The Mother
Cece POV
“I miss when you were younger,” Catherine said.
Cece peered up from the tablet in her hands to find her mother staring at her from across the aisle of the private jet. Other than the dark hair and brown eyes she had taken from her father, looking at her mother was like staring into an older mirror. A reflection of herself stared back—the same bow-shaped lips, delicate features, high cheekbones, and wide eyes.
“Why?” Cece asked.
Catherine smiled softly. “Things were simpler—easier, maybe. When I had to pick up and go for business, I could just take you right along with me. You were always happy to go, too. Now, you’re thirteen, have school, and—”
“You could always homeschool me,” Cece suggested.
Her mother lifted a single, perfectly manicured brow high. “Really?”
Cece made a face. “Well, maybe not. I guess I wouldn’t get to see most of my friends nearly as much as I do now.”
“If ever,” Catherine added.
“Yeah.”
Catherine gave a little sigh, and stared out the port window of the plane. “I know you’re pretty set on … doing this with me. Being like me, I mean.”
Her mother was always careful with her words. She chose each statement she made like someone might overhear it. Cece had become used to communicating this way with her ma—and even her dad—over the years.
It was just their way.
Their life.
“This is all I ever wanted, Ma,” Cece said.
To be like her mom.
And her grandmother before her, too.
A Queen Pin—the queen.
It was in Cece’s blood. It was what she was born to do. This was her birthright. She had grown up under the feet of some of the most powerful and amazing woman she had ever known. Her mother and grandmother commanded.
They ruled.
They were feared.
Respected.
“Maybe this is all you’ve ever wanted to do,” Catherine replied, “because it’s also the only thing you have ever known, Cece. Have you ever considered that side of the coin?”
Cece shrugged. “So?”
Her mother laughed lightly, and glanced upward. “So, my little smartass, I feel like you might be a bit biased.”
Again … so?
Cece just stared at her mother, and said nothing. Catherine continued to stare right back entirely unfazed.
“Do you know that I am trying to let you have as normal of a life as I can possibly give you?” her mother asked. “High school, prom, friends, boys … I want you to enjoy these things, Cece. I want you to appreciate having these experiences, and this time before your focus changes to business entirely.”
Because it would happen.
Eventually.
Cece heard what her mother didn’t say.
“I know, Ma,” Cece said.
Catherine looked back out the window. “Good.”
“Isn’t that strange, though?”
“Hmm?”
“That you miss when I was little, and you could take me everywhere. But now you kind of wish that I would slow down. That’s what you mean, right?”
Catherine’s smile was soft as she looked back at her daughter. “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
“So is it—strange?”
“Normal, I think. All things considered.”
Cece smiled, too. “You know, Ma, if you asked me to choose any other normal thing, or the chance to be with you … I would pick you.”
“You would, huh?”
“Always. You’re my ma.”
Catherine was quiet for a long time, but her gaze never drifted away from Cece for even a second. She could tell her mother was trying to find something when she looked at her—something that wasn’t clearly visible, but had to be there, nonetheless.
It was not the first time her mother did something like that. Sometimes, when Cece was hiding a secret, it was like her mother just knew she was holding something back simply by looking at her.
“What?” Cece asked.
Catherine shook her hear. “I was just thinking that years ago, this could have been me and your grandmamma. Different circumstances, though. Entirely different.”
Oh.
Now she was really curious.
Her mother and grandmother didn’t talk a lot about how exactly Catherine had come into the business with Catrina. Cece always just assumed it was like her and her ma—she grew up in it all, saw the business happening around her, and naturally, gravitated toward the same path because this was what she was meant for.
Was it the same for her ma?
Cece leaned forward a bit in the seat, unable to hide her curiosity. “Why is it different?”
Catherine waved a hand between them. “When I was your age, I used to have to snoop through my mother’s office and things just to find out any little detail about her life beyond the woman who ran our household. She was my mother—my father’s wife. She was the woman who tucked me into bed, and read me stories.”
“But?”
“But I also knew that wasn’t the end of her tale. I knew she was more—something else entirely when she left our home for weeks at a time. But whenever I would ask, she shot me down. She didn’t want me to know what she was doing, or who she was.”
Cece frowned. “But why?”
That didn’t sound like her grandmamma at all.
“I guess because my mother wanted to be one thing to me, Cece. Just my mother. And she thought hiding things or refusing to indulge my curiosity in this business would be enough to keep me away from it.”
Cece’s brow furrowed. “Clearly it didn’t.”
“Nope.”
“So, she … changed, I guess?”
“Nope,” her mother repeated, laughed. “My cousins brought me in on their business. I was a dealer behind my parents’ backs for years. A decade, probably, before they found out. I was into my twenties when my mother finally got that this was what I was good at—college wasn’t for me, and I wasn’t going to be anybody’s dumb little house wife turning cheek to their business. No, I was meant to be … something else. Something more like my mother.”
“A queen,” Cece said.
Catherine stared at her daughter, silent.
Cece stared right back.
“Like me and you,” Cece added quieter.
“Is it like me and you?”
“I know what I want, Ma.”
And Cece could only hope that someday, she would be just like her mother—that she would stand tall and proud like her mother.
Beautiful. Magnificent. Amazing.
Strong. Powerful. Resilient.
Smart. Refined. Elegant.
“You will be,” Catherine said, as though she could read her daughter’s mind.
“What, Ma?”
“Amazing—like the ones who came before you, Cece.”
Cece had big shoes to fill.
It didn’t scare her one bit.