“Oh,” she says thoughtfully, looking at me again. “But what do I call you?”
I’m not sure what to say here, but I don’t want to force anything on her. “Um, you can call me anything you want.”
Her blue eyes, so much like her father’s, gaze earnestly up at me. “Can I call you mommy or do I have to call you stepmommy?”
My heart is a molten puddle in my chest. I want nothing more than to be a mother to this adorable, precocious little girl who I love more than my own life.
“What do you want to call me?”
She tilts her head, and in the most matter-of-fact tone, says, “Mommy. Stepmommy sounds dumb and has too many sibubbles.” It takes me a second to figure out she’s trying to saysyllables. “Plus, youact like a mommy. You play football with me and make cookies with me and give me kisses on my head. I really like when you do that.”
I lean forward and press my lips to the top of her head, inhaling her little girl, bubblegum scent. “I love you muchly, Reecie.”
“Love you too, Mommy,” she says casually, like she hasn’t just wrapped me right around her little finger with a single word. “You gonna eat that last rib?”
Chuckling, I place the last piece of meat in front of her, and she digs in. Then I pull my eyes away and blink hard to control the tears that are threatening. Everyone is staring at us and grinning, and I force a wobbly smile onto my face.
A minute later, I glance up and down the table where our families have resumed talking and eating. Ophelia, Holly, and Juliette are talking about weddings, Bubba is discussing some golf tournament with Remi, and it all makes me so happy, seeing our families blend together like this.
Because this is what it’s all about. Family. Acceptance. And most of all…
Love.
EPILOGUE
Mindy
“You’re gonna make this new job your submissive little slut,” I say aloud, pumping myself up as I stand on the busy sidewalk.
“Fuck yeah, you will,” a woman in a sleek pumpkin-colored pantsuit and bushy black curls says as she walks by. Her smile is brilliant, and her raised fist tells me she believes in me, despite not even knowing my name.
Ah, Houston. Gotta love it.
I stare up at the mirrored building in the heart of the city, squinting against the sun so I can see the Hale Cosmetics logo at the top. The morning light glints off the metallic HC emblazoned in a delicate script over a silver crown.
This has always been one of my favorite buildings as I pass through Houston on the interstate. It's a bold blue with sharp, clean angles that come to a point at the top, as if it’s saying, “Hey, look at me! I’m full of awesome shit.”
I hitch my crappy little purse up on my shoulder. Just the sight of this bag brings on a wave of anger, and I want to beat my soon-to-be-ex-husband with it. I’ve never been prone to bouts of uncontrolled rage, but that was before I started going through divorce proceedingswith Twatface Roger. That’s the name my two best friends gave him, and it’s absolutely apt.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think my mild-mannered, mama’s boy, wimp of a husband would turn so vicious. I’d thought it was sweet when he bought me a Louis Vuitton purse for Christmas right after we were married, even though we weren’t exactly flush with cash at the time. Our lack of funds was directly correlated to the honeymoon costs, which were more than they should have been since Roger invited his mother along.
Yes, you heard that right, but I’ll repeat it so you can really get the full effect.
He brought. His mother. On our honeymoon.
I’m apparently horrible at seeing red flags since that one was waving like a cape in front of a bull, but for some reason, I still married his ass. Don’t get me wrong; I adore Roger’s mother. Rose is kind and sweet, even though she has a distinct lack of boundaries. I thought she’d passed those kind, sweet characteristics on to her son, but I guess that makes me a nitwit.
Because Roger is neither kind nor sweet. He’s a twatface, as we’ve already established. And that brings me back to my purse. Not the Louis, but the one slung over my shoulder. The one I had to dig out of the back of the closet because my soon-to-be-ex burned my new purse—along with most of my clothes—after I told him I wanted a divorce.
Talk about pitching a tantrum—Twatface really knows how to do it up right.
Luckily, I came home early from work since I’d gotten fired that day—thanks for that too, Twatface—and caught him poking around in the burn barrel with a large stick. Mostly only the remnants of metal buttons, shoe soles, and zippers remained. I managed to save a few articles of clothing, including the navy-blue suit I’m wearing right now.
And that brings me to Hale Cosmetics, where I’m starting my first day of work today as the executive assistant to the CEO, Haywood Hale. My eyes focus on the lobby, which is just on the other side of the glass doors, and I suddenly feel nervous as hell. I don’t belong in such a grand building with all its fancy furnishings and even fancier people.
My suit is nice, not designer, but the quality is good. My pursethough… It looks like something I found while dumpster diving behind the 7-11, with its fake leather peeling off in patches like it has a skin disease. It’s the seven-year-old purse of a broke college student, not a badass career woman, so I turn the worst side toward my body and march through the doors with my head held high.
“Gooooood morning,” a security guard rumbles. His nametag reads Bear Collins, and his first name certainly fits. He’s a big guy with a bushy beard and kind hazel eyes.
