Twilight Romance: Flash Marriage to Mature Tycoon – Episode 03
Jocelyn had taken only a few steps from the townhouse when Stacy called her back, not out of remorse but because the humiliation was not yet complete. Harry remained near the doorway, his face strained, while his wife folded her arms with the confidence of someone certain she controlled the room. Jocelyn turned because old habits of courtesy were hard to break. She wished, foolishly, that Stacy might have reconsidered letting her see Caleb.
Instead, Stacy announced that the Smith family was on the verge of securing a major contract with Astor Group. The name carried enormous power throughout California, and Stacy savored every syllable. Once the deal closed, she said, her family would enter the highest circle of wealth and influence. There would be no room for a shabby former maid who embarrassed them.
Jocelyn glanced down at her worn coat and sensible shoes. She had never mistaken herself for a society woman, but she had never believed honest work made her inferior either. “I wasn’t asking for money,” she said. “I only wanted to help with the baby.” Stacy replied that even being seen with her could damage the polished image the Smiths intended to present to Astor Group.
The irony would have been almost comical if Jocelyn had known Ray Astor’s daughter had wept over her departure. In Stacy’s world, value came from proximity to powerful names; in Violet’s, it came from who stayed beside her after a nightmare. Jocelyn knew which judgment mattered more, yet today even that knowledge could not shield her. She had left Violet because she believed Harry needed her, and now both choices seemed lost.
“We’ll hire a professional nanny,” Stacy continued. “Someone educated, polished, and useful.” Jocelyn absorbed the deliberate insult in silence. She had spent years managing an enormous household and caring for a lonely child with patience no résumé could measure, but defending herself would only provoke another attack on Harry.
Harry finally found enough courage to speak. “She’s my mother, Stacy. She has nowhere to go.” His concern warmed Jocelyn for a heartbeat, until Stacy reminded him whose father was about to transform his future. She asked whether he wanted to jeopardize the Astor deal for a woman who could offer him nothing.
The answer showed in Harry’s hesitation. Jocelyn could see the boy he had once been beneath the defeated man before her, and love made anger difficult. She did not want him to lose his marriage, even a deeply imperfect one, because of her. “Don’t fight,” she told them. “I never came here to become a burden.”
Harry caught her hand as she lifted her suitcase. He reminded her that she had quit her job and asked where she could possibly stay. The worry in his eyes was real, which made his inaction harder to bear. Jocelyn patted his fingers and summoned the calm expression she had used through every crisis of his childhood.
“I’ll return to my hometown,” she said. There was still a modest rural community where people remembered her family, though no home waited with lights on. She could rent a room, find work, and begin again. At least that was what she needed Harry to believe.
Stacy scoffed that the farther Jocelyn went, the better. Harry recoiled, but Jocelyn squeezed his hand before he could offer another weak objection. She told him to take care of Caleb, to sleep when the baby slept, and to be patient with himself. Even while being expelled from his life, she was still mothering him.
She walked through the doorway for the second time, and this time she did not look back immediately. Every step down the path carried the weight of a sacrifice no one inside appeared to remember. At the gate, she finally turned and saw Harry framed behind Stacy, close enough to follow yet too afraid to move.
The door closed. Jocelyn stood alone beneath a pale afternoon sky and let her smile collapse. She had spent decades making herself necessary to other people, and within a single day she had become unwanted everywhere. The thought frightened her, but it also opened a tiny, unfamiliar space where her own wishes might someday exist.
She began walking toward the bus stop, pulling the suitcase over uneven pavement. A flight home would consume much of what remained in her account, but she could not linger in the city without work or shelter. She calculated the cost with the practical discipline poverty had taught her and tried not to wonder whether she had enough for dinner.
Behind the townhouse curtains, Stacy watched her leave with satisfaction. The Astor contract mattered too much to risk any reminder that her husband came from an ordinary background. She did not know that the woman she had cast out was beloved by the Astor heir—or that contempt for Jocelyn might become the most expensive mistake the Smith family ever made.
Jocelyn reached the curb when the low hum of engines made her turn. One black luxury vehicle pulled alongside her, followed by another and then a third, their polished surfaces reflecting the row of townhouses. They stopped in perfect formation, and uniformed drivers emerged with such precision that nearby pedestrians slowed to stare.
Alarm prickled over her skin. Jocelyn checked the street, wondering whether some dignitary lived nearby, but the men walked directly toward her. She tightened her grip on the suitcase handle and prepared to explain that they had mistaken her for someone else.
The lead driver stopped at a respectful distance and bowed. “Ms. West?” he asked. Jocelyn nodded cautiously, and he smiled as though locating her had completed an important mission. Two other men moved to take her luggage, but she held on until she understood what was happening.
“Who sent you?” she asked. The driver opened the rear door of the first car and replied that Miss Violet Astor had arranged everything. At the child’s name, fear gave way to bewildered affection. Jocelyn could imagine Violet planning a farewell lunch, but not a convoy grand enough for royalty.
Then the driver explained that they were taking her to a blind date. Jocelyn stared at him, certain she had misheard. She had just lost her job, her home, and her place in her son’s life; romance belonged to some other woman in some other story. Yet Violet Astor had apparently decided otherwise.
The driver extended his hand while the car door waited open like an invitation from fate. Jocelyn looked back at Harry’s closed house, then at the unknown road ahead. With no idea who was waiting at the end of it, she finally released her suitcase—and stepped into the Astor car.