Page 55 of Always: A Legacy Novel

She had already done that for herself.

“Trust fund bitches?” Catrina asked.

Catherine made a face. “I said that out loud?”

“It was more like a mumble, but sì. That’s what you’re worried about, still being liked and popular?”

“It is high school, Ma. This isn’t like with you, or however you did your thing selling—”

“We don’t talk about that, Catherine.”

She rolled her eyes.

Sure.

They never talked about it, or mostly.

“Point is, high school is brutal. I feel like I’m starting over or something.”

“They’re just teenagers, like you. They’re not rabid or anything.”

Catherine begged to differ.

At least for some of the girls at the Academy.

And a few boys, too.

“You hold your own just fine,” Catrina said with a sly smile, “because you’re my daughter, Catherine. And for the record, you are also one of those little trust fund—”

“Are you going to call me a bitch?”

“Well, there is a reason why you go to that school, and it’s not because your father and I are poor, Catherine. You’re just as privileged and spoiled as any of them. You simply don’t show it off in the same way they do. So they wear diamonds and gold, and you wear flowers in your hair and prefer a Coachella style. Fact is, you still come from the same world they do, and you still dress up just the same in the end. Don’t put yourself on a pedestal; you’ll shatter the same way they would when you fall, sweetheart. And you will fall.” Then, Catrina barked out a laugh. “You should have heard your tone right then, though. Jesus, get ready to rip my throat out why don’t you? You’ll be fine, reginella.”

“Yeah, I know, Ma.”

Or, she hoped.

“But remember what I’ve always told you,” Catrina said as she pulled into the Academy’s drop-off lane for the upper grades. “Tell me what it is, Catherine.”

“I’m always a queen as long as I act like one.”

Catrina winked. “Precisely.”

“I’m being vain, aren’t I?”

“Be vain, Catherine. Absolutely. Care about how you appear to others, and what they see. But never ever bend or change who you are to suit what they want. Be vain, yes, care about your outer image and reputation, but do so because you are controlling what they see and think. Nothing else.”

Catherine nodded. “Okay.”

Catrina’s smile softened. “That, Catherine, is how I was so successful as a Queen Pin. No one was ever allowed to see me or think of me in any way but the ways I allowed them to see or think. No one knew the woman under her mask of makeup, designer dresses, and sky-high heels. They saw the Queen, she was who delivered. I made sure I always had that control—every single time.”

She wasn’t sure what shocked her more; that her mother had offered information about her past so freely, or that she smiled while she did it.

“Do you miss it?” Catherine dared to ask.

Catrina laughed, her smile melting into a smirk. “Oh, I’m still her. She’s still me. A queen never goes away—I’m just a bit different now, and my business has changed accordingly.”

Catherine felt a hell of a lot better as she stepped out of her mother’s Lexus, but she swore she felt eyes burning into her back as she walked into the school.