Brooke stepped in for her, filling her silence. No one. Period. Was allowed to dim Anna’s smile. She felt her protective nature roar to life.“That’s not pertinent, Mother. She runs a successful restaurant, which has incredible reviews. If you’re interested in how her career is going now, feel free to google it.”
Sybil immediately slid into a defensive mode. And there it was, her plan. She would make Brooke out to be the villain in any way she could.“Now, Brooke, dear. I was simply trying to get to know your friend.”
“Girlfriend,” Anna corrected, cooly.“I’m her girlfriend.”
Sybil looked like Anna had slapped her. Brooke’s heart raced. Her mother broke first and sipped at her wine.“Well then, where were you raised? Am I allowed to ask that?”
“Toronto, mostly,” Anna said.“Though I’m French by birth.”
“You have a surprising lack of an accent,” Sybil remarked, though not exactly unkindly.
“Growing up around people from all over will do that to you,” Anna said, her smile sliding back into place, though more subdued this time.
Brooke had not expected her mother to interact with Anna at all. She was beginning to worry. They really had not prepared for this. She slid her hand over the back of Anna’s and played with the edges of her fingers, coaxing Anna to link their hands together.
“And Brooke, how long have you been working for, well what company is it that you work for?” Sybil asked.
Brooke was honestly just relieved that the attention was back on her.“For just over two years.” Brooke didn’t bother answering the second question. It didn’t matter. Her mother was looking for high profile names that would attach some sort of digestible value to Brooke's career. But her mother didn’t get to take credit for where Brooke worked, or how much money she made. Sure, when they disowned her, they had shipped her off to one of the best boarding schools in England, and sure they had been Oxford graduates, which helped Brooke get in when she applied, but they had done nothing to mold her into the woman she had become. They had thrown money at something they didn’t like to literally make it go away, onlyitwas an entire human being.
Her mother hummed, clearly not impressed that Brooke hadn’t answered her entire question.“I ran into Mrs. Clements the other day,” Sybil said in that nonchalant tone that wouldn’t indicate that she had just casually stabbed Brooke with a verbal knife.
Brooke didn’t respond. She didn’t care anymore. She had Anna, and even if it wasn’t real, it was still a hell of a lot better than what she had had in the past.
“She said that Holly was just married to a man, in the winter of last year. You know she’s a doctor now.”
Brooke didn’t know that. She didn’t know that Holly was married or that she had become a doctor. It had been more than five years since she’d last seen Holly and almost eight since their final breakup.“Congratulations to the whole Clements family, then,” Brooke said, keeping her voice as flat and even as she possibly could.
“It’s just curious, you know,” Sybil said, digging it in. Curious as in, Holly was able to marry a man and become a doctor, why couldn’t you. Anna’s hand tightened protectively around hers. She knew that Anna was following the true current of the conversation.
“Not really. She always wanted to be a doctor,” Brooke said, as casually as she could.
Anna actually snorted out a laugh at that, impressed with the way Brooke had managed a subtle fuck you out of that conversation.
Brooke pointedly turned her attention to the appetizers in front of her. She smiled warmly at Anna as the woman next to her followed suit.“Would you like a roll, Darling?”
Anna grinned at her.“Always.”
“Agreed,” Brooke said, snagging them both rolls before the basket was empty.
Chapter Thirteen:
After dinner, all of the girls crowded outside, waiting for instructions for their next stop. Mel squealed happily as she gestured at an actual limousine.“Ta-da!” She gestured happily like Vanna White, showing off a prize.
Brooke’s eyes widened with disbelief and then her promise to Maddie sank in.“I can’t get in that,” she whispered to Anna.
Anna frowned at her.“Why?” She whispered back.“Because your mom will be in the same car? We can sit as far away from her as possible, I promise.”
Brooke shook her head.“I promised Maddie I wouldn’t ride in a limo.”
Anna narrowed her eyes at her.“I’m sorry. What?”
“It was a whole thing, but I gave her my word that I would not ride in a limo.” Brooke’s jaw flexed with the finality of her words.
Anna threw her head back with a laugh.“Okay, I’m fixing this.” She spun away from the group so that she was facing Brooke and only Brooke. She stuck her hand into the front of her dress and produced her cellphone.
“Has that been there this whole time?” Brooke watched with a mixture of fascination and horror.
“Yeah, this dress doesn’t have pockets and I wasn’t about to make you buy me a purse worth having,” Anna shrugged. She quickly flipped through the contacts on her phone and selected Maddie’s contact information.
