Chapter Fifteen
“Honey, please talk to me.” Her mother shifted the large SUV into gear. “I know we haven’t always been close, but I love you. I want to make sure you’re okay. And, um, I don’t live here, so I have no idea where the airport is. But I’m going to circle the block so you can have some time to breathe.”
Her mom’s kindness only made the tears fall harder. “Doesn’t matter. My stupid passport is at the house, along with everything else I own. I just had to get out of there. I’d just woken up, so I wasn’t thinking clearly.” Amy started laughing and crying at the same time. “Pull over. I think I’m going to throw up.”
She’d barely made it out of the truck before she was hurling last night’s dinner into some fancy rose bushes. Her mother was there a moment later, holding her hair back.
“Are you pregnant?” her mother asked gently. “I’ll kill him.”
Amy laughed, though it wasn’t a happy sound.
“No. It’s nerves. I do this before and after every performance.” She took a shaky breath. “And before you think I’m bulimic, I’m not. I eat all the time. When I get nervous or upset, my stomach rebels.”
“Well, that was quite the performance.”
Amy stared up at the sky. “That’s the thing, Mom. It wasn’t. That was real life. It’s why I avoid it. It’s messy and hurts. I love him so much, and he thinks I’m some gold digger. He thinks you married his dad for his money.”
Her mother chuckled. “Well, from the stories I’ve heard from his dad, Hawke probably has good reason to believe that. Those poor kids have been through the ringer. Though, who am I to throw stones? I’m the world’s worst mom.”
“Not the worst,” Amy said. “I’m sorry I said that, especially in front of your new husband. I was just really angry. I’m the worst daughter ever.”
“No, you’re my precious girl. And I’m all about the truth these days. Angry or not, you were speaking from your heart. I’m okay with that. I’m hoping someday you can forgive me for my past mistakes, but for now, let me take care of you. Come on, let’s get you back into the truck. How about we forgo the airport for tonight and find you a nice hotel to stay at. If you tell me where, I can drive.”
Amy started crying all over again. She didn’t have money for a Motel 6, let alone the kind of hotel her mother would consider.
“Mom, I can’t. I’m embarrassingly broke right now. I spent the last of what I had making Hawke’s house a home. Some decorator had turned it into a model home. Pretty, but with no heart.”
After watching her for a few seconds, her mom reached out and smoothed the hair from her face. “My treat,” her mother said. “I’d like a chance to talk to you. Somewhere private. And you need to rest tonight. We’ll get your travel plans sorted in the morning.”
Amy shook her head, but the tears wouldn’t stop. “Why are you being so nice?”
Her mother got into the truck and turned on the engine. “You’re right,” she said. “I was a terrible mother. I was very selfish. I only thought about myself and never once considered how my crazy life might be affecting my kid.”
She was so not in the mood for this. “It’s okay.”
“Amy, I’ve been sober for two years.”
“That’s great.” Amy sounded so insincere. Of course, her mother was making one of the worst moments of Amy’s life about her. “I mean, good for you.”
“You’re missing my point. This isn’t about me.”
Amy frowned.
“I’ve made amends with everyone except you and your stepbrother. It’s been weighing on me a lot. Part of me worried that trying to make amends would make it worse for you guys. I’m not going to ask you to forgive me. But I am going to say I’m sorry. I can’t make up for all those years where I was a mess. I was either working or drinking. I lost myself in both. It’s not an excuse. I just want you to understand that I know I messed up. But right now, at this moment, my beautiful and talented daughter, I’d like to take care of you for once. I’d like to be here for you no matter what you need from me. Money. Emotional support. You’ve got it. Just tell me what you want.”
Amy wanted to be angry, but she couldn’t be. Everyone in the world was fucked up in some way. She wasn’t ready to talk, but she took her mom’s hand and squeezed it.
“Chocolate. I need chocolate.”
…
Hawke stared at the computer while he talked to the credit card company. An ATM withdrawal had just been made in Mexico. They had a photo of the guy. Dark hair, about five-foot-nine.
Not her brother. The guy in the restaurant had been blond and only a little shorter than Hawke.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
His card really had been stolen.
And his wife was heir to a cosmetic empire.
But he’d had Gray run her credit report. She only had a few hundred in the bank. It didn’t make sense.
He walked through the house, taking it all in for the first time. It wasn’t a house. It was a home, made that way by the little trinkets she’d bought with her own money. For the hundredth time that night, he ran a finger across the receipt in his pocket.
I trusted you. For the first time, I trusted someone who wasn’t me.
“I don’t get it. If she has all that money…why?”
Then his dad told him everything about his new wife’s alcoholism, and Amy running away to ballet school at fourteen. She’d been self-sufficient her whole life. Been supporting herself since she was a kid, even though her mother was a billionaire with a cosmetics fortune.
A fucking billionaire who could have bought his father a few times over and still had some change.
Holy fuck.
The only reason Amy had taken his money was because she needed to help her stepbrother. He would have done the same for anyone in his family, and he had.
They’d made a deal. She’d kept her end of the bargain. It shouldn’t have mattered how she used the money. It was hers to spend. He’d gone and jumped to every wrong conclusion.
Gray had checked into the stepbrother’s business. It was legit. The partner had embezzled millions, and her brother was trying to make things right. Neither of the kids ever went to Amy’s mom for money. Ever. It came with too many ties, his dad had said. He and his new wife had put all of their cards on the table. There wasn’t anything they didn’t know about one another. That was why they’d taken the last month and a half to get to know one another.
She’d been working up to apologizing to her kids, and his dad had helped her. He’d also realized that maybe it was time to make a few apologies of his own, and to sign over the family business to Hawke. His dad was going to live in California with the new wife. That was why they’d come to Austin, to clear the decks.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He scooped up the T-shirt Amy had thrown on the floor.
He sat on the edge of the bed and held it to his face. Lemons and honey.
Fuck it all to hell.