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Rebecca, one week later, New York

“In case I didn’t say it earlier, I really appreciate your help, Mom.

I can’t believe how fast you pulled all of this together,” Rebecca said to her mother as she folded some of the red towels and placed them next to a pile of emerald towels her mother had already washed.

It was amazing all the things that now adorned her new atrium apartment in New York City.

Yes, she would have been able to afford an apartment in NYC, but her parents insisted that they help her, and they had, which upgraded her living situation incredibly.

She had a cool loft on the top floor of the building that had atrium-curved windows.

And the windows covered one entire wall.

The space was amazing and urban, stylish, and fun.

If a space could be sexy, it was sexy, especially with her mother’s decorating, which was a little surprising.

“I love this. It is like decorating a wonderful dollhouse, which just happens to be my daughter’s, the second in her class at Wharton and a brand-new executive.”

“Well, who knows if they will keep me? I have to prove myself. And the certifications and training, they never stop.”

“You’ll pass those easily. If they are too stupid to recognize your talent, your father will find a place for you.

Heck, he’ll snap you up. He is still a little hurt you chose not to work for him from the get-go, but I think he now understands it.

And he is very proud, but then he has always been proud of you.

He’s never liked Lucien Donovan, so there is that too. ”

“Thank you, Mom, but I really want to prove myself…I think I understand why he doesn’t like Donovan.

The man is kind of slick. Hey, what are these?

” Rebecca opened a bag from Ralph Lauren and pulled out some very non-traditional sheets.

“I thought you only bought white sheets. Was there a mistake? These are red…and very, very nice.”

Rebecca’s father met her mother when Victoria was called in to handle a remodel on one of the Stark Hotels. After all this time, she knew the hotel business as well as her husband.

“Well, hotel sheets must be white so we can bleach the hell out of them, but I wanted something special and kind of pretty for my daughter.”

Rebecca had a flashback memory to stiff white sheets when she had made love with Mitch for the first time.

She had worried that she might bleed and have other injuries from losing her virginity, but it had been sheet burn on her side that had hurt the most. She had wondered at the time if the sheets were made of fiberglass.

Her mother proceeded to pull out several red damask shams and coordinating silk pillows. They were all red or patterns of red, green, and other colors that looked wonderful together, but they were elegant. Much more elegant than she’d have bought for herself or felt she deserved.

“They are gorgeous,” Rebecca said, wondering if her bedroom suddenly looked a little like a bordello.

“You aren’t a powder-puff pink girl. You were always my jewel-tone girl. I mean, look at your eyes, for goodness’ sake. You were meant for diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. So, I went with that theme.”

“I like what you are saying, and you aren’t wrong.

I like the jewel tones,” Rebecca said, glancing at her closet that contained twelve new suits, thanks to a shopping spree with her mother.

All of her suits were emerald, ruby, sapphire, white, or black.

They hadn’t tried on any pastels. Nor had she wanted to—especially after seeing Lily Donovan.

Rebecca had turned the decorating completely over to her mother, and she was glad she had. Would she have decorated as boldly? No. Her mother had taken Rebecca’s college Ikea tastes and turned them into sexy sophistication.

Victoria, standing on a short ladder, asked for the drill.

“Mom, how did you learn to do this? You know, using power tools and stuff.”

“I don’t know. I just picked it up along the way. It impresses the hell out of your father. Seeing a fashionable woman who is at ease with power tools. I think it is a bit of an aphrodisiac. Okay, hand me that bracket.”

Rebecca did as she was told and tried not to grimace.

She knew her parents had a rough patch when she was a small child, but it hadn’t lasted long, and now they were very happy.

She had not asked what happened because, frankly, she didn’t want to know.

And she saw the way her father looked at her mother as if the sun rose and set with her.

He not only loved her mother, but he also adored her.

He was always touching her. Rebecca wanted a love like that.

The curtain rod was next, and then she was handing up some heavy ruby silk damask drapes with an edge of gold tassels on the opposite wall of the atrium windows. She didn’t know where her mother had found half of this stuff.

“I can’t believe you threw this together in a matter of days.”

“Darling, before I married your father, it is what I did all the time. Days? Really? I did this actually in a day. I did have a car waiting with a driver who carried my packages, but aside from that, it all came together very easily.”

Her doorbell rang, and Victoria said, “I think that is Williams Sonoma with your kitchen.”

“Mom, Williams Sonoma? That had to cost a fortune.”

“Darling, your daddy and I are loaded, so let me have my fun.”

Rebecca thought her eyes would bulge from all the deep green, dark blue, and bright red enamel Le Creuset cookware, then the designer China and silver was unpacked and loaded into her new dishwasher.

Once the helpful delivery men left, Rebecca said, “I hope this doesn’t come as a surprise, Mom, but I don’t cook.”

“Oh, you never know, you might meet someone who does,” Victoria said.

“Maybe I’ll have to take cooking classes on my days off. If I have any days off.”

Over DoorDash-delivered Caesar salads from Dean & DeLuca and glasses of wine, Victoria said, “You haven’t said much about our hotel in London. How was your room? Did they treat you well? They better have.”

Rebecca left the maid a twenty-pound note on the end of her bed for her two nights in London. Heck, she hadn’t even seen the maid. After her drink with Mitch, she’d called the airline and moved up her flight. She left early the next morning.

“The hotel might need some attention. The room looked a little dated, but it was okay. The room service menu was a little plain.”

“It is slated for a remodel in a year or two. I just don’t know if the manager will survive. Alex can’t stand Benjamin Renwick, and I don’t think I’m much of a fan either.”

“Thankfully I didn’t see him. I think he is a jerk.”

“I think it might be unanimous. No one in the family likes him. By the way, how did my sweet Mitch look?”

The bomb had been dropped. The salad churned in her stomach. She wanted to run, but she had a feeling her mother would chase her. Time to look cool.

“I forgot how much you liked him. He looked fine. He’s getting married in September.”

Her mother smiled, the crooked smile she reserved for the inept, and looked at Rebecca. “I know. I’ve heard the rumor. Well, we will see.”

“What do you mean by that?” Rebecca asked.

“Did he get a look at you?”

“Of course. He interviewed me. We talked for two hours with Lucien Donovan. I told you all this when I was in London when they made me the job offer.”

“Yes, I see,” Victoria said with a smile. “Mitch is so handsome now. We dropped in when we were in London last year. I thought about it later. He is kind of dashing, like a young Pierce Brosnan.”

Rebecca knew when her mother was toying with her, and she wasn’t in the mood. She set down her fork and said, “What are you trying to say, Mother? And by the way, Pierce is Irish and about seventy. Mitch is still American, and he is only thirty.”

Her mother smiled. “I can’t help it. He is a young Pierce.

Oh, Rebecca, I know it isn’t easy. Neither one of you fooled any of us back then, six years ago.

I always predicted that we were all just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But it hasn’t quite yet. I shouldn’t have said a word.

You weren’t ready to hear it. We will talk again soon. I’m here for you, darling.”

“What? What did you want to tell me?” Rebecca asked, getting angry.

“You two have been in love with each other since he started coming home with Alex. I was a little worried about it at the time because you were too young, but there was a way you looked at each other. I worried a little. Your father wanted to sit you down and talk to you and Mitch, but thankfully, he didn’t need to. ”

Rebecca held her arms up in frustration, feeling that her mind had just been blown, and said, “He is getting married in September to a woman who wears pink Chanel and perfume that smells like candy. Do you hear me?”

“Darling, that wedding isn’t going to happen. He’s in love with you.” Rebecca agreed, but she couldn’t say anything.

“And I love him,” Rebecca said in a small voice.

“I know. It isn’t over yet.”

“He had six years to do something about it, and he didn’t. How in love with me can he be? I’ll tell you. He isn’t. Every time he came to the United States since, he has avoided me.”

“He is overwhelmed. He’s probably thinking of how to get himself out of this mess.”

“ Mom , please…stop!”

“Oh, stop being so dramatic. You are an adult now. It isn’t like when you were eighteen and had that fling with him before he went to London.”

Rebecca felt her cheeks redden.

“How…do you know any of this?” Rebecca was embarrassed and wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. But why did she feel the need to ask the question? Now would have been her time to shut up.

“Madge Cunningham, my bridge partner at the time, was the concierge of the Marriott Marquis at Times Square. I remember telling you at least six months earlier, but you ignored me, ever the rebellious teenager. Anyway, she recognized you as you walked through the lobby with Mitch.

“Poor Mitch, he had such a rough life,” her mother continued.

“A boy without a father in his teens, and then he lost his mother. I’m glad your father and I could be there for him.

He is like another son to me and a great influence on Alex.

His home life was terrible, and when he first started coming home with Alex, he looked to us as his second home.

I liked that. I liked to think I was the mother he could depend on after losing his own. ”

Rebecca let her mother’s words register. She knew about what they had done before he left for London. “Oh, god. No. You knew? All this time?”

“I’m your mother. Of course I knew. However, your father doesn’t know for sure. He only has a suspicion. I think we should keep it that way.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Rebecca said.

“Look, Becca, I know how it is to be in love. You are my daughter, so you love like I do. Your father was with another woman when I showed up to decorate his hotel. Our attraction, the need we felt for one another, was…well…it felt like it was overwhelming at the time. I really thought it was one-sided until he asked me to look at the Liberty Suite with him. I knew something was up on the elevator ride. I only hoped I was right, and I was. I remember hearing the door shut, and then he put the chain on it. The only thing we looked at from that moment on was each other. We stayed for six magical, life-changing hours. After that, he was never with that other woman again. And I never went back to my little apartment. I was in his bed from that night on. And when I found out I was pregnant, we got married. Alex was our first, and we were so excited.”

Rebecca put her head in her hands, then laid her forehead on the table. It was too much information. All the things she had believed growing up weren’t exactly true. Her parents were very sexual beings. No wonder she was a hound. She got it from them.

She looked up and asked, “You lived with Daddy before you got married?”

“It was so scandalous at the time in my parents’ social circle. My father wanted to kill him. Your dad had taken my innocence in the Liberty Suite and made a woman out of me. Yet he hadn’t made an honest woman out of me. I mean, it wasn’t the 1950s, but to my parents, it was.”

Rebecca topped off her wine glass from the bottle sitting in the new ice bucket her mother had purchased the day before.

How many hours of therapy would she need to get over her mother’s disclosure?

How many times would she have to shut her eyes before she wouldn’t see her parents knocking it out in a suite where she had stayed many times?

“I’m sorry, darling. Have I shocked you?” her mother asked as she took another delicate bite of salad.

“Yes,” Rebecca said and drank the glass of wine as if it were water. Did she have anything stronger in the apartment? If she didn’t, she would, posthaste.

“I know it is hard to think about your parents as affectionate, but your father and I still find each other quite attractive and have a very active physical life together. But aside from a little separation when you and Alex were little and we were trying to figure it out, we have been blissfully happy. And I think your father really grew up over those few months. It was either that we walked away or that we made it work and committed in a way we hadn’t before.

When he came back to me, there was an earnestness about him.

I don’t know what he did or where he was, but whomever he met, whatever happened, it pushed him to grow up.

I have a feeling, of course, that it was another woman, but I’m the love of his life, and there has never been a doubt since he came back. ”

Rebecca felt sick. It was bad enough to know that her parents were sexual beings, but now her mother admitted her father had been unfaithful, but it was okay because he had recommitted to her.

How did she process all this information?

Well, she couldn’t. Her mother had always been almost formal, a prude, and this new, blunt openness was really freaking her out.

“Mom, please. I’m glad you and Dad are happy, but I don’t need to know all the details. I think I might be sick,” Rebecca said as she pushed away her salad.

Her mother poured more wine into her glass and asked, “Well, I always thought you were lucky. Mitch is such a handsome young man.”