My blood turned to ice as I glanced cautiously at Madelaine—I’d been given a seat at the corner of the big, square table, set at a weird angle, between her and Corey’s father, who I didn’t know and who hadn’t made any attempt to speak to me.
Until this second, I’d been unspeakably grateful that I knew and liked one out of two of the people beside me.
I did my best to look innocent, but the stage hadn’t lost anything of value when I went into information science instead of theatre. Which I’d never once considered.
Madelaine rolled her eyes. “I drove up here with him. I know what he’s like when he’s dating someone.”
I wet my lips. Yeah. Yeah, so did I. The wordobsessedjust about covered it. Theo was physically incapable of shutting up about his partners. Which was amazing, because he wasn’t the most talkative man in the world otherwise. When he was dating someone, they were his favorite subject.
So if he’d gone the entire drive from the city to here without so much as mentioning me…
The cold dread twisting in the pit of my stomach must’ve shown on my face, because Madelaine waved her fork and shook her head.
“I’m not planning on saying anything,” she said. “It’s good for Mom not to get her way every now and again.”
I snorted. She wasn’t wrong.
“What I don’t understand is why,” Madelaine continued, spearing a green bean with her fork.
They were good. Everything was. One thing I couldn’t fault Theo’s mom for was the meals she provided. Not that she cooked them herself, but credit where credit was due, she handled the menus and shehadhired the people who did the actual labor. That wasn’t nothing.
In another life she would have been extremely efficient in upper management. She would also have made her underlings cry on a regular basis.
I shuffled my chair closer to Madelaine’s, not wanting to be overheard. She might not have intended to tell anyone, but shewouldn’t stop interrogating me until she had the answers she wanted.
If she hadn’t become a doctor, she would’ve made a fantastic lawyer.
“Your mom is trying to set Theo up with Audrey,” I said, nodding in Audrey’s direction as subtly as I could, in case Madelaine had no idea who I meant.
Madelaine’s nose wrinkled. “Why?”
I shrugged. “That, I genuinely can’t tell you. Theo thinks Audrey wants his trust fund, but that doesn’t explain what your mother is getting out of it.”
“He finally told you about the trust fund?” Madelaine asked, brows raised.
“He did.”
Madelaine made an interested sound. I took the opportunity to sip my wine—this one was red, to go with the beautifully dry-aged piece of ribeye that was the star of the main course. The color was still the only thing I could tell about it, but I liked that it gave me something to do with both my hand and my mouth at once.
“He had to, I guess,” I added.
“You’re not upset he didn’t tell you before?”
“No.”
If anything, I was upset he’d told me now. Not upset enough to be mad at him, just… shaken.
It didn’t change anything about how I felt about Theo. What I was afraid of was that, once it matured, it’d change his life so much that I couldn’t be a part of it anymore. Theo had money now, and always had, but not likethat.
“Of course not,” Madelaine said, sipping her own wine. “Theo can do no wrong, as far as you’re concerned.”
“Enough people are unfair enough to him. If I’m a littletoofair?—”
“A little?” Madelaine interrupted, brow raised.
I looked down at my plate, resisting the urge to rub the back of my neck. That was probably a faux pas at the table, and I didn’t want to embarrass Theo.
“I know how you feel about him,” Madelaine continued, leaning toward me with her voice lowered.
