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“I told your sister I was going away on a girls trip to celebrate Claudia’s divorce. She—I’m not—okay?”
My brows furrow as I lean to the side in that instinctual move whenever phone service breaks up. My hair slips from inside the hoodie and tickles my neck. “You’re breaking up, Mom. Where are you?”
“I—you—Madison.” She sounds exasperated, but maybe that’s just because I can only hear every few words.
I push to the balls of my feet, ready to get up and find a better location to talk to her when the line goes dead. I sigh as I take the phone away from my ear and stare straight ahead at the lights.
“How much of that did you hear?” I ask Aries. I know he’s still there, I can feel him. Aware of his presence in a way that shouldn’t feel real.
“Enough to know your mom’s a piece of work.”
A smile ticks up the corner of my mouth as laughter bubbles up inside my chest. I look over my shoulder at him. He hasn’t moved from his position against the wall, as if he was watching over me the whole time. I could lie, shrug it off as a bad connection. But didn’t I just spout off a bunch of stuff about this being a partnership? I’m a lot of things, but a hypocrite isn’t one of them.
Besides, I don’t want to lie—even if it’s by omission. Not to him. Not to any of them.
“She is.”
He nods once but doesn’t press for more. “Come on inside, Raven. Matteo got food.”
I push to my feet and follow Aries inside the suite, belatedly realizing that my chest doesn’t feel as tight as it did when I hung up with my mom.
