Whatever the case, she should probably respond to her mother, she supposed, and therefore, gave in and began to speak with a slow, careful tone as she chose her every word to be as noncombative as possible.“Mom,” El said, hating the fact that now, knowing who Persia was and that she had never been her friend to begin with, the word felt wrong when applied to anyone.
El had desperately wanted a mother figure for much of her life and obviously found that in her friend.But the moment that Persia's real identity had been revealed, it felt wrong to call her her mother.She never really acted as her mother other than giving her a random bit of advice every now and again.The only person who had ever acted close to her mother was, unfortunately, Annabel.But even then, one could scarcely call what she did parenting.
“El… Are you all right?”Annabel said, surprisingly worried.El was pretty sure that she could count on one hand the number of times that her mother had pretended to give a shit about her, but still, she blinked.“Do you need something?Did something happen between you and Ryan?”Annabel said, making El’s voice catch in her throat as she almost thought for a moment that there was genuine concern there.“Or is this just another one of those cases where things don't work out?”Annabel asked, her voice implying that it was something more mundane and sounding, almost like she was hoping that it was something more mundane.
“Yeah…” El began, uncertainty characterizing her tone as she sunk further and further into the back corner of the gym, doing her best to hide herself from sight as the others focused on the challenge of the day, roaring with laughter and obviously excitement.Silently, she hoped that her mother couldn't hear her father in the background, saying words of praise and adoration to another woman.She'd never been stupid enough to believe that her parents loved each other, but she still didn't like the idea that, at the end of the day, Annabel would be hurt in some way by what her father had done.“I just… Well, I wanted to call about Mother’s Day,” El began, knowing where things were going.“I don't know if we can go,” El lied and almost hated herself for doing so.
“Because of the baby?”Her mother asked, and to be honest, El couldn’t remember whether or not she had ever told Annabel that she had a daughter at that moment, but she must have, considering the way that the woman's voice sounded so sure, emphasizing the word baby and making it clear that she knew the child existed.Destiny had spent most of her life away from cameras, the press, and much of the outside world, so it was strange to think that someone whom her mother had such a bad relationship with was capable of knowing of her existence, but El wasn’t exactly the queen of keeping secrets, not when it came to talking on the phone or being forced to interact in person.She'd seen Annabel a few times since the birth, though never while pregnant.Obviously, she must have let it slip at some point.Pregnancy brain.
“Yeah, well, no…” El trailed off but then wondered why she bothered to do that.She was her own woman now.She didn't have to bow to her mother anymore.She didn't have to lie in situations like this.She could state the truth, or at least she hoped that she could just state the truth.“Listen, she's feeling a bit sick.I don't think I can take her with me,” El stated, feigning a tone of worry in her voice, despite the fact that if her daughter truly were sick, there was no way in hell that she was ever going to leave her side.There was no way in hell that she would ever pawn her daughter off on nannies like her mother had done to her.
“Well,” Annabel said, her voice low and careful as she spoke to her supposed daughter, though she didn't know that El knew that she wasn't actually her daughter.“That's unfortunate, considering the fact that we happened to have quite a few people that you would be interested in the meeting coming over tonight,” her mother proclaimed, using that same tone of voice that she always used with her children if only to remind them how important she should be in their lives.“You know your brothers are coming over tonight, and I thought it would be a good idea to increase their political sphere of influence,” Annabel started, her voice slowing further and further as she seemed to come up with the right thing to say, and for a moment, El almost felt like she might miss her like she was acting such a way because she was trying to reach out to the girl.It was a strange idea, one that made her wrinkle her nose.
“Mom, you always have important people over,” El explained, knowing that Annabel’s list of invites more often than not involved a few famed politicians as well as billionaires with too much time and money on their hands—who weren’t willing to give away either.
“Ah, well, this time it’s different from the usual sort,” Annabel proclaimed, and she could practically hear her mother's fingers wrapping around the phone cord of the lavish, crystal phone that she kept in her office.She had to be in her office, considering the fact that she was so openly and clearly speaking of manipulating people.“Fundraisers,” Annabel proclaimed, perhaps knowing that that would be the word that would get El’s attention.“I thought I should let you know,” she said, almost bored.“You do spend so much time working on those charities of yours, and it can't be easy to fund them,” Annabel stated, her voice resonating in that low, enticing way that she occasionally used with people that she wanted something from if only to draw them in.
She knew how El loved her charities and how she liked feeling like she was actually helping people.It had just been a while since she’d last been allowed to do that, what with all the pride drama and such, but recently, El had brought the idea up to Ryan, posing that she could help with the day-to-day operations when it came to the pride, as well as begin to start working with a few of her favorite charities from the old days, maybe even work towards building a heritage museum for shifters…
But that took money and prestige, and while she had one of those…
“Donators,” El emphasized, her voice low and skeptical as she spoke to her mother, knowing that there was a difference between fundraisers and true donors.Fundraisers raised money for political gain, but donators?Donators did it for a love of the arts and history.
There was half a chance that if they weren’t looking to somehow lobby politicians to pass laws for their own political gain, then they would actually care to listen to her about one of her many charitable causes, the one that she almost gotten left behind as she slowly settled into her new life as the Luna of the pride.El hated to admit it, but the carrot that her mother was dangling in front of her nose was a tasty one, and her mother likely knew it.
How many times before had Annabel scolded her for putting too much time and effort into her charities, knowing that those were probably the only things keeping her sane in her birdcage of a life?El’s mother knew more than anyone that she cared about helping people and that she’d take any opportunity that she could get to further her goals in aiding the planet—The only question was why Annabel was kicking up such a fuss then.Was it because she was afraid of this spectacle, the questions that would arise from her sons if their younger sister didn't bother to show up?That seemed possible, as was it possible that Annabel had likely arranged a whole array of reporters to show up to the house that day just to take photos of them.Honestly, as time went by, El had learned never to underestimate her mother.The woman would do just about anything if it would fluff her feathers and cause other people to remark what a great person she was.This was probably no different.
Her mother was probably going to use El’s passion for charity as a vehicle to assist her own public image in light of the divorce.
And to be honest, she sat there, her fingers tapping along the back of her phone and her mind really considering the prospect; El had to admit to herself that as far as being used by her mother in the past, this would likely be one of the far more preferable situations for El to endure.At least if Annabel used her to further her own image, she would be adding some exposure to the charities that El had pledged her support to, which would definitely help more people become aware of the fact that there was a genuine need within them for funds.
This was a rare occasion, one in which her mother's needs aligned with her own, even though she hadn't initially realized that they did.It was tempting, to say the least.
“I wouldn’t be able to bring my daughter,” El stated, though she was pretty sure that she’d already driven that point home, and Annabel knew that there was no way that El would allow her to have a photoshoot with her daughter and act as if the beautiful little girl was a continuation of Annabel’s legacy.
“I'm not asking for you to bring your daughter.I'm asking for you to bring yourself,” Annabel said in that typical, haughty tone that was far more familiar to her, the type of tone that she often used when she was speaking to her daughter, and she knew that she had the upper hand, the type of tone that she often used when she was going to force her daughter to do what she wanted.“One day, all I'm asking for is one day for us to pretend to be a happy family in front of a few potential investors in your brothers’ political campaigns, and then I'm not asking anything else from you.You can spend another few months in isolation with that husband of yours, Ryan, or whatever his name is,” Annabel said, surprising El with the fact that she had actually managed to get his name right.Annabel almost never bothered to remember anything about her life.
Maybe, El thought to herself as she nodded into the phone, letting out a short sound of affirmation as she hit the button to hang up and wrapped her arms around herself, daring to dream of bigger, better things.Maybe this was a sign for her and Annabel.Maybe El’s adoptive mother had finally turned a new leaf, and she was willing to be somewhat more respectful than she had been before.
El allowed her gaze to cut across the gym to where Marcus and Persia were running, considering the woman that she knew to be her biological mother as her father looked on.Was it so bad to wish that Persia could find it within herself to act more like a mother than she had?To stop conversing with El like they were friends and, for once, treat her like the mother that she longed to have?
Persia hardly even looked in her direction, so absorbed in her competition and in showing off for Joseph.A hint of acid burnt the back of El’s throat at the realization of that, a small portion of her having wished, just for a moment, that things were different now.
Persia had made it sound like things were going to be different after she had revealed that she was her mother like she was going to actually be her mother, instead of just being a friend.But time and time again, she was proven wrong.To be honest, El was starting to grow tired of being disappointed by the woman.It felt like life was becoming a broken record.She was constantly wishing for things that she couldn't have, even when she should have been satisfied with all the gifts that the mother had given her.
For so long, El had felt like a portion of herself was missing something key.And it’d taken her until she had become a grown woman to realize that the fact that she had grown up without a true mother figure had hurt her, and while that was largely Annabel’s fault, El couldn’t deny the fact that Persia coming back into her life and then continuing to act more like a friend than anything else hurt her as well.She wanted to have someone that she could actually turn to for real advice, not just sex crap.
But Persia wasn’t that person.Even when they talked about motherhood and raising El’s daughter, Persia still treated her more like a friend than anything, and as a result of that and Persia’s mating with her father, well, El felt like she’d lost both parents, which was saying a lot, considering the fact that her parents had never really been around, to begin with.
Was it so bad to consider an alternative in light of that?To give Annabel another chance to fix things, if only because she needed someone in her life?
It probably was, but El would never admit that to herself.
Instead, she stood slowly off the ground, brushing herself off and painting one of those practiced everything's-fine smiles on her face, one of the ones that she had spent so much of her life growing up perfecting.And then, when she knew that she had it properly in place and that it wasn't going to slip, that no one was going to see her for what she was, and for the pain that resided in the back of her gaze, then she pulled herself together, and she moved forward, walking towards her mother and her father, as well as her mate, acting like the friend that they all wanted her to be, rather than the broken woman that she really was.
An hour later, she texted Ryan.
Chapter10
