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“Pot, meet kettle,” I deadpanned, more than slightly insulted, even though I couldn’t understand why. I was more than aware of my reputation. And up until just then, other people’s opinions of me hadn’t mattered much. So, why was Navie’s judgment rubbing me the wrong way?
“Look, it’s more than obvious that we don’t like each other, and that’s fine. But I need this job, Rowan. Can we just… I don’t know, call a truce or something?”
As I studied the woman in front of me, I was hit with an emotion I hadn’t experienced in what felt like forever. An emotion I’d worked diligently over the years to tamp down whenever it started bubbling up inside of me—guilt.
Could I say with all honesty that I didn’t like her as she’d claimed? The answer was no, I couldn’t. For the past several days, I’d tried to convince myself that was the case. That her being an annoyance was the reason for my bad behavior, but that wasn’t the case. The longer I found myself in her presence, the more drawn to her I seemed to be. And that was a problem… ahugeproblem.
But I couldn’t, in good conscience, deny her request for a truce when she looked so sincere, staring up at me with those unusual blue eyes.
Just as my lips parted to answer her, the loud trill of my cell phone broke through the moment. With a deep sigh, I stepped from the kitchen to where my phone lay charging in the living room. The name that flashed across the screen shot a bolt of anxiety through my body.
“Mom?” I answered nervously, and for good reason. My mother and I only talked once, maybe twice a month. There were no unscheduled phone calls between us, so the fact that she was calling me out of the blue didn’t bode well.
“Rowan, sweetheart,” she spoke through the line. “How are you, honey?”
“I’m good, Mom. Is everything okay?” I heard Navie’s delicate footsteps coming into the room and I quickly retreated down the hall to my study, not willing to risk her overhearing my conversation. Just because I was willing to come to a grudging truce didn’t mean I trusted her with the very personal aspects of my life. There were things about my past that I’d busted my ass to keep out of the media.
The lock clicked into place as silence resonated through the phone line. “Mom? You there?”
“Oh, yes. Sorry, dear.”
“Something’s wrong. What happened?”
A ball of dread lodged firmly in the pit of my stomach as my mother hesitated before finally saying, “It’s Richard.”
My jaw clenched as fear and anger coursed through my blood at just the mention of his name. In all the conversations I’d had with my mother over the years, there was one unspoken agreement we had. We never brought up his name.
“Is he hurt?” Just saying those three words caused nausea to roil in my stomach. I didn’t want to worry about him. I didn’t want to care.
“Oh, no. Richard’s fine, honey.”
In the same instance my chest loosened, the anxiety lessening its hold, frustration took its place. “Then can you please explain to me what the hell is going on?”
Once again, Mom remained silent on the other end for several seconds. I could only imagine her hand on her chest, twirling that ever-present strand of pearls. “Richard and Bree are getting a divorce.”
And with that, I saw red.
“And you’re calling to tell me this bullshit why?”
“He’s your brother, Rowan,” Mom spoke incredulously, as though she couldn’t understand the disdain I held for my brother, a brother I’d shared a womb with. Twins were supposed to be closer than any other two people on the planet, after all.
“Are you serious with this shit right now?” I bit out, the frustration in my veins quickly turning into rage as my vision clouded with red.
“Rowan Anderson Locklaine!” Mom chided. “You will watch your language when you’re speaking to me.”
Usually, a quick reprimand from Marie Locklaine was enough to put me in my place and leave me feeling like an insolent child, but not at that moment.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” I laughed sarcastically. “You call me up to inform me of my brother’s divorce fromBree, and you don’t think I have a right to be pissed off? Fuck that!”
“Rowan, please. He’s your brother. He’s hurting. Would it kill you to reach out to him? Be there for him when he needs you?”
“You’re asking if it would kill me to call the man who slept with the woman I loved, the woman who wassupposedto be the mother ofmychild, the woman he then married after she crushed my fucking heart, and offer up my support? Is that what you’re asking?”
“Rowan,” she whispered through the line heartbreakingly. Hearing the tears in her voice only added to the burning sensation I felt at the wounds of my past being sliced back open.
“Yes, Mother. As a matter of fact, itwouldkill me. I couldn’t give two shits what happens to either of them, or how badly they’re hurting. And I can’t believe you’d even ask that of me.”
“Rowan, please,” she pleaded, but I was done.
