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“Enough,” Spencer boomed.
“No,” she eyed her son. “Natalia just told me to say what I came to say.”
“And I’m telling you this is enough, and this conversation is over. I will not hear another foul word spoken about Nat or her family in front of our friends.”
“What do you know, Heidi? How do you know anything about my family?” I growled. I was incensed by this woman’s audacity to intrude on my life’s personal details. “Let her speak, Spencer. I’m sick of this shady shit.”
“Right,” she nodded before she locked her gaze on me. “Did you feel sorry for her?”
“Who?” I growled, forgetting we were with everyone aboard the yacht in the breakfast room. Right now, it was just me and this ruthless, sociopathic bitch.
“Why, your poor mother, of course,” she said, her face taking on a falsely piteous look. “She had a most untimely end, didn’t she? When your little brother was so small, leaving you to be raised by your father alone?” She shook her head again. Her sympathy sounded genuine, but her demeanor told a different story. I’d never seen someone relish in recounting another person’s tragedy, and as I listened to her, I was reminded of the part in horror movies where the villain speaks fondly about the bad things they’d done. “What an awful situation.”
“I don’t know how you found out about any of this,” I muttered, surprisingly flustered by what was transpiring. “More importantly, I don’t know why you’ve come all this way to tell me things I already know. I was there, Heidi. I know what happened.”
“I don’t think you know all I have to tell you, deary,” she said.
“No, that’s true,” I responded. “I knew you were cruel in Italy, but I had no idea you were a fucking sadist.”
“Nat,” Jim said, trying to catch my attention, “this does not need to be said.”
“The hell it doesn’t, Jim,” I said. I didn’t care what kind of scene this was causing, and I didn’t care if everyone on the ship heard me. I looked back at Heidi, “Quit fucking around, Heidi. Tell me what you gain from being here and treating me as though you are reading my last fucking rights?”
“I’m just a mother,” she said, holding her hand to her chest as if I’d mortally offended her, “who’s trying her best to protect her son from the daughter of a murderer.”
I could hardly hear anything over my heart pounding in my chest, but I saw Bree scoot back in her chair like she was ready to get up and fight.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bree nearly shouted. “How dare you imply such a thing?”
“It’s not an implication, my dear,” she said, looking smugger than anyone I’d ever seen. “Do you think I wouldn’t have my people investigate the random nobody my son decided to bring to our family estate, claiming to have married? Do not presume to think I am a fool. I am not stupid. I’ve known who my son is from the moment he was born, and there isn’t a woman alive who could change that leopard’s spots.” She stood up and turned to face Spencer, finally allowing me a break from her sadistic gaze. “You can’t really think you could get away with that silly lie that you were married and not expect me to look into it, did you?”
I could tell Spencer was struggling to keep his anger on a leash, and I couldn’t blame him. If our roles had been reversed, I would have had difficulty restraining my temper. However, I’d silenced everyone here to get this woman to speak her truths, and now I stood here in shock, feeling more and more dissociated.
“And what did you find out in your valiant search, Mother, other than so many things that are none of your business? Nat’s business is not yours, and you’d do well to remember that.”
“How is this woman’s history none of my business? You brought her into my home with a lie about your marriage to keep from me what’s rightfully mine, when all the while, you’ve been harboring someone whose father committed an outright murder to get his hands on what wasn’t rightfully his. So, I’d say I have a right to be just a bit cross over this, darling.”
It was almost impossible to find words as I struggled to process what I’d heard from her.
What the fuck was she talking about, my father murdering my mother? It wasn’t what happened. No. No, no fucking way. None of this was true. My mother died in a car accident, coming home from a benefit when Liz and I were home babysitting Shane.
“My mother died in a car accident,” I said softly, trying not to make it sound like I was second-guessing that fact suddenly, though my confidence had been entirely shaken.
“Have you never thought it suspicious, Miss Hoover?” Heidi said, finally turning her gaze back toward me. “That car of your mother’s, which was top-of-the-line according to the reports, suddenly had an issue with the brake fluid level when your mother was, by all accounts, such a diligent and careful person? Spencer?”
I watched as Heidi looked at her son, hoping for a reaction while I was fighting back the urge to vomit. I wanted to snatch up Heidi by her Hermes scarf and tell her to get the fuck out of my life with these ridiculous allegations, but I was frozen to the core over one thing: I knew my father and what he was capable of. And the thought that she could be telling the truth was almost too much for me to comprehend.
“What do you think of this, Spencer?” she urged.
“Nothing much,” Spencer said. “All this is just typical Heidi, hurling vitriol at Nat and saying ludicrous things about how she’s a nobody who doesn’t belong here. It’s something I expected of you because you’ve been threatened by her from the moment you first met.”
He was nonchalant, emotionless, and hardly engaging in anything she’d just proclaimed. Perhaps he just wasn’t feeding this fire with emotion, I had no idea, and I couldn’t pull myself together enough to care about anyone’s reactions.
“Ah.” Heidi held up one finger as though she’d hit upon a jackpot. “Yet you say nothing about the allegations about her father.” She tilted her head to the side. “It’s almost like you were expecting me to say it. You’re entirely unfazed, not defending or opposing what I’ve learned. Almost as if this is not news to you?”
Her words rattled through me, and I looked at Spencer.
I wanted him to deny it. Everything in my body repelled the words she’d said to Spencer, and I seemed to be having a visceral reaction to them as I went over it in my mind.
