That was answer enough.
She took another sip, set her glass down, and folded both hands around it.
“I don’t know if there’s a man alive good enough for her,” she said. “She’s my baby girl. How am I supposed to answer that?”
My throat tightened.
Baby girl.
Not by blood, maybe. Not in the ways the world wrote down on certificates.
But in every way that mattered.
Regan loved Destiny like she had chosen her with both hands.
“Some rich, snotty, loafer-wearing, khaki, pink-polo, Mercedes-driving guy in Malibu?” Regan continued, wrinkling her nose. “No. That’s not for her either. But she has to figure that out herself.”
I stared at her.
She lifted one shoulder. “She has to make her own choices. That’s the whole point. She’s spent too much of her life surviving other people’s choices.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
It didn’t mean I liked it.
“Does she know?” I asked.
“About Pepperdine? No.”
“When are you telling her?”
“Birthday.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
“We’re having a party here at the villa,” Regan said. “It fits the cover. Rich girl turns eighteen in Cabo with family friends. Nothing suspicious. Nothing sad.”
“Nothing sad,” I echoed.
Regan ignored that. “Now that JD’s handling things back home, Tarak and Edge are flying out. Skye too. Mason and his old lady, Siena.”
“The scientist?”
“The one who got pissed her desert burned, yes.”
I almost smiled. “She had reason.”
“Oh, she was furious. Six months of field work lost. Habitat damage. Native plants burned. She talked for twenty minutes about endangered species and soil recovery while Mason looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock.”
“That sounds like Siena.”
“She was right to be angry,” Regan said. “But then I explained what those girls did to Destiny. The drugging. The grave. The messages. The way they used Mandy’s name like a weapon.”
“She understood?”
“She understood why it happened. She still wishes ten acres of desert didn’t have to pay for it.”
