Room-maid(89)

“Did you talk to—” I wanted to ask her if she had spoken to Tyler and how he sounded, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

She must have been able to interpret my meaning from my expression, because she said, “He sounds miserable.”

Gulping, I nodded. I didn’t know whether that information made me feel better or worse. I landed on worse. I didn’t want him to be in pain. Even if I was mad at him.

“The servants love you too much. I finally had to bribe Julio to get him to tell me where you were, and that was only after I promised that I was going to help you, not hurt you.”

“Help me? How?”

“Vanessa couldn’t wait to fill me in on everything that happened with you at the party. First, you need to know that I had no idea what was going to happen. I really did invite you there just for my benefit. They kept their plans from me. And I gave them a heads-up about half an hour before the party started because I was hoping that if I warned them you would be there, they wouldn’t make a scene. Although Mom had on her evil grin when I told her, so I probably should have known. I’m so sorry for what happened.”

That twisted part of my brain, the one always on the lookout for pain, warned me that maybe my mother had sent her. To make sure the damage was complete.

I chose to believe my sister, who had gone out of her way to find me and apologize for something she hadn’t even done. “Thank you.”

“Tyler had nothing to do with what Mom did.”

The news shocked me, temporarily robbing me of my ability to breathe. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Bribing people is extremely effective,” she said, setting her purse down on the floor. “And my first stop was Frederica. Who very quickly owned up to the fact that she’d told our parents you were looking for a place to live and about meeting Tyler at a company dinner and how he was looking for a roommate. They decided to match you two up with neither one of you being the wiser. Frederica was just your caring aunt and, as far as Tyler knew, some nice lady he’d met at a party. You know how important appearances are to Mom and Daddy. They couldn’t have anyone discovering that you were living in some one-bedroom apartment on somebody’s couch.”

That part made sense. It would have eternally shamed them if any of their friends had found out that I’d moved into one of those terrible places my aunt had shown me. “But why would Frederica do any of this?”

“Like Mom mentioned, Frederica was low on funds, and she and our mother came up with this lovely plan, putting aside their normal hostility.”

“So, for money. And to control me.”

Violet shrugged. “Maybe it was some way for Mom to hold on to you. To show you that she loves you in her own bizarre way. By helping you find a place to live, a car to drive, a good job. Maybe, initially, she thought that it would make you trust her more if she could show you what a good job she’d done running your life.”

My sister was far more forgiving a person than I was. That was the problem with my parents. They didn’t just want my trust; they demanded it—along with total obedience. And it made it so that I didn’t want to trust anybody.

Especially not the people who deserved it.

Like Violet.

Or Tyler.

And now, according to my sister, he had been nothing but trustworthy. That realization made me feel like I’d been punched in the gut, and I wanted to fall apart into a million pieces. He’d been trying to tell me the truth and I’d been ugly and dismissive.

I’d behaved like my mother.

And that made me feel like the absolute worst.

“Why would she set me up with Tyler? When she so desperately wanted me to marry Brad?”

“Oh no.” Violet shook her head. “Frederica told Mom that Tyler was way out of your league and would never date you.”

I didn’t know how to feel about that information. “That’s kind of insulting.”

“She also thought it would light a fire under Brad, you living with someone so attractive. That it would motivate him to finally propose.”

I couldn’t help but let out a rueful laugh. “And then I screwed up all their plans by falling in love with Tyler.”

She reached for my hand, her eyes sympathetic. “You love him?”

Her kindness was almost my undoing. I nodded, ignoring the giant lump in my throat. “I do.”

“So, Mom trying to control where you lived turned into you finding the man you love and turning away from the man she chose for you. I’m pretty sure that’s the textbook definition of ironic.”

I laughed again, wiping away my tears. There was still something I didn’t quite understand. “Mom had no idea how I felt about Tyler. He doesn’t even know. So why would she throw Tyler under the bus? How could she know that framing him would hurt me?”

“According to our aunt, who may not be the best person to rely on, she told Mom that she suspected you had a crush on Tyler. And then Mom saw you at an art exhibit and assumed you were a couple because of the way you were looking at each other. Some woman was there that you both know and spoke to you that night? I forget her name. But later on she told Mom that you and Tyler were boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Mrs. Adams. She’d assumed we were together and we hadn’t corrected her, and that was what she’d told my mother. I sat there in raging silence, not knowing what to do. I wanted to hit something. Or someone.