Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
My eyes well up again. I feel the tears on my lashes and when I blink, a streak of moisture slides down my cheeks.
“Cassie. Stop it. You’re acting like a child.”
“I’m acting like a child?” I start to laugh. I’m so fucking astounded. I’m astonished that I’m related to this woman. “I shouldn’t cry when I find out my mother cheated on my father? Got pregnant by another man. Decided to keep that baby. Did you really have a miscarriage?”
“Yes,” she says stiffly.
“And Dad knew.”
“He did, yes.”
“He knew it wasn’t his?” I challenge.
“Would’ve been hard for him not to guess when we hadn’t been intimate in months by that point.”
“And Grandma knew too?” I ask, remembering the way Mom snapped at her in the ballroom. “That you had an affair?”
“She only found out after the divorce. She and I weren’t seeing eye to eye on something, and it came out during an argument.”
Of course it did, because apparently my mother doesn’t behave like a normal human being. She saves up all her ammunition and shoots it at you when it suits her. When she wants to hurt you, or needs some sort of validation.
Grandma’s ears must have been burning because she appears then. Her gait is slower than usual, exhaustion lining her eyes. But her features sharpen when she reaches us, her shoulders straightening as if fortifying her for a fight.
“Not now, Mother,” Mom snaps. “I really don’t need your input at the moment.”
“You’re right, Victoria. You don’t need my input. You don’t need anyone’s input, do you? Because you’re always right.” Grandma focuses on me, all but dismissing her own daughter. “Are you okay, dear?”
“Not really,” I admit. “I just hope Tate and his parents are all right—”
Mom practically growls at me. “There is absolutely no reason for you to worry about Gavin and his family. He made his own bed. You don’t get to cheat on your wife and lie about it for years, go on with your life as if nothing ever happened. He doesn’t get that, and you shouldn’t feel sorry for that man.”
“I don’t feel sorry for him,” I say sadly. “I feel sorry for you.”
She rears back. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’ve been a selfish, manipulative jerk my entire life. Nothing is ever good enough for you. The way I look, the way I act, the guys I date—” I stop in horror. “Wait, is this why you’ve been so nice to me lately? Because I was going out with Tate? You knew he was Gavin’s son.”
“Of course I knew. I figured it out the moment I saw him outside the Jackson place. He’s the spitting image of his father.”
“So you were just pretending to be nice to me—”
“Stop being so dramatic, Cassie!” she interrupts, blowing out an exasperated breath. “Nobody was pretending. I’m your mother. I enjoy spending time with you.”
“I don’t think I believe that.” I swallow my bitterness. “But now I get it.” Shaking my head, disappointment embedded deep inside me, I meet her eyes and ask, “Was this some big plan to get Gavin in public and humiliate his family?”
“No,” she scoffs. “I’m not a psychopath. But as I’ve always told you, if an opportunity presents itself, you take it. Tonight, an opportunity presented itself.”
“Really,” I say dubiously. “You didn’t plan it. And you had no ulterior motives for constantly inviting Tate to join us for dinner.”
“Of course not. I enjoy Tate’s company too. It’s completely incidental that it also gave me insight into what his family’s been up to in the years since his father’s indiscretion.”
Incidental, my ass.
“And, I will admit, it annoyed me. Hearing about Gavin’s life. How everyone in town still adores him. Getting articles written about him in the paper, photographed with his oblivious wife and perfect son. Maybe I was a bit out of line in there,” she nods toward the hotel behind us, “but this town needed to know what kind of man he is.”
I stare at her and see someone I don’t recognize. Someone I don’t want to know. I see a bitter, miserable woman who hates herself so much she lashes out at everyone around her. A woman who couldn’t stand seeing the man she had an affair with living a seemingly happy life and thus felt the need to humiliate him and his wife. In public. In front of their son.
I see a woman I don’t want in my life anymore, and I feel a profound sense of loss.
And no matter what she says, I no longer believe the story she fed me about fighting for sole custody because she was feeling vulnerable and longed to keep her daughter close after the miscarriage. She did it to hurt my father, plain and simple. I was a possession to her, something she could use against him and keep from him to make him suffer.