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“And father,” I reminded her. “You wanted him dead.”
I studied her face closely watching to see if there was even a hint of remorse in her features. There was not. Despite being married for twenty-years, my mother had had my father murdered without hesitation.
“Why did you come, Sasha?” she asked.
“You asked me to.”
“I have been asking you to meet with me for two years, and you’ve never responded.”
I placed my hands on my stomach, and my mother’s all-seeing eyes narrowed. “Is it a boy?” she asked.
Fear slipped up my spine, and I felt my breath being stolen from me. “This was a mistake,” I told her, making a move to get up from the table. “I have nothing to say to you, and it is clear that you have nothing to say that I desire to hear.”
“You better hope that it is a boy,” my mother said. “Take it from me, there is nothing worse than being the daughter of a man like Dom Blanchi.”
Her words stopped me cold. Not just because I was the daughter of a man like Dom, but also, because I already had a little girl—Fiona.
“I know exactly what it is like to be the daughter of a man like Dom, and I can assure you that Papa was a great deal more of a parent than you ever were.” There was anger in my voice. For years, I had kept a lid on those feelings—the ones my mother stirred up inside of me. She trained me to be a perfect little doll. Smile and do what you were told, and you wouldn’t get hurt. But she hurt me. My entire childhood she’d emotionally abused me as she attempted to mold me into her perfect image.
It wasn’t until she sold me off in her marriage plot that I managed to see through her actions.
My mother snorted. “You think you know what it is like, but I can assure you that you have absolutely no idea.”
I leaned forward slightly. “I have a daughter already, and I can assure you that she will never be treated the way that you treated me.”
My mother’s eyes flashed, and for a moment, I noticed a look of fear. “I had heard that you had a little girl.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and the action made my stomach turn in fear. “I prayed that it was just a rumor.”
“Why?”
I sat down once more. I could not help it. As much as I wanted to leave my mother behind and make sure that she was never anywhere near either of my children, I could not ignore the fear in her eyes at the mention of Fiona. Something about me having a daughter scared her, and that terrified me immensely.
“You might not think this, but I did everything that I could to protect you from the world you were born into. I molded you so that you would be safe.”
I bit my tongue so hard that I swear that I could taste blood. “You sold me off to our enemies.”
She snorted. “And look how that ended up. You look happy and healthy. You have a child, and another on the way.”
I shook my head at her. “Unbelievable,” I muttered. “I do not know why I came here. There’s nothing you can offer me except for more of your bullshit. Unlike Nikolai, I don’t give a damn You can’t manipulate me.”
I stood up, grabbed my purse, and turned to leave, satisfied to have gotten the better of her.
“Don’t go, Sasha,” she cried out. The desperation in her voice startled me. The last time I heard anything close to the sound she was making now was when we thought my brother had died.
That was the only time I truly suspected that my mother was human. Now, as a mother myself, I better understood her pain, and I prayed that neither of my children ever faced anything like what happened to Nikolai.
That was partially why I had decided to come and visit her.
“Why did you write to me?” I asked once more. “The two of us never got along. You tried to have me killed.”
“That was a mistake,” she said. She shook her head as though clearing it. “After Nikolai, I was not in my right mind.” Her eyes, which were so much like my own, looked up at me. For a moment, I swore that I saw regret in them. “You’re a mother now. I’m sure that you can understand, at least in some way, what it would do to a person to lose their child.”
I bit my lip. “You did not care about losing me.” The words felt like a dagger in my chest as I spoke them.
“I have always cared about losing you.”
I snorted.
She shook her head. Her long, fading blonde locks shook around her face. “You might not believe it, but the day that I discovered I was pregnant with you was the worst day of my life.”
Her words made me laugh. “That I can believe. You’ve always hated me, and I have always known that.”
“No,” she said. “It was the worst day of my life because I knew that I would never be able to love you. If I did, it would ruin your life. I know because my father ruined mine.”
“You’ve never talked about your father.”
My mother’s face took on a faraway look. “Let me tell you a story…”
