CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: NATALEE

I knew my worst fears were realized before the two knocks even sounded at my front door. Fate was a fickle bitch, and apparently my ticket was up and it was my turn to get kicked while I was down.

Case in point: I’d received a notice from the property management company, alerting me to something that was painfully obvious—the presence of the paparazzi was a deterrent to customers.

The spike in sales Madison Creations had enjoyed before this whole mess had flatlined. But the company that dragged its feet on our plumbing problem and a myriad of other maintenance issues that our neighboring shops had complained about was suddenly very invested in making sure things went back to normal.

It was a reality that made my stomach twist into a heart shaped knot. I knew the struggle of being a small business owner. How much money had they lost in revenue because of me?

On top of all of that, my hopes that all of this (being reduced to some baker who used her food and vagina to steal Jason Cox from a woman who, according to my extensive Googling, even looked like a Glamazon fresh from the gym, perspiring glitter and perfection) would blow over once some pop star or actress or celeb did something newsworthy, hadn’t come to fruition. The customers stayed away, but the paparazzi beat me to the shop, balancing cameras and coffee at 6AM.

If it wasn’t for the self appointed doorman, Mr. Jenkins, an elderly man who lived downstairs and poked his head out anytime the main door creaked, I wouldn’t get any relief at home either. It was a small blessing that Mr. Jenkins, a vet with a glare that could make you pee your pants, still buff and formidable at 70, ran anyone off that wasn’t on my approved guest list. Which was an actual thing. After the first cameraman tried to sneak into the building and I’d heard a thud that ripped right through my chest since the point of impact was my front door, I’d raced over to find out what was happening. A man with a camera and genuine fear etched on his pudgy face was slowly easing down the stairs, his voice low and wary as he tried to explain to Mr. Jenkins that he just wanted to talk to me.

The list, unfortunately, did not include my mother.

When I heard her signature pound echo at my door, I knew I should have made a note at the bottom for Mr. Jenkins.

‘If a tall, newly blonde woman with green eyes and a disarming smile shows up claiming that she’s my mother, chain the entrance’.

“Natalee Jane, I can hear you breathing!”

I lingered at the front door for a second, trying to look on the bright side. Hoping I'd hear the gruff edge of Dad’s voice, warily reminding my mother that her volume was carrying. Per usual, she'd smack her tongue, or his shoulder, then raise the level of her screech a notch or two, just to be contrary.

The only sound that followed her announcement was the whine of the old wood beneath my feet.

“I heard that! Are you really gonna make the woman who spent nearly 48 hours trying to bring you into this world stand out here like she’s trying to sell you a vacuum?!”

I reached as deep as humanely possible and found the scraps of patience that I had left. My mother liked to embellish a bit. I knew that the truth was that she'd spent around 24 hours in labor, but that didn't sound nearly as epic and guilt inducing as 48. Before she mentioned freshman year when I accidentally forgot to call her at midnight to tell her happy birthday, or when I was living off ramen and dreams and had the audacity to just get her a card on Mother's Day, I unhooked the latch on my door and stretched the sides of my mouth until they touched the ceiling.

"Mom!  What a-" I choked on my greeting when I realized that my mother's head had been replaced by a magazine. The picture on the front was a familiar one, because I'd experienced it first hand.

It was me and Jason on the balcony of Delilah, having dinner. The picture was too grainy to make out faces, but they took the guess work out of it, the headline reading, ‘Meet Natalee Madison, Jason Cox's Side Piece!’ And beneath it, in italics like someone leaned over to whisper something for your ears only, Don't tell Jason's fiancé!

I turned on my heels slowly. I felt simultaneously nauseous, wanting to go back to the whole hiding from the outside world thing I'd been doing, and so angry that I wanted to punch a hole through the wall. Angry at the prick who'd snapped that moment. A moment that I thought was a turning point.

I thought Jason and I were becoming something more than two people who couldn't escape the physical magnetism that pulled us together, despite all the reasons we were a bad idea. Those reasons went quiet when I thought we were sharing something real. Something special. The pieces of ourselves that we hid away. Scars from the disappointments of our youth.

And now, I had another emotion that I was juggling. I was disappointed that I hadn't just let my mother rant and rave from the hall and put ear buds in because it was clear she was just warming up.

"No hug? No greeting?" she huffed, her heels clicking as she scurried behind me. "I find out that my daughter has been busy shagging another woman's man and you have nothing to say for yourself?"

I stopped a few feet shy of the couch, my cheeks burning like I set them on fire. I didn't do anything wrong, but I still felt like I should be apologizing anyway.

I balled my fists, pushing that bullshit away. I didn't owe anyone anything. Not the reporters who'd made me the subject of their stalking, not some woman that I didn't even know existed until a few days ago...and not my mother.

"I'm barely keeping it together, Mom but I really appreciate you coming here to call me a home wrecker to my face."

I knew what would come next. More of the same. More guilt trips. I decided to continue my trek back to lala land. The one place on Earth where I could block out the world, my mother included.

Unfortunately, invasion was imminent and I'd already shot myself in the foot by letting her in the door.

"Natalee, I just don't understand. After what happened with Scott-"

"After what happened with Scott, I can't believe you would come to my home with that trash and accuse me of trying to take another woman's man."

I felt her eyes on me, hot and demanding. Reminding me of a million different standoffs we'd had. There was a part of me that was pulled back to my younger days, my room having to be impeccable or she'd go off the rails. Her skin was probably crawling since my living room was a graveyard of takeout containers, tissue, and the clothes I'd worn since that night. My new routine consisted of coming home, stripping, pulling on an oversized shirt and sweats, and burrowing under the blankets on the couch. Since the orders at Madison Creations had slowed and leaving the house meant that my every move was documented by photographers, I'd decided I would just live in this bubble until my roommate got home.

A bubble that my mother had no problem popping.

I knew there was one way to get under her skin, and even though I wanted to glare right back at her, ignoring her and her ludicrous accusations would be more effective. That and, I couldn't bear to look at the woman who'd spent hours bringing me into this world, who should know me better than that, but would take the word of strangers. Where was the benefit of the doubt and one better... "Where's Dad?"

"I made him stay at the hotel,” she answered curtly. “Clearly you need your mother, now more than ever."

I bursted into laughter at that, glancing over at her despite my attempts at giving her the cold shoulder. My laughs trickled into nervous chuckles when I realized that my mother, who never stepped out of her bedroom without her makeup meticulously applied, her hair lush and camera ready, and her outfit showing off cleavage and the gym body she worked hard at, had been replaced by a woman that looked like, well, me.

Her platinum blonde, dyed locks were pulled into a messy ponytail with bonafide flyaways reminding me that I came by my own honest. Her contouring, pencils, and skill probably made her feel like she was shaving off the years, but her face was clear of makeup and she'd never looked younger. Or more tired. Or more vulnerable. Her t-shirt didn't boast her cleavage and her black yoga pants looked like the ones she wore at home while she was waiting for her real clothes to be laundered. And I must have imagined the heels because her feet were wrapped in a pair of flats. Flats. I didn't even know she earned anything other than heels and sneakers for the gym.

Her olive eyes glossed over my face. When she met my gaze, she went into Mom Mode. "You should crack a window, it smells like death and Chinese food in here." She didn't maneuver around the mess, she started scooping things up, blazing a trail to the window. I could have told her the trick to opening the window, but I watched her fuss with it for a minute or two before she wrenched it open and let fresh air in.

She scooped out mail and spam from a laundry basket and dumped my clothes in, balancing it on her hip as she gave me a once over. "When was the last time you showered?" She didn't wait for me to answer her, leaning in to sniff the crown of my head. "Natalee Jane!"

I swatted her away, the heat returning to my cheeks with a vengeance. "Kinda hard to squeeze showers in with all the man stealing and such."

She recoiled, her lips curdling as she gripped the basket like she was the one holding onto her sanity. Like she was the one whose life had been turned upside down. Like she had people trying to capture every riveting moment of her life from grabbing milk at the grocery store to pumping gas.

Everyone wanted a piece of me, including him. They invaded my life with their cameras and their lurid questions about my conscience, or lack thereof, if you believed the headlines. And Jason—he invaded my life in the worst possible ways. He crept in like smoke, like a whisper, filling me with doubt. If I believed his texts and emails, then this was all theater. A fabrication. He claimed the glimpse I got on Delilah was the real him.

And as easy as it was to shuttle those emails to the trash bin and delete the texts, ignoring the thing that beat in my chest was the hardest thing I'd ever done.

My mother was still clutching the basket and her appalled expression, so I backpedaled. Second hardest thing I've ever done. Pretty sure the hardest thing I've ever done is not snapping when my own mother basically called me a floozy.

"You can drop the incredulity, Mom. There are no cameras here,” I sighed.

That earned me a sneer. "Are you suggesting that this is all an act?" She didn't wait for me to confirm it, dumping the basket and its contents on the couch beside me. Effectively washing her hands of me and throwing a Oscar worthy tantrum. When I didn't move a single inch or give her the reaction she was hunting for, she tried a different tactic. She squeezed her frame directly in front of me, sweeping a hand from torso to shoulder, like she was presenting herself to me for inspection.

"Did you take a good look at me, Nat?" She pointed to the floor. "Flats. I'm wearing flats!"

When I didn't even blink, she continued her tirade, gripping a fistful of black spandex and releasing it. The tight material made a snapping sound as it adhered itself back to her skin. "Yoga pants! And I'm not coming from or headed to the gym!” She paused and went off on a tangent, like a stage actress breaking the fourth wall. "And if I was headed to the gym, I would have picked a much sexier combo than a grungy t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants."

The defiant, have-to-get-the-last-word part of me (that I definitely got from my mother) almost rebutted the 'grungy' descriptor of her t-shirt. I had an array of grungy shirts, ticking off several points of the spectrum from 'wash me' to 'this may be hard to believe, but this shirt used to be white'.

I lost my train of thought when I realized she was wearing a Greene Hills Central High t-shirt. And not one of her own throwbacks so she could remind everyone that she was still rocking the same body she had in high school. It was one that proclaimed that she was a proud parent of a GHCH honor student. And from the cracked, acrylic letters that chopped the H and C in half and blurred the once glossy 'student', it was a shirt that had been washed many times.

Which meant it had been worn many times.

I nibbled on my bottom lip, my righteous anger dimming. My mother, who took pride in brands and looking like a celebrity even when she was running to the grocery store, had tugged on that shirt. If it were anyone else, it wouldn't have been noteworthy. It was just a shirt. But Juliet Madison planned her outfits like I planned my baking projects. Meticulously. With care.

"You look great, Mom."

From the slack jawed expression on her face, she was expecting a different follow up.

Get out now, Mom!

You are not welcome!

Can you just go?!

She recovered quickly, per usual, letting out a snort before she cleared off a space on the couch and gingerly eased herself onto the cushion. It was like a crop circle, but instead of rows of vegetation, she was surrounded by my stuff.

"Now you're just making fun." Before I could roll my eyes, she did the honors for me, collecting an armful of socks and empty Bartles and Jaymes bottles. Making space for me on the couch. It was her form of an olive branch.

A few minutes ago, I would have stubbornly planted my feet and grunted that I preferred to stand. I decided to bury the hatchet. I knew that when it was all said and done, my mother had my back.

It didn't make her parroting the headlines any easier to swallow.

I dropped beside her with a sigh, cutting my eyes in her direction. Trying to not be swayed by the t-shirt. By the fact that underneath it all, I knew she'd pick up cars, dash into burning buildings, and take a bullet for me.

"Do you really think that I'd go after a man that was taken?" I paused, sure she would interrupt me before I even got the entire sentence out. If I wasn't stone cold sober after I decided that drinking would only put off the inevitable, I would have sworn that she hadn't heard me at all.

She was dead silent, essentially giving me her answer.

I snapped to my feet and the mess my mother hadn’t gathered rushed to cover the butt sized empty space. "You're really hitting it out of the park tonight-"

"Natalee, it's not like that!" she insisted, rising to her feet too.

The only thing that kept me from just writing this whole impromptu visit off as one of the most deflating in recent memory was the panic in her gaze. My mother did a lot of things: annoyance, disgust, impatience, with some genuine joy making a rare appearance every now and then. Panic? Worry that I was about to storm out and she'd have to have this conversation with my bedroom door? That was rare. That was enough to get my attention. Force me to hear her out. And since I was taking a stroll down memory lane, where things like closed bedroom doors were the norm (hello, teenage years), I threw in some crossed arms for good measure.

"What is it like then, Mom?" I was trying really hard to come across as angry and indignant, a grown ass woman who shouldn't be trifled with, but the voice that came out of my mouth was broken. Hurt. The little girl who just wanted her mother to hold her because it seemed like the world was collapsing all around her.

Her panic had morphed into shock. She was just as surprised by the fact that I hadn't stomped off as I was. It took her a minute to adjust, raising her chin and tidying up her shirt.

My inner cynic scoffed 'It's showtime!'. My heart? Well, it picked a fine time to go utterly soft.

Stupid shirt.

When she perched her hand on her hip and gave me a look that I'd tossed Jason's way a time or two, I almost felt sorry for him.

"I don't understand how you can be pissed at me when you were looking at him like that."

"Looking at him like what?" I huffed, positive that if she was going by that grainy photo, the only thing she got a hint of was that there was some unidentified brunette sharing dinner with someone that kinda looked just gorgeous enough to be famous.

She lurched toward her purse and scooped out her phone. I didn't have to wait for her to figure anything out because she was more tech savvy than I was. She held up her screen for me to see, and my heart immediately surged to my throat.

Since I'd been avoiding all things with headlines and pictures, I'd missed the latest round of images. This one was a classic—a shot of Jason and I at the Madison Creations cupcake booth.

Even if I didn't remember every aching moment from our encounter, from the heat that spread like wildfire every time his dimple winked at me, to the flash of hope that maybe we could start over, I couldn’t deny that I did have ‘the look’. The look that I used to have when I looked at my ex. The look that I'd tried to run away from because I thought he was playing me for a fool, again. It was right there. In living color.

I looked like a woman in love.

And that was before I knew him. How stubborn he was. How he deflected with humor and a quick wit that almost matched mine. A man that ran away from love almost as vigorously as I did. With parents that drove him just as crazy as mine did me. But when I eyed my mother, I felt my frustration evaporate. I even let go of my niggling annoyance that my dad didn't put his foot down and insist that he come along, because I was his daughter too. It drifted out of my grasp, like a balloon string getting caught by the wind, fluttering out of reach.

I swallowed a knot I wasn't aware was lodged in my throat until now. "So I'm making googly eyes at some dude." I relocked my arms across my chest and jutted out my bottom lip. "I still don't understand how any of that translates to your daughter being capable of roping some other woman's man."

"Because I did."

I blinked, sure that my ears were playing tricks on me. There was no way that my mother would do such a thing. Or admit it to me, if she had committed such an act.

"You did what?" I asked warily, my hands dropping to my sides.

She suddenly became preoccupied with the state of her nails, peering at the acrylic with laser-like focus before holding them out and fluttering her slender fingers. "Snagged a taken man."

I arched my eyebrows, pretty certain I didn't want to hear the dirty details about her sordid, man stealing past. "I'm not sure what to say to that, Mom."

"Well, you of all people should be telling me thank you." She gave me a sly grin. "It was your father."

My eyes popped from their sockets as I took a step toward her, then stopped myself from going any closer. There was a part of me that wanted to plug my ears. I didn't want to picture her wooing Dad, even if the end result was me. From the look of relief that was all over her face, it was clear that she was glad to finally share that juicy tidbit. And knowing my mother, I was about to get way more information than I wanted.

She swatted her platinum flyaways, her smile no longer a demure and secretive thing, but showing me every bleached tooth in her mouth. "Don't look at me like that, Natalee!" She licked her lips and since I wasn't moving from my safe distance, she leaned forward. "They weren't serious. I would never go after someone that was truly committed."

I shook my head, holding up my hands and backing up a step. I didn't want to touch her moral tic tac toe (or any lustful memories) with a ten foot pole. "Whatever you need to tell yourself." I went still, holding up a finger when I remembered the 'how we met' story my mother had told a million times. "So I guess you didn't meet dad when you were working at Rudy's Diner when he almost got into a fist fight with a handsy customer?"

It was her favorite story to tell and she was always spurned on by Dad turning bright red every time she had a captive audience.

"It didn't happen exactly like that," she explained, biting her lip coyly. "His girlfriend was tore up from the floor up, drunk or high or both and was propositioning every man that came into the diner. Most of them scurried off to their own significant others or ignored her advances, but one beefy looking trucker was more than willing to take her up on the offer." Even though my imagination did a good job filling in the blanks from the descriptor 'beefy looking trucker', my mother still went out of her way to contort her face, hunch her shoulders, and spread her arms at her side to demonstrate this mystery man's girth. "Your father had played along with his ex's antics, shrugging it off as he does, but when the guy reached for her and she declined his offer to hook up in the back room, the trucker called her a bitch." My mother's eyes got that far off look and I knew she was reliving those moments. "Your dad rose up, his shadow alone making this man continue on his way and when he foolishly thought he was about to sit in my section, I sent him packing. Your dad stared him down until his truck pulled out of the parking lot. " She sighed whimsically and I could almost picture her ogling Dad with hearts beating in her eyes.

I wasn't sure what to be more shocked by, that Dad had almost gotten into some sort of diner fight, or that Mom had been so smitten. She snarled 'men' whenever the tabloids shared that yet another celebrity marriage was dissolving because the dude was screening the nanny. My mother was the nanny. She was the other woman.

I put aside my knee jerk reaction, trying to remember that things were never black and white. This whole thing with Jason had taught me that. We were straight up in some gray area and since I'd decided to just bury my head in the sand and ignore it like that would make it go away, hadn't I lost the right to be judgmental about matters of the heart?

Now I had the faraway look and it earned a wink from my mother before she picked her story back up.

“Naturally, his ex was too belligerent to realize what a steal she had, talking crap the rest of their meal. So when I brought over their bill, I put my phone number on the end of it. We talked on the phone for hours for a week before he ended things and..." She gave me a ta-da flourish. "We lived happily ever after and had the most beautiful little girl."

Her flourish melted into an attempt to give me a hug, but I sidestepped her, smirking despite my attempts to maintain my annoyance.

"So, you think because you took another woman's dude, I did the same thing?"

"Nothing quite so dramatic," she scoffed, playing off my diss by striding into the kitchen. She plucked a glass from the strainer, then held it up to the light and shuddered, rummaging through cabinets for dish soap. "I know from experience that the heart wants what it wants."

"Well, my heart wanted to be left alone altogether," I muttered. From the look my mother gave me, she wasn't buying it. I wasn't even buying it. I had a million opportunities to walk away from Jason and I passed on every one. Even now, I didn't block him. I could close the door on us forever, for real, but my heart wouldn't let me.

The heart wants what it wants.

And my heart wanted Jason.

The sound of the water was enough to remind me that before all this mess I was gonna embark on a Kleenex sponsored cryfest. Emotion bubbled in my chest, ready to boil over and erupt from my mouth in sobs. Streak down my cheeks.

If I saw anything short of dismissiveness in my mother's eyes, I was a goner. When she shut off the water and looked at me, all I saw was love.

I swiped at my cheeks, sniffing. "My allergies have been killing me lately."

Mom knew me well enough to keep her distance and play along. Poorly. "Uh huh. I've got some Claritin in my purse if you need some."

"What I need is some common sense," I groaned. I stepped over garbage and leaned against the counter, eyeballing my clean up list that I had to tackle before my roommate got back. A welcome distraction from everything else. "Even if he's not lying and this whole thing with this other woman is bullshit, I'm just asking for trouble dating someone like him. Someone filthy rich. Someone so gorgeous that I'm gonna spend my life trying to keep women like you at bay." I paused long enough to give her a full-on grin. She responded by sticking her tongue out at me, and all was right in our world.

Unfortunately, I'd opened the can of worms and all my insecurities kept pouring from my lips. "He's going to get bored with me. I'm not fancy. I'm stubborn. And he's stubborn too. And such a smart ass." My heart stuttered in my chest when I pictured his jaw locked, that look in his eye that he wouldn’t budge. That look that made me want to pound his chest with my fists...and tear off all his clothes.

"If any man has the honor of being chosen by you and walks away, he's a fucking idiot." She said it simply, dusting off her hands and taking a gulp of her water. She swallowed and added, "Besides, it sounds like you're not worried about him leaving. You're worried about what happens if he stays. What you'll have to give." Even though she was just drinking water, she cringed like she was drinking something harder. "Being vulnerable is the scariest thing you'll ever do...and the most rewarding."

I wanted to shrug off her fortune cookie wisdom, but it rang true. It echoed in my chest and reached down in to the darkest parts of me and shined a light on my biggest fear.

It wasn't that the tabloids were right. Jason had shown me over and over that he wasn't going anywhere. It was what came next. The words that would strip me naked, and not in the way that we did so well. Emotionally bare and exposed. Heart on my sleeve. Weak.

And still, I couldn't admit it to myself.

I reached over and stole a gulp of her water. "Well, none of that matters because he's in the rich part of town, holed up himself."

Another knock sounded and I bounded over to answer the door, pulling it open without looking, sure it was an Amazon order I'd forgotten about.

I gasped when I realized that I was face to face with someone.

Someone that wasn't delivering a package.

Or in the rich part of town, holed up.

Jason Cox was standing in my doorway.