The Vargas Cartel Trilogy (Vargas Cartel #1-3)(158)

“Yeah. Yeah,” I mumbled, nodding my head. “I won’t go anywhere without you. I know the drill.”





Chapter Twenty-Two




Hattie



“Hi,” I said as I bent to kiss my mom’s stiff cheek.

My mom smiled tepidly. “It’s good to see you, Hattie. We were beginning to think you weren’t going to show.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” I forced a smile on my face as I unfolded my napkin and arranged it on my lap. “I’m only a couple of minutes late. It took longer than I thought to get here.”

“Don’t pick on her, Elaine,” my dad griped, his eyes narrowing fractionally. “We weren’t waiting more than a couple of minutes. You’re going to scare her away again.”

I glanced back and forth between my mom and dad. Normally, they presented a unified front, but something told me that wasn’t the case right now. The tension between them was palpable.

My mom cocked her perfectly coiffed blonde head to the side. “She should show us the respect we deserve. She disappeared on a road trip without a word. Then, she didn’t bother to come see us for a week after she returned home.”

I tugged on the edge of the sleeve of my silk blouse. It barely covered my burn marks, but wearing a long-sleeved shirt in the middle of the summer would look suspicious. “You’re right. I should’ve stopped by the house, but I’ve been busy.”

My mom’s sculpted eyebrow lifted. “Doing what? You haven’t touched base with your professors in three weeks. You haven’t called Evan. I don’t even know where you’re living. I called Vera, and she hasn’t seen you either.”

The metal legs scraped across the hardwood floor as I slid my chair away from the table and tossed my napkin on the table. Anger lit my veins on fire. How dare she pry into my life? How dare she bring up Evan? “I don’t know why I bothered to come here tonight. For some reason, I keep giving you the benefit of the doubt.” I shook my head. “I should know better by now. I need to stop wasting my time.”

My mom stared down her nose at me. “I could say the same thing verbatim to you.”

I leaned back in my chair. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s time you stopped this nonsense and pulled your life together. You’re all over the place. You got engaged. You dropped out of your master’s program. You terminated your internship. You ended your engagement. You moved in with Vera. You reenrolled in the master’s program. You disappeared on a road trip.” She punctuated each point with a flick of her blood-red fingernails.

“Nonsense?” I echoed. “In case you’ve forgotten, I experienced some traumatic things lately, not that you care. All you care about is preventing the chaos from spilling over into your perfect little world.”

My dad slammed his hand on the table. The water glasses shook, and the silverware rattled. “Dammit, Elaine, this is not the time to scrutinize every decision she’s made in the past few months. We agreed we’d have dinner without diving into anything confrontational. Give her time to come to terms with everything and put her life back together. You need to know when to stop pushing so hard. She’ll come around.”

“She’s had plenty of time,” my mom mumbled under her breath.

Even though my gut churned with resentment, I schooled my face into a blank mask, trying to hide all my emotions. My mom preyed on insecurities. “I don’t need time. My life is just fine.” I lifted the glass of ice water to my lips.

My mom gasped. “Are you engaged?”

My stomach dropped. I’d forgotten to take off Ryker’s engagement ring before dinner. I’d been running late after another unsuccessful meeting with a small D.C. magazine. I stared at my parents for a long moment, then cleared my throat. “Kind of,” I answered, inwardly cursing the tremble in my voice. Ryker and I weren’t technically engaged, but I couldn’t explain the details of our promise to each other.

My dad pursed his lips. “Kind of? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We’re still working things out. You know, school, living arrangements and other stuff,” I murmured, hating, and not for the first time, that things between us weren’t simple.

My mom pressed her hand to her chest, her eyes wide with panic. “You haven’t talked to Evan for weeks. What’s going on?”

Twirling a strand of hair around my finger, I squinted across the room, trying to find anything to look at other than either of my parents’ faces. “This has nothing to do with Evan. I met someone else.”

“When?”

I moved my hands into my lap and twisted the ends of my napkin. “I’ve known him for a few months,” I answered vaguely. “I know it seems sudden, but I love him.”

My mom’s brows knitted together, disgust contorting her lips into a scowl. “You met him when you were engaged to Evan?”

I sat awkwardly, heat rushing to my face under the intense stare of both my parents. Part of me longed to burst out laughing and claim the whole thing was a joke gone awry, but I knew I couldn’t. This was just the beginning. I needed to break my parents’ hold on me once and for all and make my own decisions. As a child, my mom had used every psychological trick in her arsenal to mold me into the person she wanted me to be. The moment I left for college, I started pushing back, but I had never managed to eliminate her control entirely.