65

ALEX
When I entered the restaurant, my eyes scanned the tables for the woman I was supposed to be meeting here.
I found her sitting at one of the tables to the right, going through the menu.
Margaret Keaton was a beautiful woman.
With dark brown hair peppered with streaks of silver, a round face bared, thanks to her hair pulled back in a ponytail, lips pulled up in a smile and green eyes bright and happy, she turned the eyes of both men and women.
At fifty, she appeared far younger than her age. Had it not been for her rapidly greying hair, she would have been able to pass for mid-thirties.
Making my way over to her, I ignored the curious glances thrown at me by a number of people.
“Hi, Mom.”
Eyes so similar to mine flew up in surprise. “Alex, I didn’t hear you come in!” Rising to her feet, she hugged me.
I didn’t even have it in me to fake a smile as I hugged her back, kissing her cheek.
As we sat down, mom’s too-knowing eyes coasted over me. “How have you been?”
“Good. I’ve been good.” I nodded, not sure whether it was her I was trying to convince or myself. “How have you been? How’s Lou?”
Lou was my mother’s tiny chihuahua. Vicious little thing, that one.
“Eleanor’s helping me watch over her until I get back,” she said. Eleanor was mom’s best friend who lived a few houses down the road from her. “You didn’t answer my question, Alex. How are you?” She looked me up and down, lips forming a thin line as worry filled her eyes. “You don’t look…well, dear.”
Saying I didn’t look well was an understatement and I knew she was only saying that because she was trying to be kind.
I looked like shit.
A blade hadn’t touched my face in days so I basically looked like a caveman. Coming here, I’d walked into my closet and grabbed the first things I could find, which happened to be jeans and a T-shirt. Not very suitable for a fancy restaurant such as this one, which was why everyone was currently staring at me like I’d sprouted a second head.
Ask me if I cared.
I had more pressing issues.
Dragging a tired hand down my face, I stared at a spot on the table in front of me. “Mom, I’ve got to talk to you about something.”
She peered at me over the rim of her glasses. “Well, when you said you wanted to meet here, I knew something serious ought to have happened considering you didn’t show up for dinner last month,” she said and I fought a grimace. “Tell me what’s wrong. I’ve never seen you like this.”
The waiter chose that moment to come over and I waited for him to take our orders before I braced my elbows on the table.
Over the drive here, I’d tried to come up with the best way to break it to her but I’d been unable to come up with anything, so I decided to just go right ahead and rip off the fucking bandage.
“Claire and I are calling off the engagement.”
Mom’s head jerked back in surprise. “What? Why?”
Her exclamation had the people at the tables closest to ours turning to look at us briefly.
“Mom, keep your voice down.”
“What do you mean keep your voice down?” She snapped. “You’re the one who just said you’re ending your engagement.”
It wasn’t lost on me how she said ‘you’re’ like she believed it was me who wanted to call things off and not Claire. Sure it was me, but it hurt that she’d just concluded.
Of course, Claire, saint that she was couldn’t do any wrong in her eyes.
Perhaps it was on that train of anger that I said, “There wasn’t even an engagement to begin with, so we’re technically not ending anything.”
Mom blinked. Then blinked again. “Alex, what are you talking about?”
Not only did she look terribly confused right now, I also saw fear beginning to creep into her eyes, making her look small and fragile.
A part of me-the part that wanted to please her all the damn time and couldn’t stand to see her hurt-wanted to backtrack and say that this was all a poorly executed joke. But the much larger part-the part of me that had pushed me into making this meeting in the first place, won out.
That day, I’d lasted all of ten minutes after Claire left before I’d dashed to my car and driven over to Jack’s, hoping that was where Laura was. Instead, I’d met his wife at the door, who’d stared at me with fire in her eyes and demanded an explanation, all of which I’d happily given her because I knew she deserved it.
When she’d seen exactly how horrible I felt, she’d told me that I needed to give Laura time.
At least a week, to be specific.
It had seemed implausible at the time but I’d decided to take Balery’s word for it, seeing as she was her best friend.
She’d refused to tell me where Laura was, however and I’d left their house feeling even more frustrated than when I’d gone there. My thoughts had been in such a disarray because why the hell had it taken Hunter texting with Laura’s location before I’d remembered that she had a bodyguard who followed her everywhere?
But I hadn’t been thinking right. Hell, I still wasn’t thinking right.
I hadn’t been able to muster one clear thought since she’d left. My head was a mess. I hadn’t gone to work, neither had I called in to make sure everything was running smoothly. I’d completely fallen off the grid.
There was an ache in my chest that had taken root the moment she’d left and had only intensified ever since then.
It was constant and profound, but I welcomed it nonetheless because it was a reminder that I was still alive. I felt numb everywhere else. Even food had lost its taste in my mouth.
I didn’t realize I’d zoned out until my mom’s fingers snapped in front of my eyes. She looked like she was only a few seconds away from having a panic attack.
“Sorry,” I murmured, only now realizing that the waiter had brought our orders and a plate was now sitting in front of me.
I didn’t touch mine. Mom didn’t either.
“Explain to me what the hell is going on, Alex.”
So I did. I told her everything.
How Claire and I had broken up in college and how I’d suggested the fake engagement to her all because she-my mother in this case- had pressed for one. I left out the cause for the breakup and how I’d been buying Claire’s silence with money.
By the time I was done, mom had fallen back completely in her chair and was staring at me like she’d never seen me before.
She looked left, then right like she expected people to jump out any moment now and tell her that she was being pranked. “Is this a joke?”
Sighing, I leaned back in my chair, mimicking her. “I wish it was.”
I watched as she took a long sip of her drink, wondering what was going on inside her head. The confusion and shock on her face were enough clues but I needed to know what she was thinking.
“So, let me get this straight,” she started and I braced myself for the worst. “You got engaged to Claire just because I said you two make a great pair?”
“Those weren’t the words you used, Mom. You brought it up several times.”
“Because she’s such a nice young lady and I’ve seen the way you look at her,” she argued.
Considering that Claire was the furthest thing from nice and my mother thought she was, I wasn’t exactly sure she hadn’t misinterpreted a look of hatred to be one of love.
The lens through which my mother viewed life could not be trusted.
“Claire and I exchange no more than five words when we come over for dinner. I’m surprised you didn’t suspect something was off.”
I wasn’t really. My mother saw what she wanted to.
Mom shook her head like she couldn’t believe it. “So the engagement party. Your friends, they all knew about this?”
“They understand.”
Understand would be the perfect term, considering that they hadn’t been on board with the plan in the first place and had wanted me to come clean once Laura and I had officially started dating.
Feeling like a total piece of shit that I was hurting her like this, I placed my hand above hers on the table. They were shaking.
“As absurd as this all sounds, I’ve seen things like this actually work out. Why end the engagement now when you’ve kept it going for so long?” She frowned. “Don’t you have feelings for her? Claire is such a lovely soul, it would be a shame to let her go.
My hand slipped from hers as I sat upright. “I don’t love Claire. I never did.”
“So why this? Why now?” She gesticulated wildly as she spoke and one glance around confirmed that we were beginning to garner attention.
I almost bared my teeth at them.
Why was it so hard to mind your own fucking business?
Keeping a tight rein on my emotions, I turned to my mother. “Because there’s someone I love.”
Mom’s eyes bugged out of her head. “Oh.”
I nodded. “Yeah. We met at Jack’s wedding. She’s a friend of Balery’s and she’s amazing.” My throat suddenly grew too tight for me to speak past it, so I coughed. “She found out about Claire in the worst way possible and she left.”
Sympathy filed Mom’s eyes. “Oh, dear. That couldn’t have gone well.”
“You have no idea. ” Running a hand through my hair, I exhaled. “I’ve got to get her ba-”
My phone rang and I contemplated letting it go to voicemail because I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. That was until I peeked at the screen and saw Hunter’s name in bold.
I had never answered a call so fast.
Hunger never called. Only texted.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, skipping all formalities.
“She caught me watching her today.”
Shit.
“What happened?”
He ignored me, the honk of cars in the background telling me that he was driving. “When she caught me, she told me to leave her alone, so I tried to put more distance between me and her. That’s why he got to her so quick. I didn’t-”
My blood chilled. “Who got to her?”
“I didn’t get a good view of him, but he’s got shoulder length hair and he’s got to be at least six feet tall.” I was already pushing away from the table, mom watching me with wide eyes. “I only got his side profile before he walked off with her.”
“What do you mean walked off with her?” I was about to fucking lose it.
For what had to be the first time, I heard Hunter exhale harshly. “I saw him put a cloth to her face. Has to be chloroform.”
Jesus Christ.
I didn’t even want to consider the possibilities of what could have happened running through my mind. I would go insane.
I needed to keep a clear head.
“Text me your location,” I barked into the phone before ending the call. To my mother, I said, “I’ve got to go.” I didn’t wait for her response before I tore out of the restaurant.
My hands shook as I opened the car door, fear twisting my insides into a tangled mess.
If something happened to Laura and the baby…
I wasn’t sure I could finish that thought without getting a coronary.
Stepping on the gas pedal, I broke the speed limit, driving like my life depended on it-because it did.