“On the contrary, I’m incredibly grateful,” Scarlett corrected her. She was, for every nuance of life in the past five years. For Donell bringing Laird into her life most of all. “I have more to be grateful for than you can imagine, more than all the lauding in the world could ever possibly provide. What you are failing to comprehend, Mother, is that I am no longer the actress or celebrity you want me to be. All that matters now is my life as a wife—”
Her mother raised a brow. “To that beastly man? Where did you dig him up?”
Scarlett gritted her teeth. She’d let Laird leave her knowing there was nothing Olivia could do to harm her physically, but she’d forgotten how much she’d often suffered mentally under her mother’s capricious parentage. Mercurial at best, she’d ranged from wanting to be Scarlett’s best friend to the worst parts of Mommy Dearest over the years. Even talking to her was exhausting.
She hadn’t faced a battle like this since the Scottish war with the English at Flodden Field, unless Scarlett counted her occasional arguments with Laird. At least those were mitigated by the fact that they usually ended up being resolved with a surrender by one or the other in their bed.
“That man is the most loving, caring man I’ve ever known and the father of my children.” She grimaced at the can of worms she’d just unwittingly opened.
“Plural? My God! What else have you been hiding? I hardly know you anymore.” Olivia threw up her arms again and resumed her frantic pacing. “In just a few weeks, you’ve become a complete stranger.”
Try five years, Scarlett wanted to say. To explain how she’d aged, changed by more than just a few lines on her face. Grown from a girl to a woman. “I know you have a hard time understanding the concept, but nothing means more to me than my husband and my children.” She took a deep breath. In all the years she’d been gone, an inkling or two of regret had washed by for leaving what little family she had behind. From time to time, she even missed her parents. “My family is everything to me.”
“Am I not your family any longer?”
Olivia tried to sound hurt, but Scarlett could hear the fallaciousness in her tone. Obviously over the years she’d forgotten what her mother was like. Where was the parental love? The concern? The joy of having a grandchild?
“I love them. More than anything. I won’t expose them to the life I lived.” She took a steadying breath. How to explain real love to a woman as cold as ice? Not once in her four, going on five, marriages had Olivia ever been in love. Never displayed any outward affection for her own daughter.
Scarlett hadn’t known what she was missing until Laird. She’d never had the chance to experience it, much less recognize it when it was right in her face. Until it had almost been too late to do anything about it.
Laird had shown her love. The real thing. The sacrifice. The hardship. None of that mattered because she’d gotten so much in return every day. Each day was a bonus, as she’d told Donell so long ago.
This moment only served to prove she’d made the proper choices all along.
“I’ve moved on with my life, Mother. I repeat; I’m done.”
“Done? You’re nothing of the sort.”
“Mother, really…”
“When the reporter comes in you’ll have to come up with something better than that.”
“I will not give an interview!”
“But you will,” her mother ground out. “I convinced Natalie Bannon from theTelegraphto come up from London. She’ll be tactful and cooperative with editing the final text.”
“Do you not hear me, Mother? I will not give an interview.”
“We’ll have to get a makeup crew in here ASAP and try to do something about all this.” She gestured a hand up and down to indicate all that was wrong with Scarlett in her eyes.
Irritation left a sour taste in Scarlett’s mouth. She’d just given birth, for crying out loud. And she might be a few years older, but those years had been kind to her. If nothing else, she was still beautiful in Laird’s eyes and that was all that mattered.
“We’ll have to explain the hair somehow. Tell them you regretted your choice to cut it, harming your image, and that’s why you got those extensions. I don’t know about the rest.”
“Mother.”
“The reporters are already running with a story about a secret honeymoon to explain your mysterious disappearances over the past month, so we can stick with that excuse.”
Scarlett blinked at that. “With who?”
“Why Grayson, of course.”
Her eye roll couldn’t have been any bigger. Her former co-star Grayson Lukas had always fabricated false stories about their supposed romance. “Let me guess. We eloped?”
“He had to say something to keep from being arrested for kidnapping you,” Olivia pointed out. “You’ve been so unkind to him when he’s a far better fit for you thanthatbrutish man.”
Frustration couldn’t entirely squelch the snort of amusement that Grayson might somehow be a better man than Laird. She pushed herself up and off the bed. “Of all the bloody nonsense I’ve ever heard, that trounces them all.”
