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“Shut up,” I hissed and slammed the door behind me. She was giving me a defiant look, and James was watching her face. “Ma, I would introduce you to James, but I heard you met him yesterday.”
“Hello, Mrs. Reynolds,” James said, a mask of courteousness on his face.
She nodded at him and almost looked abashed. Almost.
“James, do you mind if I speak with my mother alone? I’ll be in in just a minute.”
The look he gave me was annoyed, resigned, and not at all surprised. “Sure. But if I don’t see you in five minutes, I’m coming out to get you.” He gave me one last look. Then with a curt nod to my mother, he slid out of the car and slammed the door.
My mother blinked at me, her eyes beady in her puffy face. “He’s bossy, huh?”
I just glared at her. “Kai, can you circle the block?” He pulled out silently and headed down the street. I ducked down low, thankful for the tinted windows.
“You—ashamed of me,” she said and snorted.
My mother had all the nerve. “Do you understand that I’m on a job? I’m working. I can’t have people from my outside life dropping in on me. I could get fired. If Elena gets wind of this, I will be fired.”
“I don’t really think you need to worry about that. Do you?” She looked at me slyly.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Ma? Are you drunker than usual?”
“I am not drunk. But I had a visit from your friend yesterday. He’s bossy, but he’s generous. I think he likes you.”
“Just shut up. Please.”
She shook her head, that smug look intact. “He gave me money, Audrey. Lots of money. Just so I’d leave you alone. So you could be happy. That’s what he said!” She chuckled at this. The fact that someone wanted me to be happy was amusing to her.
“How much,” I said flatly.
“Twenty thousand dollars!” she said. She clapped her hands together in glee. “I needed a break so bad. And he gave it to me like it was nothing. It was chump change to him, Audrey. There’s a lot more where that came from.” She licked her lips, and I felt nauseous. I almost threw up right there, in the back of James’s hired Mercedes.
“Please stop,” I said.
“Oh honey—I’m just getting started.”
I looked up at her, sick with dread. “You can’t do this to me.” I felt as if I were under water, my words coming out muffled and strange. The world was crashing around me like tumultuous waves, the undercurrent fierce and scary. My mother was dragging me down again.
“All I’m gonna do is ask him for a little more money,” she said.
“He already gave you money. To be kind, Ma. Do you even understand what that means?”
“He’s got more to give. He didn’t even blink.” She paused for a second, her beady eyes studying me. “I bet he’d give you a lot more than that.”
“He’s already paying me. Through the service.”
“He’d give you more. I know he would.”
“I don’t want more. I don’t deserve more—and I don’t make it a habit of trying to suck the people around me dry.”
She smiled again, triumphant and absolutely petrifying in her dull cunning. “But you’ve been sucking him dry. That’s what you do. I bet those fancy people back there don’t know he’s paying you to do it, either.” She took in my lavender dress, my flawless makeup, and the designer bag Elena had lent me. “I bet they don’t know you’re a hooker. I bet he doesn’t want them to know.”
“I fucking hate you.” I stared at her brazenly. I’d thought it a thousand times, but I’d never said it out loud before.
She didn’t even wince. “You owe me. I brought you and Tommy into this world. Your father left me because of you kids. And now I have nothing.”
“You disgust me,” I said, my chest heaving in anger. If I hadn't had to go pretend to be a real person at a very fancy rehearsal dinner in approximately two minutes, I would have thrown myself at her and scratched her face. I was beside myself with fury.
Underneath that, her threat was like an undertow, threatening to drag me out to sea. I couldn’t let her do this to James.
