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“You son of a bitch,” Leo hisses.
If Aries says anything, I don’t miss it over my roaring heartbeat in my ears.
“That’s impossible. My mom said she’d never get married again after my dad.”
“I’m afraid that’s not quite right. See, your mother and I didn’t get married recently. We’ve been married for, what, Sloane?”
“Twenty-five years.” My mother’s voice is even and she accepts all the accusations and betrayal in my gaze with a straight face.
“No. No. Absolutely not. She was married to my father for at least twelve. The whole reason they got married was because she got pregnant with my sister and me.”
I look at the woman who would never be mother of the year, but was a damn good mother who’s around sometimes and I plead with the stars to give me that version of her right now. The one who occasionally saw past her own bullshit to come to parent-teacher conferences and dance recitals and birthdays. She looks so much like me it makes our relationship especially painful.
I strain forward, secure in Dante’s hold. I don’t remember when his hands shifted to settle against my hips, but I welcome their warmth.
“Tell him, Mom, tell him that his math is wrong. That you couldn’t possibly have been married to this-this-this man while you were married to my father!”
She shakes her head slowly, her stupid, beautiful red waves so much like my own shimmer around her shoulders. A single tear rolls down her cheek. “I can’t, Madison.”
I thread my hands in my hair and tip my head back to blow out a breath. “But that means . . . that means that you had an affair with Dad. And-and, what? Mary and I are your bastard byproducts? Help me understand what the fuck you’re talking about!”
Mom just shakes her head again. At the same time, her apparent husband snaps, “Don’t talk to your mother like that.”
“Mind your own fucking business,” I snap, eyes narrow. Not only is it out of character for me to drop f bombs on strangers but to have such a public argument with my mother is unheard of. The only thing Sloane cares about more than herself is how people view her.
The man, Zo, raises a brow and flashes me a cruel smile. It’s chilling and foreboding, and I have half a mind to reach out and stuff the words back in my mouth.
“Madison, is that any way to talk to your father?”
