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“So?! I’m freaking out.” I took a deep, calming breath. “And I’m not living here. I’m staying here, temporarily. There’s a difference.”
Dani raised an eyebrow at me.
“Do I stink? I’m sweating like hell.” I sniffed my armpit and she frowned.
She gave the vicinity of my hair a little sniff. “You smell fine. Like a fresh ocean breeze. And maybe just a whiff of last night’s margarita bender.” She frowned again. “And Nutella, actually.”
“I binged while you were in the shower.”
“I didn’t know I had Nutella.”
“You don’t. I picked it up last night when we were drunk. It’s in your kitchen now. Enjoy.” Why wasn’t anyone answering the damn door?
Dani caught my hand, preventing me from jabbing at the doorbell again. “Breathe.”
“I’m freaking out.”
“You mentioned that. There is nothing to freak out about. So you kissed your future stepbrother when he gave you a fake name and you didn’t know who he was. So he’s gorgeous and evil and you’re about to become relatives—”
“That is not helping!”
“Jolie. Get your shit together. You are not nineteen anymore.”
“Big whoop! I’m twenty-three and if you think I’ve learned a thing or two about men and myself and relationships while I’ve been living down in California flunking my way through design school, you are sadly mistaken, my friend.”
“Is this about that loser you broke up with?” she inquired calmly.
Which one?“No. This is not about that loser.” I took another deep breath, trying not to think about my disaster of a life in California right now. “Why aren’t they answering the damn door?” I managed to give the doorbell a quick jab before Dani could stop me again.
“Don’t you have a key?”
I did. It was in my purse. I forgot about that while I was panicking.
I’d only flown home to Vancouver last night, at basically the eleventh hour; I’d avoided the whole occasion of my mom’s impending nuptials for literally years, until I couldn’t anymore. The wedding was in a month, tomorrow I was supposed to pick out my bridesmaid’s dress, and ever since I’d missed Mom’s engagement party four years ago I’d basically spent my life trapped in a guilt cycle because of thereasonI’d missed her engagement party.
That being, I was fucking a stranger in his hotel room—unbeknownst to my mom.
A stranger who turned out to be her fiancé’s son.
Of course, there was also the added guilt that I’d told my beloved cousins that I’d only “made out” with him, as in kissed him, because I couldn’t seem to bring myself to confess that I’d shagged his face off for hours on end. And climaxed for him in every imaginable position. At his command.
I would probably never forgive myself for hurting Mom that night over something so selfish. I was getting laid while she cried at her engagement party because she didn’t know where I’d run off to. For what? A man who was nothing but a liar and a fucking snake.
For her part, Mom had spent four years putting off her wedding to the man she loved to try to appease her daughter and his sons, who were all passive-aggressively unsupportive of the wedding for one reason or another. She’d been through enough.
This marriage was happening whether I wanted it to or not.
I really didn’t.
But Mom deserved to have her only child by her side on her wedding day.
She’d advised me that as one of her bridesmaids I was also expected to come home for the full month leading up to the wedding, to partake of all the formal pre-wedding festivities. At her expense. She’d even covered my rent for the month I had to take off work.
How could I tell her no?
I’d resigned to digging out the damn key when finally, the door swung open and Mom appeared. She lit up when she saw me, even though she’d seen me just last night. It was like she was shocked I’d actually shown up. “Jolie!” She took my shoulders and air-kissed my cheeks, Margot Vola’s version of a warm hug. “Were you waiting long? The music is so loud in here.”
I put on a smile. “Hey, Mom.” She looked beautiful and sophisticated in her silk pantsuit, her dark hair cut in a sleek bob and streaked with subtle silver-gray.
