Chapter
One
Emily
"You've got to be kidding me," I bite, my inner-wolf on high alert.
I'm grateful she's only watching, but I know she's waiting for the right moment to add her two cents in. It's the same every time Mom and I have this conversation.
I watch as Mom attempts to shove my already over-stuffed suitcase into the back of our dilapidatedTown & Country.Part of me wants to leave her to her struggle; after all, she’s the one who decided to upend my summer vacation without even a discussion.
“Do I look like I’m joking, Emily Marie?” she says with a huff, her voice strained.
Mom nearly drops the heavy suitcase. I jolt forth, bracing to catch it so it doesn’t fall and hurt her.
“Thanks, baby,” she says sheepishly, though she doesn’t meet my gaze.
I let out a heavy sigh.
“Don’t mention it.”
I help Mom push the suitcase into the back and settle it flat while she throws my duffel in the open space next to it.
My mother acts like it’s the 1800s and I’m some old omega maid.
Which, I’m not old or a maid by any stretch of the word.
I’m a junior copywriter for the Jupiter Herold, and the only maid I am familiar with isMaid In Manhattan.
My mother shuts the trunk, glancing back at my sister. “Get your shoes on, honey. We need to get going.”
“You could have said something,” I say, crossing my arms. My chest tightens as I realize there’s no backing out of this.
“What was I going to say, Emily?” she asks. “If I had given you a chance, you’d have resisted me.”
She’s not wrong. But I don’t have to tell her that.
“You make me sound like some defiant brat who lives to piss you off.”
She raises an eyebrow, her cerulean eyes glistening with a mix of tears and sternness.
“You get that from your father,” she says sadly. “You’re so much like him, you know.”
The sentiment makes my heart ache. I miss him—my father. Things would have been so much easier if he was still here…
“It would have been nice to have been given a choice, period,” I bite.
I’m twenty-six, so I don’thaveto do anything my mother tells me to do. I’m a fucking adult.
But these past two years haven’t been easy for her. Hell, it hasn’t been easy for any of us, really.
Cancer fucking sucks, and every day without my dad somehow gets easier but harder at the same time.
And maybe that’s why I don’t argue with her. Maybe I’m just tired and could use a vacation.
“So, who is it this time?” I ask.
“Lucas Pembrooke.”
