“I’ve already given you the solution. We can get married.”
“That’snota solution. That’s the worst thing out of your mouth. We don’t even like each other. How is amarriagesupposed to work?”
Fiona isn’t saying anything I haven’t thought of—but when she says it, it sounds so much worse. Like she’s declaring how muchshehatesmebecause I was falling in love with her until I discovered her in bed with Jude. I already know she doesn’t respect or care for me—you don’t cheat on someone you respect and care about. But hearing it still hurts, salt on an old wound that hasn’t quite healed.
With the pain comes a spark of anger. She shouldn’t get to scratch at the old wound, even if my own damn mother is pushing us into an impossible situation. I’m trying to be the good guy here and save both our asses. She should demonstrate some appreciation, not scoff.
“And your mom hates me now.” Fiona gets to her feet and starts pacing. “She’s pissed that I’m not the one she sent you.”
My mouth dries. “How does she know?” Did Red spill the beans? Given how terrified she seemed of my mother, I thought she’d keep her mouth shut and pretend everything went according to plan.
“Aaron talked. There’s nobody he wouldn’t throw under the bus to save his own butt.”
Motherfucker. I never liked him. What little respect I had for him dropped to nothing when Fiona revealed that he expected her to fix his financial mess. Now I outright despise him.
Fiona continues: “She wants a baby. There’s no way I’m getting pregnant with your child, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to have a baby with me either. So how is a piece of paper going to fix our problem?”
“We don’t have to have a baby to fix the problem,” I state flatly as my mind lays out all the facts in a logical sequence.
“Oh, really? Because Mommy dearest sure seemed set on one when she was holding that corkscrew to my eye!”
I raise a placating hand. “If you’re family, she can’t touch you.”
“Not convinced.” Fiona stops pacing and glares at me. “I’m not even thirty, Bryce. I can’t risk dying in the next few months because I happened to displease your mother.” She rips at her hair. “Why is my life like a bad soap opera?”
I let out a hollow laugh. “Because you got tangled up with people with a bad soap opera life?”
She gives me a look. “Oh, please. You?”
I nod. “Mom probably didn’t tell you this, but she tried to kidnap me and my brothers when we were little. Josh and I were eight, and Ares was ten. She fed us cookies with something that made us lethargic and malleable, and she caught Ares. Josh and I escaped.”
My voice gets rough as I relive the moment. The terror and helplessness that should have faded still feel fresh and vivid in my mind. The old guilt lingers.
Fiona’s face betrays confusion and disbelief. Guess it wasn’t something that could happen even in her wildest “bad soap opera” scenario.
“She did it out of ‘love.’ To avoid divorce. She thought if she could keep us, she’d keep the perfect family. It didn’t matter what she had to do or who she had to hurt as long as she could keep the family whole. I don’t know how she felt after she lost me and grabbed Ares instead. I was her ‘good boy’—the one she loved the most.” My mouth twists with bitterness. “To her, I was probably the one who should’ve understood the best, gone along with her plan. To this date she calls me her good boy.” Red called me the same thing, and remembering causes a wave of revulsion to wash through me. I clench my hands to hide the reaction. Need to lay out the relevant facts…
Horror ripples over Fiona’s expression. A hand covers her mouth as she stares at me.
“Ares escaped. He always was strong. Still is. Mom eventually got caught, but didn’t suffer any real consequences. No jail time. No condemnation. Not because my family forgave her. My grandmother would’ve flayed her alive, but Vincent—my mom’s father—was simply too powerful a crime lord for the family to cross.”
Fiona’s eyes widen. Probably never guessed a family as respected as the Huxleys would be tied to the mob through marriage.
“The compromise was that Dad got full custody of us and the divorce he wanted. I was relieved, since I didn’t want anything to do with my mother. But the family elders conveniently forgot to mention that she could try to worm her way back into our lives once all of us kidshad turned thirty. Guess they either didn’t want to worry us…or maybe they hoped she’d find somebody else during those years and start another family to be obsessed with.” I shrug.
“But she didn’t, did she?” Fiona says hoarsely.
“No. She apparently spent all that time obsessing about us.”
“And your stepmom,” Fiona adds. “Zoe mentioned her.”
“I’m sure, but she won’t touch my stepmom.” She can’t afford to, no matter how much she despises Dad’s second wife. Akiko is a master at playing politics within the family. She understands and respects the complicated family dynamics and history and has never expressed any desire to rock the boat, so to speak. She’d never keep us away from Zoe if we wanted to see her, but if my mother crosses Akiko, she’ll strike back using everything at her disposal. And as a member of a powerful zaibatsu, she’s a lot more influential than she lets on. Mom already has too many enemies. She doesn’t want to add another power player to the list.
Fiona continues to look at me, her eyes unblinking as she processes what I’m telling her.
I consider my words, to impart the seriousness of the situation without overly alarming her. “Vincent—my mother’s father—is older and has grown much more sentimental about family. He seems to regret the decision he made to save Mom and discard us the way he did. Based on his behavior, I’m guessing he thought my brothers and I would understand his untenable situation and let it go. Except we didn’t. As far as we’re concerned, that side of the family doesn’t exist. So he’s overcompensating, insisting that Mom and her brother bring about a tearful, heartfelt reunion between us and him.”
“What happens if they fail?”
