“What about my brother?” I ask. “Did he come from obligation? Or did you finally love Mom after fifteen years together?”
I think of the baby brother nestled in the crook of my mother's arm as family filed past their open — shared — coffin. How I reached out to touch the baby’s cheek, even though I’d been forbidden from doing so on the way to the funeral home. How cold he was, the stillborn son of Augustus Capulet, the longed-for male heir who died during childbirth and took my mother along with him, into that endless night.
Rage sparks in my father’s dark eyes. “Don’t speak ill of the dead.” A beat. “I loved your mother very much.”
When my father gets angry, it’s like all the air whooshes out of a room. My empty lungs try to draw in a breath, and the room starts to spin. I almost feel guilt for bringing up Mom, and the baby my father talked her into having. But then I think of the way he’s marrying me off to essentially the highest bidder, despite my protests, despite his promises that there was more time, and the tiny grain of guilt disappears.
My heart starts to beat faster. My clothes are suddenly too tight, the room’s walls pressing in on all sides. My vision narrows. My palms grow damp with sweat. And through all of this, I’m acutely aware that Josh is probably listening outside.
“Breathe,” my father snaps. Daddy calls me petulant and spoiled when I have a panic attack. It’s something I try to make sure I never do in front of him. In front of anybody.
“I don’t want this,” I gasp.
“Well, we don’t always get what we want,” he replies flatly, rounding his desk, leaning against the edge with crossed arms as he watches me hyperventilate.
The office doors hiss open. I jerk in fright, wiping at my face. As if this couldn’t get any more humiliating, Josh has come back into the office to — what? Retrieve the ring I unceremoniously threw and force it onto my finger?
“What’d I miss?” A light-hearted male voice interjects the tense silence.
I sit up in my seat, softening as some of the panic leaves me. “Uncle Enzo,” I say. I watch as my father’s younger brother spots the Cartier box on the floor, frowns, and bends to pick it up. He tosses it up in the air like a baseball, catching it and then throwing it at me. I put my hands out to catch it just before the hard edge of the box hits me square in the face.
“That could have left a bruise,” I snap, slamming the box down on the desk.
Enzo grins, holding his arms out. “It’s my favorite niece’s birthday,” he says, holding his hand out to me. I shake my head, refusing to reciprocate.
“What’s wrong?” Enzo asks, switching his attention to the Cartier box. “Did that little punk not get you a big enough ring?” He opens the box and blinks, whistling. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Don’t show your Aunt Eliza this. She’ll throw up from envy when she sees this rock.”
I cross my arms, smiling bitchily. “She can have it.”
Enzo sighs. “You’d better fill me in, Augie.” Enzo is the only one my father allows to call him Augie. Everyone else calls him by his full name, Augustus.
"Yeah, Augie," I add, my voice like liquid acid. "You'd better fill Enzo in."
Daddy glares at me as he addresses his younger brother. “Avery’s angry that I’ve decided to bring up the engagement.”
“Ahh,” Enzo nods. “That.”
“Just tell me why,” I insist. “Tell me why it has to be him.” I jerk my thumb toward the door, and beyond, to the stranger whose engagement ring I’ll be wearing in about six hours. “Tell me why it can’t be the man I’m actually in love with.”
“Sweetheart—”
“Do not sweetheart me,” I cut in. “I did everything you said. I didn’t even look at a boy unless he met your predetermined checkboxes. Will’s family has money, they are respected, they are healthy—”
“Will’s father is a goddamn Hollywood action hero,” Daddy yells, pounding his desk for effect. “You’re not marrying his son and making a mockery of the Capulet name. We might be in California, my darling daughter, but this isn’t a fucking reality show.”
I just stare.
My father is up now, pacing the well-worn length of carpet behind his desk.
“He’s right,” my uncle says. “The Hewitt’s are risky, at best.”
“You led me to believe Will was a possibility,” I argue. “You were never going to even consider him, were you?”
Both of their faces say it all.
“Will isn’t a celebrity. He doesn’t give interviews. He doesn’t even live in Hollywood! Remember? He moved away from his family and emancipated himself just so he could be closer to me.”
Silence.
"You lied to me, you fucking bastard."
Daddy shakes his head, squeezing his tumbler so tight I hope it shatters.
“What do you want, Avery?" he spits. "A flow chart? A pros and cons list? A fucking Venn diagram?”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” I reply. “I mean, if you can spare five minutes to explain how you’ve chosen how my life unfolds, I’m all ears. And stop fucking swearing at me.”
“Five minutes,” he mutters. “We’ve been explaining this to you for almost ten years, Avery. Jesus Christ, it’s the day of your inauguration.”
“I won’t have his children,” I protest. “I won’t have any children.”
“No problem,” my father says.
“No problem?” I echo. I look at my uncle, who won’t meet my gaze. “What’d you do, harvest my eggs?” I half-joke.
Neither of them says anything.
“Holy fucking shit.” My stomach drops. I feel like I’ve been electrocuted. I’m stunned. I think back to when it could have happened. “My appendectomy,” I breathe. “After Adeline died.”
“On the bright side, you still have a perfectly good appendix,” Enzo interjects. “We just thought it best to preserve the only chance of continuing the bloodline in case—”
“— In case I drowned myself, too?” I think of my sister, floating facedown in our pool, her hair spread out in the water, creating a dark halo around her. She’d already been dead for hours by the time I stumbled across her body.
“We can use a gestational carrier, if you prefer,” Enzo says, sidestepping the mention of my dead sister — the one who was meant to take on all of this instead of me. “The embryos are already on ice, ready to go. We all know how important your career is to you.”
My father gives him a sharp look. I feel hot tears stab at my eyes as I put a hand to my stomach. They haven’t just taken my eggs. They’ve created embryos with them?
“What the actual fuck?!” I demand.
“You should have told her,” Enzo says tersely.
My father throws his hands up in response.
“Where?” I ask. My head is swimming. “When? Who is the father?”
Enzo looks at me like I’m an idiot, but then I see something flash in his eyes. Guilt. “Have you not been listening to anything?” He turns to my father, a deep frown etched between his eyebrows. “I told you to tell her,” he mutters, and his voice wavers a little, thick with regret. It’s almost as if he’s the one who has been betrayed.