Prestige, page 14
Bonnie’s hammering heart could have been declared a new heart disease. There were so many things wrong with what she just heard. Since when was this their bachelor and bachelorette party? Bonnie didn’t invite anyone for that. Unless they were hiring paid actors, no one would be there for her.
But the biggest takeaway was Marcus’s latter sentence. Mina’s photographer. That meant Artemis would be there. In Spencer Mansion. Attending Bonnie’s (now) bachelorette party.
This had to be a joke.
“B-but we always get Kumo’s,” she said weakly.
“Well, now we’re not,” Marcus said.
Marcus’s campaign organizers came in from outside. They were laughing like drunken bros at a frat party.
“Hey, Bonnie,” said Jason. He wrapped his tan, muscled arm around Marcus’s shoulders and shook him. With his Tennessee accent, he asked, “Bet you can’t wait to marry this guy, huh?”
“I’m bursting at the seams,” Bonnie said, though her voice veered on the flat side.
“We’ve just gotta get y’all through the campaign tour first. That’ll be more brutal than the wedding planning, I promise.”
“Wait… tour?” Bonnie asked. There were too many revelations happening at once that her brain began to drown in them. She looked over at Marcus, who’d gone much quieter. “We’re going on the campaign tour already?”
“Only to hit a couple of the other big cities and some rural areas before wedding week.” Jason clarified. He looked over at Marcus in confusion. “I thought you told her?”
“She’s not coming.”
“What?” both Bonnie and Jason said.
“Why not?” Jason asked.
“I don’t need any distractions from speaking on important issues, and I don’t want her being asked questions she can’t handle, especially if they’ll end up as the next soundbite for some political attack ad.”
The room quieted as everyone listened in on the conversation. Bonnie’s face burned.
“I guess that makes sense,” Jason said. The punk had no spine of his own and lived up Marcus’s ass. “But she’ll have to be ready at some point.”
“Yes, just not right now when so many eyes will be on me and the campaign. I don’t want to risk looking…” He paused, finally realizing the cruelty of his words. But it was way too late for that.
“Risk looking what, Marcus?” Bonnie asked, shaking. “Stupid? Because clearly double majoring in finance and politics, plus having my MBA, would only further prove my lack of ability to speak on anything.”
She stormed out of the kitchen, through the chaos of party decorators, and went upstairs. When she reached the master bedroom, she slammed the door shut and sat down on the bed. Covering her face, she breathed in and out, trying to gather her composure.
There was a knock on the door.
“BonBon? What’s going on?” Vivica asked.
“Don’t come in. I’m getting dressed,” Bonnie said. She got up and went to the walk-in closet. Her bathing suit and cover-up were already laid out. She changed quickly and looked at herself in the mirror. Tears threatened to spill any moment over her red cheeks that only got puffy when she couldn’t verbalize her frustration.
She heard the bedroom door open.
“I said don’t come in, Mom,” she said.
She didn’t receive any response. When she looked in the mirror again, she saw Marcus in the doorway. Her jaw locked and she looked away. Wiping her eyes, she got up and tied the shawl around her waist. “What? Come to embarrass me in private now?”
Marcus stepped into the closet and closed the door behind him.
“What are you trying to do out there? First questioning my catering choices, and now how I choose to run my campaign…”
Bonnie had no energy to check herself. Her anger spilled out of her like an oversized load. “I’m not questioning anything. You’re the one acting like I’m incapable of doing anything. Except maybe throwing this stupid party that I never asked to throw in the first place.”
“You don’t know how good you have it, do you?”
Bonnie scoffed. “I had a life before you, Marcus. Before I became your mascot. Do you even know how smart I am? Or how hard I worked to earn the degrees I have?” She waited for him to answer, but his expression remained the same—moderate and patronizing.
“There are plenty of women I could be with who would love to throw these ‘stupid parties,’ as you’d like to call them,” he said. Those were the only words he heard.
“Maybe you should go find one of them, then,” Bonnie said, finally turning to him.
Marcus stared at her for far longer than usual. Then his face suddenly changed. A shadow appeared under his narrowed eyes and his jaw flexed. He strolled up to her calmly.
“Is that what you want?” he asked.
Bonnie, sensing his hostility, took a few steps back.
“I—” she started, now regretting her choice of words.
Marcus grabbed her by the arms, his large hands wrapping around them easily, squeezing.
“Is that what you want?” he asked again.
“Marcus, let go. You’re hurting me.” Bonnie tried to shake him off, but that made him angrier. He pushed until he had her up against the mirror. She felt the delicate glass shake.
“I need you to listen carefully,” he said with sinister calmness. “No one, and I mean no one, is going to ruin this for me. Not even you and your mood swings. Complain all you want, but you need me a hell of a lot more than I need you and your family’s pathetic legacy. So this is how it will go: you will stay here, keep your mouth shut, and plan my wedding. And when I come back, you will resume your place at my side, remaining seen and not heard. Do you hear me?”
Powerless, Bonnie nodded.
“Words. Use your words, BonBon.” Marcus shook her violently. Bonnie cried out from the pain of his fingers digging into her skin.
“I hear you!”
Marcus let her go, and Bonnie slid to the floor. With wide, teary eyes, she watched him take a deep breath and run his fingers through his golden locks.
“I’m the man of this family now, Bonnie,” he said while fixing himself in the mirror. “You’d be wise not to take that for granted.”
Bonnie’s trembling continued even after Marcus walked out of the closet.
He stopped at the last minute and turned to her. His expression went back to normal, and the shadow under his eyes disappeared.
“Let that be the last time I have to warn you,” he said before leaving the room.
twenty
If you wanted to put a picture beside the word “bougie” in the dictionary, Winnetka, Illinois would be a top contender.
Located in Cook County (or Kook County, as Artemis liked to call it), Winnetka was known for its quaint, small-town atmosphere. It hugged the North Shore of Lake Michigan, where the rich could sail their million-dollar yachts. Their mansions were well hidden in the tree-lined neighborhoods that stretched for miles so the houses weren’t too close together. In Winnetka, the richest of the rich could live peacefully.
The first time Artemis visited the area to see Bonnie, she couldn’t pick her jaw up from the ground. Every house she saw could fit multiple homes she once lived in. And after that, she could only think about how she wanted a house like that with Bonnie one day too.
While Mina drove them through the small town in the catering van, Artemis kept her head low, unable to look at any of it.
As they pulled up to the mansion, queasiness started in her stomach and worked its way up to her chest. She didn’t need to see the other houses to know that Marcus’s was one of the biggest on the street. It stood on an incline, and the driveway wrapped around the house and led to the back. There were already several cars parked in front.
Mina whistled. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” she murmured. She parked halfway up the hill, and they got out. “Stay here with the van. I’m gonna see if I can get a few folks to help unload.”
Artemis nodded and leaned against the truck, surveying the people who arrived after them. They pulled up in their Escalades, Mercedes Benzs, and Teslas wearing expensive bathing suits with designer bags draped on their arms. Most of them ignored her as she passed. Some asked her for assistance with their bags up the rest of the hill. She kept cool, despite wanting to tell them to get bent, and informed them that she wasn’t the help. Given her current attire, it was easy to make that assumption.
Artemis loosened the tie around her neck. She hated being in stuffy clothes while on a photography job, but Mina made it a rule that staff needed to wear all black while representing her business at a catering event. They blended into the background that way.
She surveyed the mansion again. While beautiful on the outside, there was something deeply unsettling about it that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
She glanced over every window on the second floor. Some of them were cracked open to let the air in. When she came to the last window on the right, she paused.
Bonnie stood there in full view, watching her. She was too far away for Artemis to see her facial expression. Awkwardly, Artemis waved. Bonnie let the curtain fall back in place and disappeared behind it.
Mina came back with some helpers. They all created an assembly line to get the food to the kitchen. Once everyone else had things under control, Artemis went and grabbed her camera equipment. She didn’t plan on staying for the entire duration of the party. Only long enough to get the promotional shots she needed. And to speak with Bonnie.
When she entered the house, her queasiness returned tenfold. It looked even bigger on the inside. A few guests were chilling in the entertainment room while they waited for the real party to start. There were several photos of Bonnie and Marcus spread out on the walls. On the television, in large letters, was a slideshow of the same photos and words centered in the middle saying “Welcome to our home!”
Artemis walked away. She headed back to the kitchen to see if Mina needed anything, but then she saw Marcus talking to her and turned right back around, ending up in the foyer beside the grand staircase. Bonnie was up there—most likely alone.
She started up the stairs. But then she heard a familiar, proper, pretentious, grating voice.
“You’re sure you have it all under control?” Vivica asked, appearing at the top of the stairs. Artemis quickly hid behind the closest thing beside her, which happened to be a tall houseplant. She watched Vivica stop by the banister. Bonnie appeared a second later behind her. “Because I can stay if you need me to. I don’t want you to be in over your head.”
“It’s a party, not the Met Gala. I’m sure I will survive.”
“Don’t be sassy with me right now.”
“Oooh, sassy. Maybe I should throw on a Foxy Brown costume for the full effect.”
“I fail to see any humor in that.”
“I didn’t realize I was being comedic.”
“For heaven’s sake, Bonnie, enough already.” Vivica’s heels clacked against the marble stairs as she descended them. When Artemis got her first real look at Bonnie, her pulse jumped.
Bonnie walked down the stairs dressed in a red bikini top and a pair of scandalous bottoms that hugged her angled waist. Her white cover-up draped around her golden brown shoulders and dragged on the floor. She had her sunglasses pushed on top of her silk-pressed hair that she was currently flipping over her shoulder.
Artemis tried not to gawk, tried to ignore the heat exploding below her belly button. Bonnie was a vision that you’d be lucky to see even once.
“Well, I suppose you know where to reach me, then,” Vivica said.
“I suppose so,” Bonnie mimicked. She had a can of beer in her hands and drank it right in front of her mother. With a scowl, Vivica snatched it away.
“Honestly, Bonnie Genine, what has gotten into you today? Now I really think I should stay… You!” Vivica yelled, and Artemis flinched. Vivica pointed at a server from Mina’s staff, Simon—who arrived at the worst possible time.
Simon stumbled over himself as he walked to the staircase. “Y-yes, ma’am?”
Vivica walked down the rest of the stairs and shoved the beer into his hands. “Dispose of this now,” she ordered. Simon nodded and took the can away.
Artemis dipped down lower behind the plant when Vivica approached the front door. She turned and looked at Bonnie.
“Behave, all right? There’s no room for errors so late in the game. And for goodness sake, would you stop slouching? Good. Now smile… Smile like you mean it. Good girl. I’ll call you later. Don’t get your hair wet!”
Vivica blew a kiss and walked out the door. Artemis breathed a heavy sigh. She hadn’t thought of the possibility of Vivica being there. Thankfully, she would live to see another day.
Bonnie walked down the rest of the staircase, and Artemis watched her from behind. She looked tense as she pulled her cover-up over her shoulders. Another waiter passed her, carrying a tray of wine glasses. She reached for one and drank the champagne in one swallow.
Artemis’s chest tightened. She was more certain than ever that history was repeating itself, and she needed to stop it.
She walked out of her hiding place and was about to call Bonnie’s name. But then Marcus came from the other side of the staircase. He whispered something indecipherable, his expression showing impatience, and then he grabbed Bonnie by the elbow and escorted her to the party.
Sighing, Artemis leaned against the wall behind her. Even though she was so close now, something told her it would be a lot harder than she thought to get Bonnie alone.
twenty-one
Bonnie was tipsy before the party started. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but after what happened with Marcus in the closet, she needed a couple in her to get through the rest of the day.
She and Marcus rarely fought. Most of the time, if Bonnie ever disagreed with him, he would tell her why she was wrong and he was right and shut down the conversation right after.
This fight was a time bomb waiting to go off, except it blew up in Bonnie’s face. She saw true darkness in Marcus’s eyes for the first time. It was the kind of darkness you drove through in the middle of the night feeling hopeless that daylight would never come.
She always thought of herself as being a good judge of character. It was one of the first things Vivica taught her. But teaching was different from protecting. Vivica taught her to spot the posers, thieves, and scum, but Bonnie only knew to distance herself from them. Vivica never told her what to do if they got too close.
She put on her best smile and made conversation with anyone who came up to her. There were a few occasions when a male friend of Marcus’s would try to be “friendly.” Bonnie quickly realized they only wanted a close-up view of her chest. If she had a choice, she would’ve worn a modest bathing suit, considering the people they were around. But Marcus picked this one out specifically, and it showed a lot more than Bonnie was comfortable with. The top squeezed her chest together so tightly that she feared breathing would snap it apart. She kept the cover-up around herself most of the night to keep the leers to a minimum, but also to hide the nasty purple bruises beginning to form on her upper arms.
Mina’s catering staff were excellent. They quickly replaced her drink with another and sneaked her a couple of extra pigs in blankets. At one point, Bonnie met Mina’s eyes from across the pool, but Mina broke contact first. It would probably be best to avoid her for the rest of the night, and Bonnie was quite good at that. She’d been ducking and dodging Artemis successfully so far. Whenever Artemis entered the same room as her, she left to find someone else to mingle with. But then Artemis would follow minutes later. Bonnie knew she was doing it on purpose, even if it was her job to take photos of the party. There were times when Artemis pointed the camera in her direction, but Bonnie pretended not to notice it. Being in Artemis’s rule of thirds brought back too many memories that she tried to burn away with one or two sneaky glasses of whisky.
She couldn’t avoid the conversation forever, but now wasn’t the time. Not with so many eyes everywhere. Artemis had to know this.
“Oh, Bonnie, I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Candice walked up to her wearing the skimpiest hot pink bathing suit she’d ever seen. If Bonnie didn’t hate her so much, she’d admit that she looked good.
“Why are you here?” She was in the kitchen eating some fruit out of a bowl, having the briefest moment of peace that was now disturbed.
“I don’t think that’s the proper etiquette to greet your guests. And Marcus invited me. He told me he loves my writing and wanted me to cover this event. And speaking of this event, do you have any comments?”
“Why? So you can twist my words and feed them to your little fan base?”
Candice tilted her head, and her sleek blond ponytail fell over her shoulder. “There’s no need to be so hostile and angry. I’m only doing my job.”
The amount of drinks in her system encouraged Bonnie to step closer and get in Candice’s face. She sneered down at the shorter woman.
“You haven’t seen me hostile and angry, Candice. But I can assure you that if you ever did, you wouldn’t test me like you’re doing right now.”
Candice smirked. “And you’d be wise not to test the woman who can ruin your family’s name with a simple keyboard and tap of a button.”
They were deadlocked, refusing to look away from each other.
“Babe,” Marcus said, interrupting their stare down. He grabbed Bonnie’s arm, and that time, Bonnie did flinch. “What are you doing? I need you outside.”
“Apologies, Marcus,” said Candice. She batted her eyelashes at him and smiled sweetly. “I was just getting a quote from her, but I think I have all I need. Thanks, Bonnie.”
She walked away, swinging her tanned hips from side to side.
“What did you say to her?” Marcus said in her ear.
