How To Tango With Tom Collins

Chapter Five

Morgan stared at the screen, appalled. She blinked. And again. Not sure whether she was willing the words and the images to disappear, or whether she was trying to keep herself from bursting into tears.

The image splashed across the top half of the screen displayed a woman who looked like the cross between an ad for the Betty Ford Clinic and a Jenny Craig wet t-shirt contest gone wrong.

The headline City's Golden Gal Goes Gong Show was typical of the two-bit trashy e-tabloid who put it into print. The problem was, she'd never been the focus of their attention before, thanks to a long-standing pact between her and her very best friend. The best friend who swore, up and down that she would never, ever, ever expose her or any of the series of misfortunes which had come her way in the last few months.

And yet there it all was. Right there. In print. The real-never-before-told-to-the-press story about what went down between her and Brock Andrews. The lies and the cheating and the scandal. All there. Word for word. There were quotes, stolen from emails and texts, from all the other women and from her former fiancé, as well as the ugly truth about her weight gain ("She's gained a whopping 22lbs and counting!") and the stuck-like-stone engagement ring ("She's too fat to ditch the diamond!")

And then there were the un-truths - about a 'tragic downward spiral' that had led to all-night drinking binges, raging parties, and even a reference to the hidden possibility of a one-night stands with a foreign prince who had been in town last week.

It was a disaster of epic proportions. For her and her family. And, as much as she hated to think about him after re-reading all his ugly deeds, for Brock's family, too.

Morgan had grown up the child of a privileged existence. Old money on both her mother and father's sides, which dated back as far as the family historian could go, was to thank for the Witherow's exorbitant wealth and for her hefty trust fund. Her mother had never worked. Like ever. And her father? Well, he ran the family business - usually from the comfort of their luxury yacht in the Bahamas or their multi-million dollar "cottage" in the Hamptons. And if you asked Morgan to explain what exactly constituted this "family business", she would be able to tell you just about, well, nothing. For as long as she remembered, any time she asked her father he would simply smile, pat her on the head, and tell her it wasn't something she needed to bother herself with.

But she was bothered by it. Aside from concerns that her family was involved in something illegal (they weren't, she'd checked), she had a hunger for learning and a desire to work towards something bigger, something more than simply settling down and passively becoming a stay-at-home-fundraiser-wife for the rest of her life.

Which is why it was lucky for her that her parents had always had their sights on Brock Andrews, the dashing and darling son of a family who had worked hard for their riches. Brock's two great-grandfathers had build Andrews & Allister Ltd out of the absolute rubble of the great depression and it had thrived in a time when New York City needed it most. Now one of the country's biggest retail construction and consulting firms, it was estimated that they are involved in approximately 75% of all the commercial real estate development nationwide.

Unlucky for her parents, however, was her complete lack of interest, which would eventually turn into a vehement distain, for anything and everything that had to do with their lifestyle, and that of the Andrews family. And as the only child of the soft-hearted George and Madeleine Witherow, they would do just about anything to ensure their daughters happiness. Including enrolling her in (gasp!) public school.

Enter Sophie St. Clair, the fiery and feisty girl who was born and bred on the wrong side of Brooklyn. They were, as to be expected, inseparable from day one.

And it was a bad girl love affair that continued all through middle school, high school, and, ultimately, at UCLA (chosen, in equal parts, for it's distance from her parents, its proximity to sunshine, beaches, boys, and parties, and for it's lack of Ivy League status).

But everyone has to grow up at some point in their life, and at 23-years-old, fresh out of the hard-partying haze that was her college years, Morgan found herself back in NYC and suddenly falling for the boy who epitomized everything she had tried so hard to stay away from.

The funny thing was, now that she was thinking about it, even when she was with Brock, at the peak of being madly, hopelessly, passionately in love with him...she still didn't feel like herself. Not just the girl who had build her life around "rebelling" against her family, but the girl that she knew she was, deep down inside. The girl who was never going to be anyone's trophy wife. The girl who was going to do something incredible with her life. The girl who was okay with getting "gong-show" drunk on a Monday morning with her three favorite people in the world, because what anyone else thought about her didn't really matter...

Whoa. Holy life revelation, Morgan, she thought to herself. What the heck had happened to her over the last seven years? It was like taking off a freaking blindfold. How had she wound up exactly the last place she wanted to be? Worried about how her actions were going to affect everyone else. Everyone else, except her.

The harsh slam of the laptop closing snapped her back to reality.

She looked down and realized it was her hand (the left one, of course, still adorned with that god-awful ring) on the lid. She was the one who had closed it with such a force. She slowly glanced around at the three other faces surrounding her. Cecilee and Kat looked, admittedly, scared for their lives. No one had spoken a word since they had placed the laptop in front of her and surely they had no idea what her reaction to seeing the expose on TwoOneTwo.com was going to be. Sophie, on the other hand, sat in her chair, leaning back casually, chewing on the straw of her now empty drink. She stared straight into Morgan's eyes. Almost like a dare.

She arched a questioning brow at her, willing Morgan to speak.

"So...well...what do we do now?" She asked, knowing full well that her oldest and closest friend was, without a doubt, the culprit behind this insane scheme.

Sophie paused a beat, the faintest of a sly smile touching her lips.

"Well, first things first," she said, sliding easily off her seat and moving around to the other side of the island. "I'm going to refill our drinks."

She reached into the fridge, taking her time pulling out the carafe her brother had so kindly mixed and left behind. She topped up each of the four glasses, slowly, before returning the delicious concoction to the fridge and coming back to stand in front of them.

"And then," she said, raising her glass in a toast. The other three girls lifted their glasses wearily; unsure of what was about to come out of Sophie's unpredictable mouth. "We're going to bring back to life our long-lost best friend.

"Here's to you, Morgan Witherow," she said, tilting her still raised glass in the other woman's direction. "One of the most amazing, most awesome, most bad-ass bitches this city has ever seen."

Glasses clinked, Tom Collins fizzed, and Morgan suddenly had an insane desire to giggle. She glanced at her very best friend in the world and smiled. Sophie let out another devious grin and gave her a wink.

"Welcome back, girl."