I smile back.
And then I hear it.
That voice.
The voice that I hear in my head every time I eat anything, every time one of my outfits feels a smidge too tight, every time I start to doubt that I, too, can be a successful businesswoman in my own right.
My mother.
My mother ishere.
“Tavi.Oh, mybaby. Come to Mama. We’re going to fix everything.”
My mother’s alone at the small hotel bar.
And when I sayalone, I meanalone.
No one else is here in the entire room.
Including the heir we’re supposed to meet for our business presentation.
“Oh, my sweetheart, I missed you.” As always, she’s a knockout. Her light-brown hair’s been touched up with blonde highlights and fallsin soft waves around her smooth face. Makeup on point. Flowing sundress that I should probably recognize as one of her favorite designers, who I refuse to name because he only dressesskinnywomen.
She grabs me in a hug while I stand motionless.
“Hi, excuse me, are you really Tavi’s mom?” Naomi asks.
Mom pulls back and aims her dazzling Margot Lightly special smile at my best friend and business partner. “Yes, and who are you?”
“I’m inclined to hit you, which would be the first violent thing I’ve done since I pulled Bella Roberts’s hair in the second grade after she called my best friend fat.”
I wrench out of my mom’s grip and grab Naomi by the hand. “No international incidents. Yet. Maybeafterour meeting.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I canceled that for you.”
I gasp.
Naomi gasps.
“Okay,” I hear myself say. “You can hit her.”
Chapter 34
Dylan
It’s been fifteen years since I’ve been this much of a mess.
It’s also been fifteen years since I’ve done something this unhinged.
“Dylan! Let me down!” Tavi-Not-Tavi shrieks as I carry her over my shoulder down the bunker steps.
As soon as I grabbed Pebbles out of her room, verified that the dog wasn’t also a fake Pebbles, and started marching away, Tavi-Not-Tavi got super interested in following me.
While hobbling.
On the wrong ankle.
She didn’t argue when I flung her over my shoulder and marched her to my truck, me still carrying Pebbles. Nor did she have much to say once I hit the gas, me seething, her petting the dog, who clearly likes her.
