Warren/Elena

Context: Still at Trentham Ball. Roth puts her in the library to get her out of the way because there was another incident (not Tucker Baldwin, someone else). He’s finishing up business in the ballroom and she’s ambushed by Warren who we met in Bitter Secrets the night Roth & Jasmine met.

Although Warren wore a tailored suit, it was wrinkled and hung oddly on his pudgy frame. The years hadn’t been kind to her father’s former business partner. He had one patch of hair left on his otherwise bald head. Grayish, unhealthy skin, and was clearly very out of shape. She’d seen him briefly at the funeral, but thankfully hadn’t had to deal with his withering tongue since there were so many other guests to see to.

“Uncle Warren.”

He glared at her. “How many times have I told you not to call me that?”

As many times as she could. When she was younger, she made the mistake of thinking that the men her father was always with were somehow related to her. Her father disabused her of that notion, but she continued to use the label for Warren in a bid to irritate and dissuade him from speaking to her, which he continued to do anyway.

“What brings you here?” she asked, though she suspected she already knew. Warren wouldn’t have hobbled down that long corridor without knowing she was in here. She spotted him sitting on the sidelines an hour ago.

“Never thought I’d see you at the Trentham Ball,” he said snidely.

“Me either,” she agreed, refusing to rise to the bait. Warren’s mission in life was to reduce everyone’s confidence to zero. That had been Dad’s aim when she was younger as well, but she had persevered. While biting, she knew she could endure anything Warren wanted to toss at her.

“Maximus must be rolling in his grave tonight.”

She gave him doe eyes and fluttered her eyelashes. “You don’t think he’d be proud of me for getting an invitation or dancing with Sullivan Trentham?”

Warren’s lip curled. “Trentham’s standards aren’t what they used to be.”

“Yet you’re here.”

He glared at her through the watery, bloodshot eyes of a St. Bernard. “Still bold as brass. Maximus would be ashamed of you.”

“So you said.” She faked a yawn and cocked her hip as she eyed the door that Warren had left ajar. She willed Roth, or anyone, to walk in and interrupt what promised to be a nasty confrontation she wasn’t in the mood for.

“He came into money.”

She looked back at Warren to see he was eyeing her wedding ring and the other jewelry with contempt.

“He didn’t come into money. He earned it.”

“He has no pedigree, but money has a way of making others overlook such details.” He managed to look down his nose at her, even though he was shorter. “But not for me or your father.”

“My father’s dead,” she said flatly. If he wanted to guilt her for being with Roth, he was several months too late. “I don’t live by his rules.”

“Rumor is he left you everything. Can’t think of one reason why he’d do such a thing. What could you do with all that money, but squander it? Maximus did his best to mold you into something, but you ended up right where you started. You never learned from your mistakes. All those tutors, the best schools… all for nothing.”

Although she was sure her expression was composed, his mouth curved in a malicious smile as if he knew her stomach iced over.

“Sold yourself to save your sisters from the hole they got themselves in?” He let out a wheezing laugh. “That’s the least you could do, I guess. The shock is that Roth would want you when he can have his pick of any woman here. I’d get a younger model, one that can still have kids, but then again, he isn’t going to keep you, is he?”

He was too busy thinking about his next insult to realize he’d actually hit her dead center for once.

“He’s ambitious. I’ll give him that. Boy knows what he’s doing. Some will do business with him, but not all. He needs an in, and that’s where you come in. Your marriage has forced a public union with Lyle and Rami and now that Trentham has publicly endorsed him, he’ll be unstoppable. He doesn’t have the finesse or polish required for these social settings, but you can smooth the way like you did tonight, handling introductions and filling in the gaps. All he requires is someone to set the foundation. It doesn’t matter who comes after you.”

He gave her an insulting perusal.

“Let me guess. He insisted on this dress?”

Her hand balled into a fist in the folds of her gown.

“He knows how to make an entrance. What better way to get everyone’s attention than to return on the arm of the woman who ruined him, divorced him, and whose father publicly reviled him? He wants attention and knows how to get it. What better revenge is there than humiliating you by capitalizing on your tattered reputation by dressing you like a slut, using Maximus’ reputation to establish himself, and then casting you aside later? Even I can appreciate the poetic justice in that.”

He paused, waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t, he cocked his head.

“No sassy comeback? Hit the nail on the head, didn’t I? Knew the boy was smart, didn’t know he was that cunning, but it’s the way of the world, isn’t it? Women think they can get away with everything.” He made a throwaway motion, showing that one of his gold rings looked like it was cutting off his circulation. “You’re all just fleeting distractions. Pawns.”

When she still didn’t speak, he narrowed his eyes on her face. His eyes moved down the length of her slowly, deliberately, staring at her in a way that would have made her get the hell out of here if it was any other man. But Warren had always been a creepy curmudgeon, and she couldn’t move. Her body stalled as she tried to compute Warren’s take on Roth’s motives. Punishing her had been her his initial goal when he remarried her. He said he changed his mind, but… Had he?

“You’re a carbon copy of her.”

Warren’s gruff tone forced her out of her reverie. The way he was looking at her made the hairs on her nape stand up. She shouldn’t take the bait. That’s what he wanted, but she couldn’t help herself. “Carbon copy of who?”

“Elena.”

She jerked. “You knew my mother?”

Crusty lips curled in a lecherous smile. “Inside and out.”

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Confessions. Please do not share or distribute.

We discuss Elena and her background quite a bit in this book. Jasmine was so young when her mother died, all she knows is what Maximus told her, which isn't much.

As for Warren... This scene is way more extensive than this, but it leads up to that snippet I showed at the end of Bitter Secrets. I changed it quite a bit because this isn't the exact sequence of events I had originally drafted.

As always, this is just a mock up and some things may change in the final! Thoughts? (I’m scared 😳 😬🫣🤣)