Chapter 17: The End of the Night

Gwen released her arm from Finn’s hand, anger replacing her previous nervousness. She wasn’t that rude to his mother anyway. Mrs. Lane had been much worse, with her rude implications and sneering looks.
So why did Gwen have to accept that and stay quiet like a submissive person? She wasn’t going to accept it, especially not from his mother.
“Maybe you should ask her instead. I don’t owe you any explanation,” she replied, looking at Finn in disappointment.
It wasn’t his fault though, and she knew that. Finn had no idea of the shared history between the two women, but Gwen wasn’t going to be the one to tell him anything. He wouldn’t believe her anyway.
“What do you mean ask her? You two just met,” Finn said, also angry.
Gwen gulped.
“I don’t have to say anything to you, okay? And you know what? I’m going home with Cody. This party is over for me. Actually, it didn’t even begin.”
“No, you’re not,” Finn refused.
“You don’t tell me what to do,” she replied, with her head up. “It's already late for Cody, and he needs to go to bed,” she concluded.
Finn was mad. Mad for not understanding anything. Mad for not having control over her. He wasn’t used to that. He was used to having control of every single thing.
But Gwen was another story. He was never able to tell her what to do. Not that he wanted to though; he liked her independence, and was always clear about that.
But in moments like this, when he’s pissed at her and unable to prevent her from doing something he doesn’t like, he would always feel powerless.
Gwen was amazingly attractive, but she managed to become even more so when she was angry. Her cheeks would turn red and her explosiveness had a tendency to turn him on.
“Cody is loving the party. You don’t have to go now,” he insisted, changing his tone and trying to convince her to stay a little longer.
“There's nothing for me here, Finn. Can’t you tell?” she refused again. “I don’t belong here and I don’t need to endure people staring at me and saying things behind my back,” she explained.
“They won’t do that again. I’ve already-” Finn was going to tell her that he stood up for her, and told the employees that such a thing wouldn’t be tolerable in his company, but at that moment, a voice interrupted him.
He turned to look and saw Vivienne coming towards them. Gwen’s cheeks turned even redder than before.
“Finn, what are you doing here? Everyone’s looking for you,” Vivienne’s whiny and obnoxiously loud voice made the atmosphere even tenser.
Gwen watched her hand grab Finn’s arm and squeeze it gently, caressing it right after. Finn looked at this move and clenched his teeth, but Gwen didn’t understand why he acted that way around Vivienne. Actually, she didn’t understand why he accepted that, because from what she could tell, Finn couldn’t stand the woman.
“I’ll be inside in a bit, Vivienne. Just tell them I’m dealing with something important,” his voice sounded cold and impatient.
“Come on, baby. What could be so important? There’s a whole party going on and you’re here talking to… her?” Vivienne looked at Gwen from head to toe with disgust.
“What’s wrong with her?” Finn looked at Vivienne with very furious eyes. “I've already told you that I’ll be back in a bit, so can you excuse us?”
“My father wants to talk to you. Now,” she emphasized that, and Gwen noticed Finn clenching his fist. “He said it’s urgent, so… I don’t think you’d like to keep him waiting, would you?” she concluded with an evil smile, which only made Gwen want to punch her teeth.
Finn closed his eyes for a split second to pull himself together, otherwise he could do something irreversible. He couldn’t lose control, so he looked from Vivienne to Gwen.
“We’ll talk about this later. Just wait for me here,” Finn asked, and Gwen only nodded.
She wasn’t going to do what he asked, of course, but she wasn’t going to start another discussion there, especially not in front of Vivienne. She could tell that Finn was very furious with the whole situation, so continuing their argument wouldn’t help anything.
Gwen waited until they were back inside the house, and let a few minutes pass by thinking of a way to go home without catching Finn’s attention. It wasn’t going to be that easy, since Cody was with him most of the time. Then an idea occurred to her.
“Hey, Jessie,” she called, already back in the hall, poking the woman’s arm gently. “I need to ask you a favor, can you help me?”
“Gwen, where have you been? I barely saw you all night. Oh, you know, I would never imagine that you were the mother of Mr. Lane’s son. Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?” Jessie started to spill it all out, not allowing Gwen to speak.
“Jessie,” Gwen interrupted her. “I have to go home, so can you please help me?" she basically begged.
The woman looked at her differently, like she understood what Gwen was going through. Words weren’t really necessary at that moment, which Gwen was very grateful.
Gwen was deciding to trust someone she had just met, but she didn’t have a lot of choices at that moment. All she wanted was to go home and escape everyone’s judgmental eyes. At least for that night. She had had enough already.
“Yes, of course. What do you need me to do?”
“Do you think you could bring Cody to me? Pretend you’re going to show him something and take him to meet me outside? I’ll call a cab while you do it.”
Jessie looked at her a bit concerned.
“Nothing will happen to you. When Finn asks you where Cody is, you can tell him that I took him home. I wouldn’t ask if it could cause you any trouble, don’t worry,” Gwen explained, trying to ease her concerns.
Jessie agreed, and in a few minutes, Gwen was finally inside the cab with Cody by her side. Finn was going to be furious when he found out that she left with the boy, but she didn’t care.
“Mommy, I loved this party. Everyone was very nice to me,” Cody said lively.
All Gwen wanted to tell him was to not believe those people. They were all fake. Most of them anyway. They only treated him nicely because he was the son of their boss. But that was too much for a four year old to understand.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, baby. But it’s time for little kids to sleep, right? As soon as we get home, you’re going to change your clothes and go to bed, ok?” Gwen asked, caressing Cody’s hair.
“Okay, mommy. Ah, grandma said that she’ll take me to the park one day. I can go, right?”
Gwen felt like she had been punched in the stomach.
Over her dead body would she allow Cody to spend time with that woman alone.