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She dropped my wrist, and I took a step back.
“I’m sorry to let you know that, despite what I said this morning, I still do not approve of your relationship.” Celia studied my face. “My son might be more sentimental than I’d realized.”
“Maybe he’s just happy,” I said, rubbing my wrist. “It’s been a long time. I just wish you could be happy for him.”
“He can’t marry a hooker,” she said matter-of-factly.
“We’re not getting married,” I said, refusing to let her under my skin. “We’re going to live in sin first.” I fake-smiled at her, and I meant it.
She drew herself up to her full height, as if she was preparing to make an announcement. “Audrey, I believed you had my son’s best interests at heart. Now I see that you are letting him control you. Either that or you are too selfish to see that you’re about to destroy him.”
Fury bubbled inside of me. “I’m not being selfish. I love James, that’s all. And he’s not controlling me, Mrs. Preston—and you are not a candidate for that position, either.” I remembered what she’d said about Evie: that she was perfect for Todd because she was easy to control.
“Oh, you’ve made that clear,” Mrs. Preston snapped. “I can see now that you’re a problem, and that you’re not willing to work with me to become part of the solution. It’s too bad. Because now you really will break James’s heart.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that there is no way on God’s green earth that I am letting a twenty-two-year-old hooker have a relationship with, let alone move in with, my oldest son. Something bad will happen to you, dear. These things have a way of working themselves out. It’s Preston luck,” she hissed.
All of a sudden the sunlight was too bright on my face; I felt dizzy, my world scrambled. Celia had told James it was “Preston luck” that his high school girlfriend had been killed.
“Holy f**k,” I said.
She looked at me innocently, and an icy fear spread over my exposed skin. “Indeed. See you around, Audrey,” she said.
* * *
I realized later that, of course, she’d actually admitted nothing.
Celia had just confirmed my worst fears about her. I paced through the villa, jumping at every little sound. Finally James came back, and I unlocked the door for him. He was loose and happy; he looked sexy and tan and he smelled like beer.
He watched me pace back and forth, a quizzical look on his face. “Audrey,” he said, “we’re in paradise. You’re supposed to be relaxing. It doesn’t look like that’s working out too well for you.”
I clenched and unclenched my fists. “I ran into your mother on the way back here.”
“Great,” he said, rubbing his face. “What’d she do now?”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“My mother is crazy.”
“She actually is, James,” I said, fiddling with my hands nervously. “She threatened me.”
“She threatened you yesterday.”
“This was a real threat,” I said, watching his face. “She said that I would never move in with you. That something bad would happen to me first. And that Preston ‘luck’ would take care of it.”
James was looking at me but it was as if he wasn’t seeing me.
“What?” he asked finally. “What were her exact words?”
I swallowed hard. “‘Something bad will happen to you. These things have a way of working themselves out. It’s Preston luck.’”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s sort of branded into my memory by fear,” I said.
“Holy f**k,” James said.
“That’s exactly what I said.”
* * *
“She killed Danielle. Or arranged to have her killed…” James was sitting on the bed, still looking but not seeing. “I can’t believe this.”
“She didn’t admit to anything, James. She just used that phrase, and it was like a lightbulb went off for me. But she doesn’t know what you told me. And no matter what really happened, she didn’t actually kill her—she was home with you when Danielle died, right?”
He nodded numbly.
“So it wasn’t her. Not directly, anyway. Maybe she felt she was responsible for making Danielle so upset that night—maybe that’s what she meant.”
“My mother’s not really a loose-ends kind of person. If she’d wanted Danielle… permanently out of the picture… I don’t think she’d leave it up to chance,” James muttered. He sounded sick. “I just hadn’t thought she was capable of something like this. I underestimated her—or maybe I was overestimating her, now that I think about it.”
