I wasn’t going down this road with her again. “You know that’s not true. You and Dad have your lives. We have ours. We make time for each other. That’s how families work.”
“Don’t condescend to me, Aria.” Mamma sniffed haughtily. “Anyway, I want to know more about this North person. For a start, what kind of name is North?”
“My mum told me I was named after the North Star because they knew I was all they would ever need … to find their way. That I’d brought them together on the right path. I was their true North.”
An ache squeezed my chest at the memory. “A beautiful name,” I replied huskily. “North is a beautiful name.”
“Hmm. You sound like you like him very much. If that is the case, you need to take better care of yourself, coccolona. I’ve been looking at his relationship history, and he has dated very beautiful women. The last was a pop star. Those pictures of you online, coccolona … you need to lose some weight. Did you not get the link I sent you about the diet plan my friend has used? She says it works wonders. I was thinking—”
“Stop!” I yelled, angrier, louder than I expected.
In fact, I hadn’t expected to say it at all. But the word exploded out of me.
Hurt that I hated she could inflict scored through.
“Aria!” Mamma snapped. “What is the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me?” I huffed. Finally, it seemed, I was at the end of my tether with my mother. “What’s the matter with you? North loves me. Loves me. And he loves my body. Unlike you, he loves me the way I am.”
“U-unlike me?”
“Yes.” Okay. So we were doing this. My hands shook around the steering wheel as I continued. “North has helped me gain back the confidence you helped take from me. Do you know that you’re partly the reason that I hated looking in the mirror for so long? That every comment you’ve made about my weight over the years has shredded my self-esteem, bit by bit? You’ve made me feel like I wasn’t lovable, that there was something wrong with me. You want to know why I avoid your calls, Mamma? Because who wants to put up with someone trying to change them all the time? Who has the heart that can bear that kind of hurt from their own mother? Am I not lovable to you as I am? Do I need to be fixed for you to love me?”
Silence greeted me at the end of the phone.
Then a sniffle and a quiet, “No, coccolona, of course not.”
“And that. Don’t call me that. Do you know what it’s like for your mother to give you a pet name that means cuddly? You call Allegra your treasure. And I’m cuddly. You might as well have named us ‘the daughter you’re proud of’ and ‘the fat one.’”
“Oh, Aria,” she whimpered. “You know that was not my intention. At all. You’re my coccolona because you were such a cuddly baby. That is all. I promise.”
“Somehow, after you disparaged my body and told me to lose weight to keep my man, I find that hard to believe.”
She said nothing for so long that I thought maybe she’d hung up. But suddenly she exhaled shakily. “Your papà was right. He tried to tell me. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was helping you to be happy. I just wanted you to be happy. But I put what makes me happy on you. I am a vain woman, tesoro. I know this of myself. It’s not something I am proud of, but I promised to always own who I am. I put my obsession with my body on you, and I am sorry. I never intended to make you feel unloved.”
Shocked at the apology, I was silent.
“Tesoro?”
“I’m processing,” I replied quietly. “I honestly expected this to turn into an argument.”
“My first instinct was to yell at you and hang up … but I am trying to be better. I’m not a perfect person or parent. I know that. But I am trying to be more involved and to listen.”
“Okay.” Her uncharacteristic reasonableness made me brave. “And we appreciate that, Mamma. But if you can hear a little more truth, I have something else to say.”
She sucked in a breath. “All right.”
“Allegra and I aren’t kids anymore. We have grown-up lives. Decisions to make. You have to accept that sometimes the decisions we make won’t be about you … but that doesn’t mean we don’t love you. Because we do love you.”
She sniffled again, and I knew she was crying by the shakiness of her words. “Okay. I will try to see it that way. I just … I want to spend more time with you girls. I’m trying.” What she obviously still wasn’t getting was that it wasn’t that it was too late, but we had our own lives now to prioritize, the way she’d prioritized her life over us.
“We’ll all just try.” I finally settled on diplomacy.
“Sì. We’ll try. And no more coccolona or comments about your weight. I promise.”
“Thank you.”
“I love you, Aria. You know this, sì?”
An ache flared across my chest. “I love you, too, Mamma.” For better and for worse.
We chatted until I arrived in the city. After hanging up with Mamma’s promise to come to Ardnoch soon, I felt so much lighter. My relationship with my mother would never be perfect, but I’d finally stood up to her and the world didn’t end.
She was shockingly contrite about the whole thing.
All this time, I’d been afraid to tell her to back off.
It was true what they said. Fear of the thing was often worse than the thing itself. Now I just had to hope that she stuck to her promise to stop commenting on my body.
I was just nearing the parking lot when my phone rang again. Seeing Walker’s name I answered immediately.
“Aria, where are you?”
The fact that Walker had used my first name alerted me. I tensed. “Just about to stop in at the solicitors’ office in Inverness. Why?”
“Turn around and head back to the estate. Don’t get out of the car.”
“Why? What’s going on?” I got into a different lane at the next roundabout so I could turn myself around.
“North received another letter at his hotel, and whoever is sending them is in his room with him right now. I’ve got hotel security heading up to him. But you were implicated in the last letter, so I need you back at the estate.”
Fear coated my palms in slick sweat. “The person threatening North is in his hotel room? Right now?”
“Aye, but security is on their way. Just come home. I’ll update when I know more.”
“Walker—” My voice shook. “Please don’t let anything happen to him.”
“He’ll be fine.”
He had to be. North had to be okay. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Breathe,” Walker coaxed. “Just breathe in and out.”
“He better be okay,” I murmured, tears thickening my throat. If anything ever happened to North, I realized it would change me forever.
He’d already changed me forever.
Thirty-One
NORTH
Barbara’s eyes narrowed as I crossed the room to stand before her. “Dae ye ken who ah am?”
“You’re Darren’s mum.” I stuck my hands in my pockets not quite knowing what to do. She’d always been a small woman, and even when we’d been kids, her face had a rough haggardness that suggested a difficult life. It was worse now, her skin etched with wrinkles. She looked much older than her years. Her hair had thinned to a wispiness, and she’d scraped it back into a ponytail, her scalp visible in patches all over her head. Dressed in a housekeeper’s uniform, I understood how she’d made it this far to my suite.