The pearls at Mrs.Masterson’s throat glinted as she tilted her head.“I mean not someone who would ruin him.”
The words landed with brutal finality.
Nicole stepped in, closing the space between them until only inches remained.“You don’t intimidate me anymore.Not like you did back then.And just so we’re clear, in this courtroom, your son doesn’t get a crown.And when this trial is over, he will lose to me.Badly.”
For the first time, Mrs.Masterson’s expression hardened, the pearls of her composure straining.Then she stepped back, smoothing her skirt with slow precision.“So be it.Just remember, Nicole, when this is over, win or lose, you’ll still be on the outside.You always will be.I’ll never accept you and your trashy family.Who, by the way, played their role in your separation.”
The words ripped through her like a blade, sharp and merciless.She’d feared it, dreaded it, but hearing it from this woman’s mouth was agony, each syllable a fresh stab, carving her open until she could barely breathe.
Nicole shoved past her, hand on the driver’s door.She slid into the seat, started the car, and gripped the wheel until her knuckles whitened.
Mrs.Masterson lingered, that same faint, pitying smile flickering once more before she turned and glided away.
How did this woman still do it?How, after all these years, could she crawl under Nicole’s skin and leave her shaking?Why couldn’t she just dismiss her for what she was, a bitter, controlling society matron desperate to control her son’s life?
Nicole let her forehead rest against the wheel.A tear slid down her cheek before she could stop it.
And then, inevitably, came the image of Tripp.His steady eyes, the way he carried himself in the courtroom, the quiet strength she used to lean on.
She had sworn she was done with him.Those twenty years of pain had taught her better.But the truth pressed hard against her heart: she wasn’t as free as she wanted to believe.
She was still fighting battles that had started decades ago, against him, against his mother, against herself.
And sitting there, alone in her car with her hands trembling on the wheel, Nicole wondered if she would ever stop.
What was she doing?
Chapter10
By the time she turned onto her parents’ street, the fury still sat hot under her skin, coiled tightly in her chest.The little Craftsman house looked precisely the same as it had when she was seventeen, the peeling paint, the sagging porch step, the wild rosebush threatening to swallow the windows.How could the house look unchanged when her whole world had tilted?
Even though she was here for her parents, she was beginning to doubt that she should have returned.Staying in Austin would have been the better choice, and yet, her parents needed her.
And yet, she’d just had confirmation that they had helped split up her and Tripp.
Inside, the air smelled of roast chicken and lemon cleaner, a combination that was both ordinary and maddening.Her mother sat at the kitchen table with her crossword puzzle, glasses perched on her nose.Her father sat behind his newspaper, half-listening to the evening news droning from the television in the living room.
“You’re home early,” her mother said without looking up.
Nicole set her briefcase down harder than she meant to, the thud making both parents glance her way.“Trial let out.Jury’s gone home for the day.”
Her father folded his newspaper.“How’s it going?”
She barked out a laugh, bitter and sharp.“Besides the ghost of high school showing up in the front row?”
They both frowned.But it was more than that; it was the cruel reflection of her own past, a case so eerily like her life that it clawed at her like a ghost she could never outrun.
“Mrs.Masterson,” Nicole snapped.“She was there.Watching me.Smiling like she still owns me.Like she still owns everything in this town, including her son.”
Her mother made a faint, dismissive sound.“She always did think she was better than everyone else.”
The rage was just beneath the surface.It was all she could do to keep it contained.
“And then when I walked out to the parking lot, she was waiting for me.Waiting to warn me to stay away from her son.That I’m still not worthy enough for him.How he’s dating someone else.But the worst thing she told me was how my own parents played a part in ending our marriage.”
Her mother gasped.
Nicole’s chest burned.“It’s not just her.This case, it’s like looking into a mirror.A girl who loves the wrong boy.A family who wants her gone.I’m standing in court reliving my own nightmare, only now the names are Bianca and Derrick instead of Nicole and Tripp.”
