Page 52 of Sweet Surrender

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Hendrix

“Ugh.”

It’s my first and only thought when I see the caller ID on my phone say “Mom” on the incoming call.

If I pick up, then I’m already lying to her.

But nothing has broken yet and so it might be the last time I actually talk to her without the burden of guilt that’s fast approaching.

Wedding pictures will “leak” by Friday, at least that’s the plan, and so with that knowledge, I opt to answer and have a much easier conversation.

“Mom. Hi. How are you doing?”

“Honey? Are you okay? I called the bakery and the message said you were closed for a few days. Is something wrong?”

Shit. “I’m fine. Good. That was from a few days ago. I’ve been there. I just forgot to change the message.”

“But you were closed? Why? What’s wrong? You haven’t taken a day off since you opened. Do I need to come out and take care of Fucktard for you?”

I chuckle. “No, Mom. This has nothing to do with Paul. I have a big order coming up and needed a few days’ break before I start on it.”

She makes a noncommittal sound that says she doubts me. “Okay, but how are you going to pay bills if you aren’t open?”

She doesn’t know that Paul drained our accounts. That would have resulted in a lecture about how I put my future in the hands of a man. She’d then want to come and save the day when she doesn’t have the money to save the day with in the first place.

And she doesn’t know I’m being paid to now be Mrs. Jase Gizmodo. That would open a whole other round of questions about what services I’m being paid for exactly and . . . now, I comprehend why Nathaniel required that no one else know.

It makes it easier and harder at the same time.

“I’m good. I promise. This order is huge and I inflated the prices so I covered the days off.”

“You sure about that or are you just giving me lip service?”

“I am. I promise.”

“And here I was all worked up because Nosy Natalia—you know my friend who lives across the street and obsesses over her gossip sites all day—swears there was a picture of you in one of them.”

My heart jumps in my chest.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I said the same thing, but honey, she showed me the pictures and I can see why she thought that. They were taken at a distance but I’m telling you, that girl is your doppelgänger.”

If my mom thinks it . . . someone must have taken a picture from our night out in Vegas. Truth be told, I’m surprised one hasn’t been posted or bought by tabloids sooner.

“Right down to the bikini she was wearing,” she continues as I pause mid-motion. “It was almost identical to the one you wore on our girls’ trip a few years back. Such a unique pattern it was. I knew it wasn’t you though. What in the world would you be doing in the backyard of a mansion in Los Angeles?”

Each sentence of this conversation is getting ostensibly worse.

Bikini? Backyard of a mansion?

My hands begin to tremble, but she speaks and answers the question before I can even put words to it. “Some musician’s house no less. You don’t even like tattoos and you could see he had plenty of them as he bent over and kissed her.”

My body flushes with a heat I’ve never experienced before.

It’s happening. I knew this was coming, that people would know, but . . . in my bikini? In my most vulnerable state?