling hills of the golf course, the weeping willows drooping low into the pond.
At night, it almost looked like a scene from a horror movie, the light illuminating the course just enough to cast all sorts of wicked shadows. I liked it better this way.
“I mentioned to you before that my daughter can lean toward the… stranger side,” my father went on. He paced my mother’s office while the other three of us sat at the table. My mother had her arms folded on the surface professionally. The waiter sat stiffly. I lounged in my seat, using my feet to oscillate back and forth. “Margot does have some… well… some unique tendencies.”
The waiter slowly turned his attention from my mother to me, almost as if he didn’t want to look. His hair was so light a brown that it almost looked golden, loose and ungelled over his forehead in a way that wasn’t typical for the staff.
He was handsome, though. So much so that if someone put him in a Malstoni suit, he would’ve blended into high society without anyone thinking twice.
“Our daughter likes to cross the line,” my mother cut in levelly. Her business tone held every drop of authority in the room, as professional as my father wasn’t. She wasn’t flustered, not even a bit. “She takes pleasure in shocking people. Please know that it was nothing more than a child’s attempt to get her parents’ attention. I deeply apologize for her immature, inappropriateactions.”
The cater waiter held onto his reply. I watched him while turning to and fro, but there was nothing in his expression that belied a hint of what he was feeling. His poker face was top-notch, better than some people at the club. If it hadn’t been for his nervous shifting earlier, I could’ve convinced myself that perhaps he, too, truly was unfazed.
My mother turned to me. “Margot.”
“I deeply apologize for my immature and inappropriate actions,” I repeated, echoing the line she’d set up for me. I looked at her lazily. “You were there when Ms. Jennings said I’d probably never been kissed by a man. I figured you’d want me clearing the air.”
A muscle ticked in my mother’s jaw. “By kissing our staff?”
“I’d be a hard sell for Aaron if word got around that I wasn’t interested in men, don’t you think?”
“And youwouldn’tbe a hard sell for kissing other men?”
I didn’t want to admit it. “I didn’t think that far.”
My mother drew in a breath as if she were going to launch into a lecture, but swallowed the air instead in a grapple for patience. The waiter’s eyes darted between us, and I could practically read his mind.What is wrong with these people?I looked at his mouth, the same mouth that I’d pressed my own against earlier, and smirked.
Standing just behind her chair, my father stood nervously, glancing between the waiter and my mother. It was almost comical how contrasting their behaviors were, my parents. I resented how much I was like my mother, who could remain cool, calm, and collected even in theface of another instance of mine. She wasn’t bothered in the slightest.
“Margot,” she said without looking at me. It was my mother beginning the conversation, speaking to me as if I was a business associate and we were discussing a contract. “Mr. Pennington, here, is not a simple cater waiter.”
Mr. Pennington. I rolled the surname around in my head, marinating on it. A cater waiter with an expensive-sounding last name. I liked it. “He is an undercover spy, is he?” I’d guessed correctly.
“Hewas. Only for tonight. A worker called in sick, and I figured him giving a helping hand would let him get a lay of the land. To try not to have attention drawn to him, but… well.” She fought to keep the annoyance from her tone. “We’ve hired on Mr. Pennington to be your personal secretary.”
Personal secretary. The words didn’t quite connect at first. My parents had secretaries, of course, but it made no sense formeto have one. Not when I barely left my parents’ sight as it was. If she was going to hire me a personal secretary, she should’ve hired onebeforeI left for college, and she wouldn’t have had to move with me. I didn’t need one now, back on their home turf.
And then, as if guessing my thoughts, she said, “With the Conan’s daughter’s wedding coming up next month, and the country club transitioning into its summer activities list, your father and I can’t possibly monitor you twenty-four-seven. We’ve hired Mr. Pennington to be with you whenever you leaveyour room.”
She paused there, allowing me to connect the dots myself. “You hired him as my babysitter?”
“Your secretary,” my father insisted, as if I hadn’t heard the word the first time. “As you know, Margot, we don’t quite trust you to be on your own. Your impulsivity could ruin these chances of Aaron’s approval for you, which we know you don’t want. Think of this as us trying to save you from yourself.”
Ruin these chancesfor them, they meant. One slip up, and my marriage with Aaron could fall through—which meant their dream of joining hands with Astro Agencies, one of the biggest travel agencies on the west coast, would sink along with it.
“Surely you can’t keep Mr. Pennington on now,” I said with a tinge of tension in my voice. “Not when everyone saw him kiss me.” While I’d guessed my mother hired him, if I’d known he was meant tostayaround me, I would’ve caused more of a scene. Kissed him longer than two seconds. Because ithadbeen chaste—brief enough that I barely registered the softness of his lips before I pulled back. “Can you imagine the rumors? Them getting back to the Astors?”
My mother didn’t even flinch. “We already have it covered with Aaron Astor.”
“How could you possibly already have it covered?”