“Wow,” she said, biting the corner of her lower lip and swaying from side to side, her dress shimmering in the last rays of sunlight. “All grown up.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. Was she…?
No. She couldn’t have been flirting with me. Why would she?
“Umm,” I said articulately. “You… too?”
Her smile widened unsettlingly again as she laughed. “Never,” she said. “I’m still seventeen at heart. So I hear you’re?—”
“Audrey,” a voice that sent a shiver down my spine said. Not shouted—just spoke. She never shouted.
I’d been so distracted by whatever Audrey was up to that I hadn’t noticed my mother sneaking up.
“I see you’ve found my wayward son,” she went on, touching Audrey’s arm as she passed her, sensible shoes crunching on the gravel. “I’d started to think you weren’t coming.”
I glanced toward Cameron, but he and Madelaine were already heading into the house, having neatly escaped my mother and left me to take the blame for the timing.
“Mom,” I said, rather than arguing, and let go of my suitcase to accept the hug she wrapped me in. She smelled of iris and white flowers, as always—no scent you could justbuy, but something custom she’d been wearing for the past twenty-eight years, at least. Longer, probably, but I hadn’t known her before then.
“You couldn’t have worn something other than black, for once?”
I looked down at my black shirt, black fitted blazer, black jeans, and black dress boots.
Okay, I did wear a lot of black. I didn’t wear a lot of anything else. But?—
“What’s wrong with?—”
“You know I hate it,” Mom interrupted, her voice low enough that I was the only one who’d hear it. “Never mind. Audrey,” she continued, her signature welcoming smile plastered on as she turned, waving Audrey over. “Theo works with those books you were talking about.”
I tried not to let my eyebrows jump up, but they rose anyway. I sincerely doubted that, unless she was really into middle grade fiction.
Not impossible, but if she read at all—and I’d take Mom’s word for that—then I couldn’t imagineLayla and the Impossible Doorbeing to her taste.Ithought it was great, but it was work for me. I didn’t read them for fun.
What Ireallywanted was to edit romance. I’d just never felt like I could say that aloud. Simon was the only person in the world who knew about my romance novel addiction. He’d only found out in the first place because I’d accidentally taken the one I was reading out of my bag instead of the book I’d been studying in the library, a few weeks after we’d met.
He’d never been cruel to me about it. He’daskedme about it, like he did with the books I was studying, and he’d listened and asked intelligent questions.
The next week, he’d brought me another one. Second hand, creased along the spine, some of the pages folded over by the previous owner. I still had it. If my apartment caught fire, it was the only thing I’d grab before leaving.
He’d given me others since—lots of them—but that firstCaptured by the Roguemeant the world to me. Even if bodice rippers weren’t necessarily my favorites.
“You’ll have so much to talk about!” Mom enthused, dragging me back to the present. Hearing herenthuseabout anything to do with me was setting off all kinds of warning bells in the back of my mind. I was not normally the subject of her enthusiasm. “I was so afraid you’d be the only single here and have no one to talk to, but then I got talking to Audrey and she wanted to knoweverythingabout you. Turns out she’s here alone, too!”
“But I’m not here alone,” I said.
Mom looked around, craning her neck theatrically as though someone might be hiding behind me.
I’d told her I was bringing Simon. She knew that.
“I don’t see anyone else here?” she asked, blinking up at me innocently. The stage had lost… well, it probably gained more from her patronage than it would’ve gotten out of her acting skills, but still. She was laying it on thick, and it might even have been convincing to someone else.
“Simon couldn’t get away until after work,” I said. “You know this. I told you this.”
Mom’s head titled back as she let out a bark of laughter, releasing one of my hands to wave off what I was saying. “Honey, we’realwayshappy to host Simon here,” she outright lied. “He’s practically family. But I’m talking aboutromance. It is a wedding, after all. Love is in the air! And it’s about time you started thinking about the future. Getting serious about someone. Settling down.”
She squeezed the hand she was still holding. Just as well, because otherwise the sudden rush of blood to my head might’ve made me faint.
Romance.
