Family Dinner
1770 Words
Olivia Carter had survived brunch with a billionaire grandmother in a blue dress from Queens. Now she had to survive dinner with the entire Blackwood family in a mansion that looked like a castle.
The Blackwood family estate was in the Hamptons, two hours from Manhattan, behind huge iron gates with a B on them. The house was white and huge, with pillars and a lawn that looked like green carpet. Cars that cost more than her mother's hospital bill were parked in the driveway.
Ethan's black car stopped. He looked at Olivia.
"Remember the rules," he said quietly. "My father will try to make you cry. My mother will try to make you drink. My grandmother loves you already, so you are safe there. Hold my hand, smile, and do not tell them we met three days ago."
"Three days ago?" Olivia whispered, her heart hammering. "We met four days ago. I spilled coffee on you four days ago."
"Three, four, same thing. Just smile."
"I am wearing the red dress you hate," she said, looking down at the simple red dress Rosa had forced her to wear from the closet. It was not the three thousand five hundred dollar one. It was a simpler one, but still elegant, still revealing her shoulders.
"I do not hate it," Ethan said, his eyes dropping to her shoulders for a second longer than necessary, then snapping back up. "You look... acceptable."
"Acceptable? I spent an hour getting ready and you say acceptable?"
"You look beautiful, Olivia. Is that what you want me to say?"
Her cheeks turned pink. "No. Yes. Maybe. I do not know. Do not say it like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you mean it. This is fake, remember? No feelings."
"Right. No feelings," he said, but his voice was a little rough.
The front door opened. A tall man with silver hair and cold gray eyes just like Ethan's, but harder, stood there. Richard Blackwood. Father.
"Ethan," he said, his voice like ice. "You are late. And this must be..."
"Olivia Carter Blackwood, my wife," Ethan said, putting his arm around Olivia's waist, pulling her close. His hand was warm and firm.
Olivia smiled, her best waitress smile, the one she used for rude customers at the diner.
"Nice to meet you, Mister Blackwood," she said.
Richard looked her up and down, from her red dress to her Queens shoes that Rosa had tried to hide.
"So you are the girl from Queens who trapped my son," he said, loud enough for everyone inside to hear. "Tell me, Miss Carter, how much did he pay you? Fifty thousand? One hundred thousand? My son has always been bad at negotiating."
The air went cold. Olivia felt Ethan tense next to her, his arm tightening around her waist.
"Father," Ethan said, his voice dangerously low. "That is enough."
"No, it is fine," Olivia said quickly, her smile still on, but her eyes flashing fire. "I am happy to answer, Mister Blackwood. Your son did not pay me anything. I married him because I love him. Which is more than I can say for your wife, who married you for your money and everyone knows it."
Silence. Total silence from the hallway where the rest of the family was now standing and listening.
Richard's face turned red.
Ethan stared at Olivia like she had just grown wings.
Then a loud laugh broke the silence. Eleanor Blackwood appeared, wearing pearls and a big smile, clapping her hands.
"Bravo! Bravo! Did you hear that, Richard? She has fire, just like I did when I married your father! I like this girl! Come in, Olivia darling, come in!"
She took Olivia's hand and pulled her inside, away from Richard, into a huge dining room with a table that could seat twenty people. There were flowers everywhere, crystal glasses, and a chandelier that looked like it was made of diamonds.
The family was already seated. Mother, aunt, cousins, all in expensive clothes, all staring at Olivia like she was an animal in a zoo.
"Sit, sit," Eleanor commanded, pointing to two chairs next to hers. "Ethan, sit next to your wife. Hold her hand. I want to see if you know how to hold a woman's hand."
Ethan sat and took Olivia's hand under the table. His hand was big and warm. Hers was small and shaking.
"Stop shaking," he whispered under his breath, low enough that only she could hear.
"I am not shaking, you are shaking," she whispered back.
"I do not shake."
"You are shaking right now."
He squeezed her hand harder. She squeezed back.
Dinner started. Waiters in black uniforms brought out plates of food that Olivia could not pronounce. She tried to eat politely, but her hand was trapped under the table in Ethan's hand, and every time she moved, his thumb brushed her wrist, sending little sparks up her arm.
"So, Olivia," Richard said loudly from the head of the table, not giving up. "Tell us, what does your family do? Your mother, your father?"
"My mother is a retired nurse," Olivia said, keeping her voice steady. "My father passed away when I was ten."
"Retired nurse? How... quaint. And you live in Queens? In what area?"
"Near the hospital, sir. Small apartment, but we love it."
"Small apartment," Richard repeated, smirking at his wife. "And now you live in a penthouse on the fifty eighth floor. Quite an upgrade, is it not? From Queens to Manhattan in three days. Must be nice."
Ethan's hand under the table turned to steel. He was about to stand up and shout, Olivia could feel it.
But Olivia squeezed his hand hard to stop him and smiled sweetly at Richard.
"It is a wonderful upgrade, Mister Blackwood. Just like it must have been for you when you married into the Blackwood family. My mother told me you were a car salesman before you married Eleanor's daughter. Quite an upgrade from selling used cars to owning a mansion in the Hamptons. Must be nice."
Another silence. Then Eleanor laughed so hard her pearls shook.
"Oh, Richard, she got you again! Car salesman! That is exactly what you were! Do you remember? You sold me a broken car in nineteen eighty five!"
Richard's face was now purple. His wife, a thin woman with blonde hair, looked down at her plate.
Ethan stared at Olivia, his mouth slightly open, his eyes wide with shock and something else, admiration, maybe even pride.
"Olivia, darling," Eleanor said, wiping tears of laughter, "tell us, when will you give me a great grandchild? I am eighty years old. I do not have much time."
Olivia choked on her water. Ethan choked on his wine. Under the table, his hand crushed hers.
"Grandmother," Ethan coughed. "We have been married three days."
"So? In my day, three days was enough to make a baby. Your grandfather and I -"
"Grandmother, please, we are eating," Ethan said quickly, his ears red.
Olivia's cheeks were on fire. She looked at Ethan, panicked. This was not in the contract. Great grandchildren were not in the contract.
Eleanor leaned forward, her eyes twinkling.
"I am serious, darling. This family needs a baby. A real Blackwood baby with fire in its eyes like its mother. When will you give me one?"
Olivia opened her mouth, closed it, looked at Ethan for help.
Ethan looked at her, at her red cheeks and panicked eyes and the way her hand was shaking in his, and something inside him, something cold and locked for a long time, softened.
He lifted their joined hands above the table, where everyone could see, and brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles gently. His lips were warm and soft.
"We are trying, Grandmother," he said, his voice low and smooth, looking straight into Olivia's eyes. "We are trying very hard."
The table gasped. Eleanor clapped.
Olivia's heart stopped beating for a second, then started beating so fast she thought it would jump out of her chest. His lips on her hand. His eyes on hers. The lie felt too real.
"Well," Richard said coldly, standing up. "If you will excuse me, I have a call. This... love story is making me sick."
He walked out. No one stopped him.
Dinner continued, but lighter now. Eleanor told more stories. Olivia started to relax, her hand still in Ethan's, his thumb now drawing slow circles on her wrist, circles that made her breath a little short.
After dinner, they walked out to the garden. The night air was cool. Manhattan lights were far away. Crickets were singing.
"You were amazing in there," Ethan said quietly, still holding her hand as they walked down a path away from the house, where no one could see them.
"I was terrible," Olivia said. "I insulted your father twice."
"You were perfect. No one has ever spoken to my father like that and lived. My mother once cried for three days because he criticized her soup."
"He is a bully," Olivia said.
"He is. And you stood up to him. For me."
"I stood up for myself. He called me a gold digger."
"He called you worse than that in his head," Ethan said. He stopped walking and turned to her. They were alone in the garden, under a big tree, moonlight on her red dress.
"Thank you," he said, his voice soft, real, not the cold chief executive officer voice.
"For what?"
"For holding my hand when you were scared. For not letting go."
Olivia looked down at their hands, still joined. She had forgotten to let go after dinner.
"I was not scared," she lied.
"You were shaking," he said.
"You were shaking more."
He smiled, a real smile this time, not the small cold one, but a wide warm one that made him look ten years younger and unbearably handsome.
"No feelings, remember?" she whispered, but her voice shook.
"No feelings," he repeated, but he did not let go of her hand. He stepped a little closer, so close she could smell his cologne and see the tiny scar on his chin.
"Olivia," he said quietly.
"Yes?"
"Your hand is still in mine."
"I know."
"You should let go."
"I know."
Neither of them let go.
From the window of the mansion, Eleanor Blackwood watched them standing close together under the tree, hands joined, and smiled to herself.
"That," she whispered to her tiny dog, "is not a fake marriage. That is a real marriage that does not know it is real yet."
- Writer
