“Good point,” he said, but corrected her in a sensitive voice, “I mean naked in the emotional sense.”
With a quick goodbye, he was off. Gabby breathed a sigh of relief just as her mom yelled, “Gabby!”
“Mom, what are you doing here?”
“Gabriella, I am so tired from traveling, and I just can’t seem to get through to this woman. Can you please help me clear this up?”
What the hell was happening? She was supposed to be doing important national security work, protecting the reputation of the president, and here was her mother throwing a fit on her mission. She hadn’t even wanted her mom to chaperone field trips when she was a kid. This was next level.
Gabby marched forward. It was time to isolate and contain the problem.
When children yelled all the time, it was usually because they thought they had to yell to be heard. Gabby walked up to her mom and spoke very softly like she used to do with the kids, “Mom, I hear you. Why are you here?”
“Granny said she called you. Didn’t you know we were coming?”
“What, no? She said something about shoes, and then the call dropped.”
“I’m sure she called back. Didn’t you answer?”
Gabby’s phone was in the Pacific Ocean, but how was this even something she should have been worried about. She had been concerned that Kyle wouldn’t make it to horseback riding or that they’d run out of groceries. This—this had never crossed her mind. Really, it just validated all the over-worrying she’d ever done. Apparently, she could have worried even more because her family was more ridiculous than she ever could have imagined.
“How did you even pay for this?” A last-minute trip to the Azores and a stay at Inner-G? Could regular people even stay here? Markus had spent a year working his way into the group, and her mom had just shown up.
And then it got worse because there was her ex-husband walking over to join her mother at the front desk.
“Phil? What in the actual—” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.
He was scowling.
Gabby’s mind exploded. Maybe her mom and Phil hadn’t followed her. Maybe they had come here of their own accord.
Had Phil and her mom joined a cult? Were they fu—? She couldn’t even finish the thought in her own mind. It couldn’t be, but what else was going on? Her mother might have been the woman with whom Phil was cheating. And she’d thought it was bad he’d replaced her with a younger woman. This was SO MUCH WORSE.
Gabby was paralyzed completely, standing in the lobby, blinking like a plastic baby doll. When he started to answer, she put up a hand. “Save it. I’ll talk to you in a minute.”
Rebuffed, Phil sulked while she turned to the woman behind the counter. She needed to remove this potential collateral damage, because that’s who they were to her now. And she needed to do it before they compromised her mission even more than they already had.
Like all the workers at the resort, the receptionist was a member of Inner-G, who was paying for her membership with labor. It was essentially like an organic food co-op. The woman took a deep breath and said, “It’s fine. It’ll take more than a credit card problem to rock my inner-G.”
Gabby said a prayer of thanks. “I need to take lessons from you.”
“You can.”
Gabby laughed. “I’ll look into that. For now, I’ll just bring them back to my rooms. I’ll sort this out later.”
Gabby escorted her mom and Phil to the cottage. With every step through the luxury resort, Elena’s wordless judgment grew louder. It was all head shaking and back-of-the-throat noises. When they stepped into the honeymoon cottage, it got even worse. Ten minutes ago, it had looked like her fantasy, now—a full-on nightmare. She’d rather be grocery shopping with two toddlers.
Hands on hips, Elena did a slow sweep of the room with her eyes. Seething with repressed anger, she said, “Gabriella Greene, what is going on?” Elena gestured to the luxury beach resort. “This is not Cleveland.”
Instead of shouting, “It’s none of your business!” like she wanted to, Gabby took a yoga breath (thanks, Jasmine) and tried to collect herself.
Elena did a slow sweep of the honeymoon cottage. In a syrupy voice that made Gabby’s skin crawl, she said, “You’re being awfully good to yourself, Gabby.” The subtext was clear. Gabby didn’t deserve this.
Phil excused himself and went out to the patio to ride out the argument that was clearly coming.
Gabby spun on Elena. “My question is, what areyoudoing here?” Gabby violently gestured to the patio. “With my ex-husband, your ex-son-in-law.”
“You are the one who needs to be answering questions, Gabriella.” Her mom wasn’t the least bit apologetic, like she had a right to do whatever it was she was doing. Even though there was no rational explanation for her presence.
