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Then I stepped past the front door and found Mom waiting at the base of the broad staircase.
She took me in with a cool expression, her arms crossed over her pale business suit that contrasted sharply with her tan skin and dark hair. My stomach plummeted with the immediate awareness that she was pissed.
“Luciana, come to my office, now,” she said in a clipped tone, and spun with the expectation that I’d hurry after her.
Octavio’s scornful expression flashed in my mind. Had he told her that he’d caught me slipping out of her office the other day? Shit. I’d been banking on his ego not wanting to risk mistakenly accusing me, but he had been acting pretty hostile toward me. He might have decided it was worth the potential consequences to try to screw me over.
That fucking prick. As if I evenwantedany authority over him.
I had to play it cool regardless. My heart thudding, I strode up the stairs after Mom. “What’s this about? Has something urgent come up?”
Mom didn’t say a word as she stalked ahead of me. All I could do was trot along behind her like the little dog she’d trained me to be.
My teeth gritted, but I forced myself to keep walking. Defying her before I even knew what was up was a surefire route to disaster.
She stepped to the side of the office doorway to let me walk in and jerked the door shut in my wake. I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room while she marched over to her desk.
Then she whirled to face me. “How long did you think you could keep this up before I caught on? You don’t really think I’m an idiot, do you?”
I bristled even as my nerves jolted with a deeper panic. What the hell was she talking about?
“Of course not,” I said quickly, reining in the urge to babble. “I don’t even know what you—”
Mom cut me off with a scoffing sound. “Don’t give me that mierda. I know you’re still skating.”
I stared at her, my voice dying in my throat. She didn’t know that I’d been gathering evidence against her, looking to undermine her schemes. That would have been good if she hadn’t instead stumbled on the one secret that could destroy not just me but the men I loved too.
My mouth opened and closed a few times before I found my words. By then, it was probably too late to put on a believable show, but I gave it my best bewildered tone anyway. “Skating? I only went out to—”
“No,” she said sharply. “Enough lies. I know how you look after you’ve been at practice, that head-in-the-clouds expression you get. Nothing else ever affected you the same way. I noticed it a couple of days ago, so I put a tracking device on your car. And where did that tracking device point to after you left today? It stopped just a few blocks away from a skating arena and stayed there for three hours.”
Dread wrapped icy fingers around my gut. I couldn’t deny her accusations when she had that much proof. It wasn’t like I could convince her I’d been doing something else in the drab neighborhood around the rink.
Had she already sent someone to find out whether I’d been skatingwithanyone else? To hurt the guys as my punishment?
Oh, hell, no.
There was nothing I could do to fix this. Now that she’d caught on, she’d never let me leave the house without tracing my movements. I’d be lucky if I even got a chance to warn Rafael and the skaters.
There was nothing I could do… except play the hand I’d already been building.
A flicker of starker fear shot through my chest at the thought. I’d hoped that I’d have more leverage before I revealed my cards.
I’d gathered quite a bit of proof, though. It was probably enough.
It’d better be, because there’d be no coming back from this gamble.
I lifted my chin and drew on all the anger and frustration that’d burned inside me since I’d watched her step out of her car in Boston. “All right. I’ve been skating. So what?”
It was Mom’s turn to stare. Her eyes narrowed. “So what? I told you that you’re done with skating. You don’t have time for that ridiculous hobby. Your attention needs to be here.”
“It’s my life,” I said firmly. “I love skating, and I wouldn’twantto live if I couldn’t do it anymore. So I don’t see why you should get to decide that for me. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me even while fitting my practices in—you wouldn’t even have realized if it wasn’t for me beinghappy. What do you have to complain about?”
Mom’s lips pursed so tightly it was a wonder they hadn’t turned white. I’d talked back to her now and then in the past, but only brief throwaway remarks. Never such blatant, insistent defiance.
It was like I’d blown a fuse in her brain. There was no telling how viciously she’d retaliate when she got over the shock, but I couldn’t back down now. I held her gaze unflinchingly.
When Mom spoke next, her voice was laced with venom. “I want you totally focused on the business. We’re in the middle of something big, something that requires all your energy and attention. If you can’t manage that in your current situation, then I’ll simply have to rearrange your prioritiesforyou.”
