Groaning, Paige asked, “What happened to confidentiality?”
“He called because he was concerned about you—and because you wouldn’t answer his call.”
Oh. Paige had turned her phone off last night after Skye left.
“And confidentiality flew out the window when you fired your agent,” Tina continued. “Now, get up and get dressed. Let’s talk.”
Before Paige could object, her mother walked toward the door. “Ten minutes, Paige. And do something with that hair,” she yelled as she exited.
Twenty minutes later, Paige entered the kitchen, where her mother was buttering a piece of toast. Tina lifted her gaze and pointed Paige to the barstool in front of her. Sliding onto the seat, Paige waited for her mother to say something.
Tina spread a thin layer of jelly on the toast, set it on a plate, and slid it over to Paige. “Eat that. You need something in your system.”
“I hate toast,” she murmured. A long time ago, one of her nannies had made her wheat toast for breakfast. It had been so hard and so burnt, it had scraped the roof of Paige’s mouth and effectively ruined it for her.
“Eat,” Tina ordered, pouring a glass of orange juice and setting it in front of Paige.
Paige bit into the toast. To her surprise, it wasn’t hard. And it was good.Or I could just be hungry? She stared at the bread, then back at her mother. “Did you do something different with this toast?”
“I put it in the oven, not the toaster. That’s the trick.”
“Hm . . .” Paige devoured the toast and gulped down the orange juice. When she finished, she looked at her mom, who was watching her with wide eyes. “What?”
“Hungry, much?”
Paige ducked her head. “I haven’t eaten in a while,” she murmured lamely.
“Oh, so you didn’t add food to your liquor diet?”
Shrugging, Paige explained that she’d eaten an early dinner before she’d started drinking. “But you don’t have to worry. I won’t be doing this again anytime soon.”
Leaning forward, Tina rested her arms on the counter. “I know you won’t. Now tell me what happened.”
Paige ran her thumb over a small ridge in the counter. “I thought you knew,” she whispered, keeping her eyes trained on the counter. Not her mother.
“I wantyouto tell me,” Tina insisted.
Sighing, Paige told her mother everything, even the parts she’d been afraid to admit out loud. Like how she realized how wrong she’d been and that she’d called him last night only to get his voicemail again. This time, she didn’t blame him for avoiding her. She’d acted like a crazed, spoiled brat.
“I agree with Skye. Andrew wasn’t there because heshouldn’thave been there. I know you wanted him with you, but he made the right decision. This was about protecting your brand.”
“I know that now.”
With a heavy sigh, Tina said, “You would have known that last night if you ‘d given him a chance to talk.”
“I know,” she repeated. One the hardest things about last night was the realization that their entire encounter could have been avoided if she’d just used her words and not her heightened emotions to do the talking for her. “I still don’t know why he didn’t just call me.”
“I’m sure he wanted to, but he’s had a lot going on. I talked to Connie yesterday. She called because she received the basket of smutty romance novels I sent to her. She told me that she’d reinjured herself.”
Paige’s head snapped up. “What?”
Nodding, Tina continued her story. “They rushed her to the hospital. She’s doing fine now, but Andrew stayed with her the entire day—until she finally convinced him to go home.”
Slumping forward, Paige rested her forehead on the counter. Before she’d felt like an ass. Now she felt like an asshole. It couldn’t have been easy for him, watching his mother suffer only to come home and deal with her.
A moment later, she felt fingers running through her curls. Shifting, Paige wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist and hugged her. “I messed up, Mom. I really messed up. I love Drew. I don’t want it to be over.”
Up until now, Paige thought her biggest mistake was marrying Julius. But losing Andrew . . . She’d pulled out the liquor last night to numb herself. Because every part of her ached for him.
