Ian. Husband number four. The one who liked to gamble.
Pieces clicked into a puzzle that I’d willingly kept myself from seeing. “The advance came in, didn’t it?” I sounded small… I felt small, too.
“I’m glad you asked, because it did!” Mom beamed. “Now, I didn’t want you to worry about a thing, so I told Lydia to make sure the house was stocked with groceries.”
Groceries. Right.
“When will you be back?” Ridiculous question, but I had to ask.
She yanked her gaze from her phone, meeting mine in a flash of guilt.
“You’re not.” It was a statement, not a question.
Hurt flashed in Mom’s eyes. “Well, that was mean.”
“Are you?”
“Well, not right away. Ian is going to need a little looking after, and this could really be our chance to rekindle things. There’s always been that zing between us. It’s never faded.” She fumbled with her phone. “I called an Uber. They take forever around here.”
“It’s a small town.” I glanced around the entry, from the French doors that led to the living room to the framed pictures on the walls. Anything to keep from looking right at her. Bile rose in my throat, and my heart screamed as the fragile stitches I’d thoughtlessly sewn there popped one at a time.
“Don’t I know it.” She shook her head.
“What happened to Christmas?”
“Plans change, honey. But you have your feet under you now, and as soon as you feel like you’re ready to face the rest of the world, you get back to New York City, Gigi. You’ll go stagnant here. Everyone does.” She scrolled through her apps. “Oh, good. Seven minutes.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Her face snapped to mine. “What?”
“I told you, I hate that nickname. Stop using it.”
“Well, pardon me. I’m just your mother.” Her eyes widened in sarcasm.
“You know he’s just going to drain your account and dump you again, right?” That’s exactly what he’d done the first time, which was when Gran had cut her out of the will.
Mom’s eyes reduced to slits. “You don’t know that. You don’t know him.”
“But you should.” My jaw ticked, and I embraced the anger that filled my chest, wrapping it like Kevlar around my hemorrhaging heart. I’d believed her like a naive five-year-old, believed that she’d stick around for me this time, even if it was just for the next few months.
“I don’t know why you’re being so nasty.” She shook her head like I was the one delivering the blows here. “I stayed for you, took care of you, and now I deserve to be happy, just like you.”
“Just like me?” I ran my hands down my face. “I’m nothing like you.”
Her expression softened. “Oh, my little heart. You took off for college, and what did you find? A lonely, older man to take care of you. You may have graduated, but don’t lie to yourself—you weren’t there for an education; you were husband hunting, just like I was at that age.”
“I wasn’t,” I fired back. “I met Damian on campus while he was researching filming locations.”
Pity…God, that was pity in her eyes. “Oh, honey, and you don’t think the fact that your last name was Stanton had anything to do with it?”
I lifted my chin in the air. “He didn’t know. Not when we met.”
“You keep believing that.” She checked her phone again.
“It’s true!” It had to be. The last eight years of my life were a lie if it wasn’t.
Mom sucked in a deep breath and rolled her eyes heavenward, like she was praying for patience. “Dear, dear Georgia. The sooner you come to grips with the truth, the happier you’ll be.”
Color flashed through the window beside the door. Her ride was here.
“And what truth is that, Mom?” She was leaving again. How many times was this? I’d stopped keeping count when I was thirteen.
“When you have someone like your gran in the family, it’s nearly impossible to get out from under that kind of shadow.” She tilted her head. “He knew. They all know. You have to learn to use it to your advantage.” Her soft tone was at odds with her harsh words.
“I’m not you,” I repeated.
“Maybe not yet,” she admitted, grabbing the first suitcase. “But you will be.”
“Leave your key.” Never again. This was the last time she’d blow into my life and leave once she got what she wanted.
She gasped. “Leave my key? To my grandmother’s house? My father’s house? You are a lot of things, Georgia, but cruel isn’t one of them.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Do you know how that makes me feel?” Her hand flew to her chest.
“Leave. Your. Key.”
She blinked back tears as she pried the key from the ring, then dropped it into the crystal vase on the entry table. “Happy now?”
“No,” I said softly, shaking my head. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be happy again.
I stood there frozen in the same entry hall she’d left me in so many times before and watched her struggle with her suitcases without offering to help.
“I love you,” she said, waiting in the doorway for my reply.
“Have a safe flight, Mom.”
She bristled and closed the door.
Then the house was quiet.
I didn’t know how long I stood there, watching a door I knew from experience would only open again when it was convenient for her. Knowing I was never what she’d wanted and cursing myself for letting my guard down and believing otherwise. The grandfather clock ticked steadily from the living room, somehow steadying my heartbeat. It was a hundred-year-old pacemaker.
Every other time she’d walked out, I’d had Gran’s arms around me.
Alone wasn’t a harsh-enough word for whatever this was.
I pulled myself together and turned back to head for the kitchen, only to be stopped by a knock at the door.
I may have been naive, but I wasn’t green. Mom had forgotten something, and it wasn’t me. She hadn’t abandoned her plans. Hadn’t had a change of heart.
But still, that damnable kernel of hope flickered in my chest as I opened the door.
A set of darker-than-sin eyes stared down at me under a cocked brow as his mouth slowly curved into a wry smile.