“Ms. Reece,” the senator replies.
His gaze lands on me, and shame bleeds through me. I wonder if he’s silently calling me out on my relationship with his son.
The son who loves you, I remind myself. I’m not sure why that’s a comfort, but it is. It soothes some of the turmoil inside me.
Mom thinks he’s talking to her, and she steps forward with renewed vigor. Like this warm welcome, if we can call it that, is exactly the sign she was looking for that things would work out in her favor.
Whichever way that is.
“James,” she greets him.
I bristle.
Why the hell is she on a first-name basis with him?
His gaze goes from her to me, then to the hand wrapped around my wrist. His lips quirk, and he turns to his friends. “Could you excuse us for a moment?”
They nod and eye us curiously, but they stride away. I watch them regroup at the bar.
“Leigh.” His eyebrow raises. “I thought you and I had an understanding.”
“I thought so, too,” she hisses.
“Ah.” He smiles. “Well, it seems your daughter didn’t get the memo.”
“What…” I glance between them, then settle on him. “What did she do?”
He grins. His forehead doesn’t wrinkle, his brows don’t furrow, but his eyes gleam. Another chess piece conquered, he must think. Another family divided.
Secrets will do that.
“Honey—”
“Your mother,” the senator interrupts, “has been getting paid to keep her mouth shut.”
I jerk out of her grip and stagger away.
But Mom is fast. She reacts like a snake, striking out and latching onto my shoulder. She hauls me into her. “Now is not the time to cause a scene, dear.”
“What did you do?” I whisper at her.
She shakes me slightly, then glances over her shoulder at the senator’s friends. She forces another smile. Like all is okay.
It’s not.
It’s far from okay.
“Except the payments stopped, did they not?” Senator Devereux tilts his head. “It was a decent sum altogether. It’s a pity that our agreement has come to an end.”
Her mouth drops open. “Excuse me?”
“These articles you keep writing.” He sighs and glances out toward the ice. Just a cursory glance, as if to keep up appearances. Faking his way through interest in his son’s life. “It’s getting tiresome, Leigh. Your desperate attempts to extort more money from my coffers.”
“I have done no such thing,” she snaps. “And—”
“And your daughter seems to be unable to keep away from Greyson.” He inclines his chin again, looking down his nose at us. Grey must’ve got his height from him. There are some other similarities, too. But even when he was at his cruelest, he didn’t have this sneer. “My son was part of the agreement, do you remember?”
She turns to me. “Tell me that isn’t true.”
It’s my turn to snort. “Tell me how I’m supposed to keep an agreement I wasn’t part of?”
“You agreed to keep away from my son,” the senator snaps. His composure is on the verge of breaking.
“Someone should’ve told him that,” I mumble.
What happened to my mother? She had a job, she had a house and a social life. Friends. A husband. Me. Then her husband died, and I didn’t realize how much that must’ve shattered her. She just couldn’t keep it together anymore.
I grab her hand, pulling her back a few steps. “Come on, Mom. You don’t need his money.”
She laughs. Loudly. It draws the attention of the guys at the bar, and the senator shakes his head.
“She’s high.” He doesn’t bother to lower his voice either. “She took my money and used it to buy more of those pills they gave you in the hospital. Or, perhaps you didn’t realize the bottles always ran out faster than they should’ve?”
I flinch.
“I never took those,” I whisper. I stare at her, trying to figure out if he’s telling the truth. I had a bad reaction to the opioids. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t walk. The room was constantly spinning.
But now I’m remembering how Mom told me we could just wean me off them. That I didn’t have to concern my doctor with it.
Did she keep filling a prescription for me?
Did she take them?
The shame in her eyes is confirmation. I stumble away from her, pushing off her attempts to keep me next to her. Her hands grasp at me.
“Stop her,” the senator says on a sigh.
Someone steps in front of the door. The man who opened it for us. A bodyguard of some sort? Either way, he doesn’t move for me.
Dread flushes through me, and I whirl back around. “What are you doing?”
Senator Devereux comes closer. He puts his hand on my back, steering me to the glass. His gaze lifts to the friends, pointedly ignoring us now, then back to me. “You and your mother are going to sit. Watch the last few minutes of the game. Celebrate when the Hawks claim their victory. And then we’ll chat.”
He shoves me down into one of the chairs. Mom comes over and practically falls into the chair beside me. She immediately slings her arm over the back of mine. She sends a glare his way, but he’s already heading back toward his friends. No doubt to placate them.
I focus on the ice. On the game.
They’re tied. It was three-two in favor of the other team when Willow and I left. Was it Greyson who scored again? Completing his hat trick? I lean forward, trying to see my friends at the glass. I see Amanda and Jess, but no Willow.
And then I try to find Greyson, but I can’t seem to focus. The players skate harder. The Hawk that has the puck—Erik?—gets slammed into the wall, and the Knight takes off with it. My heart is in my throat, both at where I am and the game.
I glance behind me. The group of men have drifted back toward the windows, drinks in hand. The bodyguard at the door gives me a cold look when my attention turns his way. I whip back around.
Someone skates by, head turned out toward the crowd.
Devereux.
My throat closes. He seems to be searching for me.
A Knight catches him off guard and crashes into him. They both hit the glass hard, and Greyson shoves at the other player. Instead of a fight, they part and go in separate directions.
The buzzer sounds.
Overtime.
I swallow. The skaters leave the ice, and the announcer gives a rundown of what’s about to happen. A three-on-three sudden death. The first team to score in the next five minutes wins.
Mom leans toward me. “You have to believe that I did this in our best interests.”
Our best interests? I scoff. “I don’t have to believe anything.”
She bites her lower lip, and she can’t meet my eyes. My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Grey
Where are you?
I type a reply, but a large hand snatches my phone before I can hit send. I twist around, shocked. The bodyguard tucks my phone in his pocket, then looks pointedly down at my mother. With a quiet sigh, she pulls hers from her purse and hands it over.
This is so fucked up.
“You have to fix this,” I say under my breath. “Mom. Please.”
“Quiet,” the guy snaps.
I face forward again.