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But, magnificent or not, I’m also really fucking angry with Alessia right now. Angrier than I’ve ever been. “We’ll talk later,” I mutter to her, holding up a finger in warning. “Though, I’m glad you’re home. Safe.”
And what I really want to do is grab her and kiss her and fuck her until she forgets everything but me, but now is not the time. I turn to Rowena. “Mother, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
She purses her scarlet lips and squints at me in her myopic way, radiating tension and irritation. The doorbell rings, startling us all, and because I’m right beside it, I open the door, wondering who in the hell is calling at midnight. Maryanne stands on the threshold, wilting and wrung out in her scrubs. She casts a tired, wary, I-may-know-what’s-going-on-but-I’m-not-sure look at me and shuffles in as I step aside.
“A family reunion. Past midnight. How quaint.” My sarcasm hides the fact that I’m completely blindsided by them both being here. It’s after fucking midnight, I’m about to have a massive row with my wife, and I thought my mother was in New York avoiding me.
Maryanne follows in our mother’s expensive-perfumed wake, and they head down the hallway to the drawing room.
“Please. Come in. Make yourself at home,” I offer to their backs, altogether bemused that they’re both here. The Mothership has come all the way from Manhattan. I just wanted her to return my call. Not turn up on my bloody doorstep.
I hang up the coats and turn to find Alessia eyeing me warily. She’s said nothing. I reach for her hand, and she snatches hers away.
Okay. She’s pissed off. “We’ll talk about whatever’s bugging you and why you fled without telling me once I’ve dealt with the Mothership.”
Alessia raises her head, her eyes flashing.
Okay, she’s really fucking pissed.
“She was here when I arrived home,” she says.
“In the flat?”
“Yes.”
How the hell did she get in?
“Let’s see what she wants.” Icily formal, I motion for my wife to proceed me and walk toward the drawing room. “After you.” I’m relieved when she does as she’s asked. I’m anxious to hear what my mother has to say because she’s felt the need to make a personal appearance.
This is very out of character.
Rowena stands in the center of the room, and from the disdain on her face, I suspect she’s appraising it and finding it lacking. She scans me from head to toe and reaches the same conclusion. “Hello, Maxim.” Her tone is clipped and, if I’m not mistaken, weary.
No niceties.
No cheek for me to grace with a kiss.
Not even her usual nasty sarcasm.
“You had a fine evening out, with or without your… wife?” The word wife is a sneer.
Ah. There she is. The Rowena I know. What the hell has she said to Alessia?
I glance at Alessia, who’s frozen beside me, her dark eyes obsidian as she stares at my mother with thinly veiled hostility.
“What I’ve been doing with my wife is none of your concern. And how did you get into my flat?”
“I bullied Oliver into giving me a key and the code for your alarm. He said he’d send you an email.”
Ah. I remember his missed call. I’ll have words with him on Monday, but I can only imagine the altercation they had for him to surrender my keys. Maryanne, who’s said nothing, shrugs, her face a picture of tired bemusement, and she flops onto the sofa.
“You and your dubious marriage are all over the press.” Rowena purses her lips in disgust.
“Mother, you are the fucking press!” I retort.
Is this why she’s here? My marriage? Or is it Kit?
She peers down her nose in that annoying, haughty way she has. “I’m the editor and proprietor of one of the UK’s leading women’s lifestyle magazines. Not the gutter press.”
Alessia moves, recovering some of her composure. “May I take your jacket? And would you like some coffee?” she interjects quickly.
“Please,” Maryanne half sighs, half gasps from the sofa. She’s obviously exhausted. “Then we can get this masquerade over, and I can get some sleep.”
“Really, Maryanne,” Rowena scolds, her lips pinched. “I’ll keep my jacket. And yes. I’d like some coffee. Real coffee.” Her tone is that of a woman in charge, but it’s only now that I notice she’s clutching a dainty handkerchief like her life depends on it.
Alessia squares her shoulders and lifts her chin. “It’s all we have.” And she gives her mother-in-law a slight smile she doesn’t mean, turns on her Jimmy Choo heels, and struts out of the room in her sensational dress.
“So, to what do we owe this honor, Rowena?”
She turns bright blue eyes to me, and in them, I see… raw pain and uncertainty. It’s completely confounding. All the animosity I usually feel in her presence evaporates, leaving me defenseless.
A torn white flag in a storm.
