Confessions

“Well, tell me all about it!” Fae insisted as Ella came into her room at the nursing home and settled onto the couch. She had two cups of tea ready on a silver server. Ella wondered how she’d managed that without a kitchen but figured Fae had her ways. The staff absolutely adored her, for good reason. “Did you have a nice time?”
Ella smiled at her, slightly amused that she was most concerned about whether or not Ella had had a pleasant experience. She honestly couldn’t say that she had, but she’d choose her words carefully for Fae because there was no reason to spill all of the ugly business out all over the table.
“It was a huge success,” she said, trying to equate that to a “nice” time. “We sold every item again. Most of them for well above what was expected.”
Fae stared at her for a moment, took a sip of her tea, and then said, “That’s nice, honey. But that’s not what I asked you.”
Ella scrunched up one side of her face. Of course, she knew that. She decided to take a drink as well and see if that gave her the chance to think of anything she could say that didn’t sound like a confession at church. Nothing came to mind. So she stated the obvious, the one thing she’d be compelled to share even if nothing else came out. “My dad was there.”
Fae’s mostly-drawn-in eyebrows arched. “Your dad was at the art show?” Ella nodded. “How did he… get in?”
“Henry invited him. I guess the people at the door decided to let in the wealthy businessman who was a guest of one of my ‘friends.’ They certainly didn’t ask me.” She wondered if she would’ve been strong enough to turn him away even if they had called and asked if it would be all right to let him in. Probably not. It would’ve seemed odd and might have potentially made him suspicious. The last thing she needed was Lloyd Sinders digging into her background. If he did, it wouldn’t take him long to discover at all that the first record of Juliet Montague’s existence occurred shortly after the death of Ella Sinders Verona.
“Well, I’ll be,” Fae said, shaking her head as she took another sip out of the decorative, antique teacup she held in her hand, the matching saucer in the other. “I knew that tangling with that fellow was not a smart idea.”
Ella didn’t have a response for that. Fae had made her position known since the beginning. She had warned Ella that getting involved with Henry for the purposes of revenge wouldn’t go well. Even though there was a good chance all of that would be over soon, Ella didn’t want to get her hopes up too high. Still, she found herself saying, “Rome might have found a solution to that.”
“Really?” Fae asked, taking another sip of her tea and then setting it on the coffee table. “What might that be?”
“Well, there was a piece at the show that my stepmother really wanted--the Vinune I showed you.”
“Oh, yes. That piece is hauntingly lovely.”
“Yes, it is,” Ella agreed. She’d already commissioned three more pieces from Vinune for her next show. “The only reason he had come was because he wanted to secure the piece for Theresa.”
“How did he know of its existence?” Fae asked. “Henry?”
Ella nodded. “I suppose he was trying to do me a favor, get his wealthy contact to spend money at my show. Anyway, that’s why he was there. Rome went and spoke with my father and let him know that he wasn’t going to get that Vinune unless he cooperated with him and got something for him.”
“The contract?” Fae asked, the look on her face a mix of surprise and dread.
“Yes. They struck an agreement. Rome bought the Vinune, so now he’s waiting for my father to come through on his end of the bargain.”
“And what of Henry? Did he mention this to you? Will he sell the contract to your father?” Fae still sounded skeptical. Ella couldn’t blame her.
Nodding, she said, “He came to tell me that he’d found a way to get out from under Rome’s contract so that there’d be no more horrible movies, no more expense. He’s under the impression that my father will seek to embarrass Rome as much as he has. He doesn’t seem to suspect that there’s a possibility that my father will actually turn the contract over to Rome.”
“What if he doesn’t?” Fae posed a question that had been weighing on Ella’s mind ever since the show had ended, late the night before. She’d even lay awake in bed pondering all of the possibilities of how this could turn out.
“I think he will,” Ella said, the confidence in her voice wavering slightly as she met Fae’s skeptical gaze. “But if it doesn’t, then we’ll figure out what to do next. My father has never had any interest in making movies.”
“He could sell the contract to someone else. The next thing you know, your husband could be forced to make those dreadful porno movies.”
Ella sputtered as she almost spit the tea she’d been trying to swallow all over the place. “There’s a clause in the contract that says no nudity, Fae,” she said, still giggling at the woman’s consternation. “But I agree, it could end up even worse.”
Fae shook her head again. “I knew all of this was a bad idea that would just lead to trouble.”
“Well, if it works out, I can finally be rid of Henry, Rome will be free, and my father will have his precious painting. It’s a win for everyone. Except for Henry, and he can go to hell.”
“It’s not a win for your father,” Fae clarified. “He still doesn’t know that his daughter is alive.”
Shrugging, Ella pretended that she wouldn’t even consider telling her father the truth, even though the decision was something she continued to grapple with. She’d finally gone with the idea that she’d need to wait and see what happened with the contract first, and then she could decide if she wanted to tell Lloyd Sinders she was alive.
“I do hope it all works out for you, dear, I really do,” Fae said, still looking concerned. “But I have thought all along that Henry Caron was a bad person, and getting caught up with bad people only leads to bad things. There’s no guarantee he won’t do something drastic, something insane, once he finds out that you’ve been tricking him all along. How do you know that he won’t do some digging and discover that you’re not who you say you are?”
“I don’t,” Ella admitted. “I just have to find a way to make it seem as if breaking things off with him has nothing to do with Rome’s contract.”
“But then, you won’t be able to date your husband in public still, or else Henry will question whether or not he’s been duped.”
She had a point, one that Ella had overlooked. If she were to be seen with Rome so soon after Rome tricked Henry out of the contract, Henry would be suspicious, especially when he considered how Ella had offered to buy the contract herself and been so adamant that she despised Rome. But then, hadn’t Henry wondered why she hadn’t broken off her business dealings with Rome if she hated him so much? He’d not said much about it and taken her trivial responses about it being complicated as reason enough.
“I have no idea how it will all work out,” Ella admitted. “But the most important thing right now is getting that contract. Then, I’ll deal with Henry, and Rome and I can sort out how we’re going to face the world as a couple, or even if we’re going to do so. We may just have to keep hiding things. I might just have to be the girl on the beach for the rest of my life.”
“No, that doesn’t suit you,” Fae said, dismissively. “You are not the sort of girl who can stay locked up in a house on the beach and watch life through the window. Perhaps that’s who you were before, back when you were content to let them keep you in the attic. That’s not who you are now. You are a force to be reckoned with, child. Your business shows that. No, you’re more of a girl on fire than a girl content to sit on the beach and watch the waves come in and out as the world passes you by.”
Ella wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry. Fae was right. Whoever she was now, she certainly wasn’t the girl she had been back when Rome had found her and set her free. Regardless of whether she wanted to call herself Ella when she was home and Juliet when she faced the world, there was more of the Montage mogul in her than she ever would’ve thought imaginable back when her only contact with the outside world was a landline used for complaints and an email she could use to contact her father about business. She would never go back to being that person again. Never. No matter what happened with Henry, her father, and Rome. That part of herself had stayed behind in the tomb, and she wasn’t willing to resurrect her. Not for anything.