I smile. “She sure is.”
“I sure am,” echoes Selah. “Alice and I actually have a lot in common.”
“So true.” Besides our taste in men, that’s a complete and utter lie.
“I work for Beck’s stepmother. But Beck and I go way back. Don’t we, Alice?”
I grit my teeth. This was such an error in judgment. “Indeed you do.”
“Rachel actually sent me over to see if you needed any help making your selections,” Selah inspects the table’s contents. “Are these the items you’ve chosen so far? What sweet and simple style you have. I just love it.”
“Shucks,” I say. “Thanks, Selah.”
“And this house!” Her gaze fills with distaste. “So interesting.”
“You better be careful there.” I fake laugh. “Beck chose this house and he absolutely adores it.”
“He has the funniest taste sometimes. You just can’t pick it.” Her fake laugh is so much better than mine, dammit. “Speaking of Beck, I don’t suppose he’s around?”
“He’s out.”
“Hmm. I wonder if he’ll put the mansion on Green Way Street up for sale now. It’s been sitting empty for so long.”
Given I have no idea what she’s talking about, it takes me a moment to respond. That she knows things I still don’t more than grates. “He hasn’t said.”
“How many properties does this young man own?” asks Mom, frown back in place. If it ever left.
“A few.” I shrug. “Does it matter?”
Mom wrings her hands. “I’d just like to know who it is exactly that my daughter’s involved with.”
“Might I remind you that your daughter’s a grown woman?”
“I don’t blame you for being worried, Mrs. Lawrence.” Selah smiles politely, doing her utmost to ingratiate herself. Suck-up. “Any mother would be.”
“It’s just that, relationships are hard enough when the couple have a lot in common and come from a similar background,” says Mom.
Selah nods.
Give me strength. “Because enjoying each other’s company, physical attraction, a similar sense of humor, and strong desire to be together means nothing of course.”
Selah plays with the string of freshwater pearls around her throat. “As for his properties, let’s see…there’s this place, the Green Way Street mansion next to his grandmother’s, apartments in New York, Paris, Oslo, and London, a house in the Hollywood Hills, and my personal favorite…his place in Aspen. We had some wonderful times there. Just really special moments, you know?”
She might as well come right out and say they fucked on a bearskin rug in front of a roaring fireplace. The girl can’t do innuendo for shit. Is it wrong to want to turn her to ash and then salt the earth where she stood? Asking for a friend.
Mom’s eyes are wide. “He must be very wealthy indeed.”
“He’s a billionaire.” Selah smirks.
“And he’s mine,” I say, because enough of this shit.
The smirk fades.
“It was kind of you to stop by. But you can let Rachel know that Toya and I are doing just fine here. I don’t want to hold you up any longer.”
Selah’s smile is all sharp teeth. “Of course.”
“Could you also please pass on another message for me?” I ask. “If you could tell Rachel that my wardrobe doesn’t need any further additions, that would be great.”
Her gaze narrows. “I wasn’t aware that she’d made any more purchases. But of course I’ll pass your message on.”
“Thank you.”
“Goodbye, Mrs. Lawrence,” says Selah. “Alice.”
“Selah.”
Mom waits for the sound of footsteps to fade before she whispers, “Are you sure she’s your friend?”
“Would you believe frenemy?”
She tuts. “Honey.”
Insert silent groan here. “Remind me to introduce you to Penny and River and Emma. They’re much better. Well, maybe not Emma. Depends what mood she’s in.”
“These people,” says Mom, expression pensive once more, “they’re certainly different to what you’re used to.”
I shrug. “Some of them are good and some of them are bad, but most of them are somewhere in the middle. People are pretty much the same everywhere.”
“But all of those houses she was talking about. The lifestyle that must come with that sort of money. The pressures and expectations from his friends and family.” This is definitely not the woman who read me fairy tales as a child and encouraged me to wish on stars. This woman is much too sensible and fraught for that.
“It doesn’t necessarily change who they are as people.”
“It doesn’t necessarily not.”
“I’m having trouble telling if you think I’m not good enough for him, or he’s not good enough for me.”
Mom’s chin goes up. “The second. Definitely.”
“If a gorgeous, kind, hardworking billionaire doesn’t measure up to your expectations for me, then heaven help us both!” I can’t help but sound cranky, but I take a deep breath and get myself back under control. “Please don’t decide you hate my boyfriend before you’ve even had the chance to meet him. That’s not fair, Mom. I need you to promise to keep an open mind.”
“Alice…” Her brows lower. “Yes. All right, then.”
“Thank you.”
A loud yowling announces Beck’s arrival a couple of hours later. Dressed down in jeans and a gray Henley, he deposits a thing on the floor. A cat carrier, I guess. A demon cage, perhaps. Whatever is inside is not happy.
“So I found her in an alley behind the hotel,” he says by way of greeting. “She’d been abandoned. Can you believe that? People are such assholes.”
“Is that a cat or a gremlin?” I ask. “I’m having trouble telling by the noise.”
Mom went upstairs to settle in and have a nap while I finished up selecting household items (anything minimal and classic in design could stay and the rest went back). If we lack sufficient champagne flutes, table runners, or diffusers then that’s on me.
Beck unlocks the cage door and a scrawny black shorthair struts out missing half of one ear. She gives us both a pissed off glare with her pretty green eyes.
“I took her to the vet and she’s a little roughed up, but fine,” says Beck. “Got her up to date on all of her shots and everything. The vet said people still think black cats are unlucky and many of them get abused.”
“That’s awful.”
Beck watches with pride. “I named her Princess.”
“Of the Underworld?”
“No. Of all things sweetness and light and floofy.” He slips an arm around my waist and leans in to give me a kiss hello before stopping cold. “You’re not allergic to cats are you, beloved?”
“No.”
“Phew.”
Princess’s tail keeps on flicking.
“Hello, Princess,” I say.
The cat hisses at me. Then she makes a run for one of the sofas, diving underneath. Only her twitching tail remains in view, sweeping back and forth. We had a dog when we were growing up, but I’ve never actually owned a cat before. This should be interesting.