The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(48)

“What what?” Mom’s scrolling through her phone like she’s having her first gin and tonic after crawling through the Sahara without water.

“She disabled my work email. She disabled my work email!”

I switch over to my Remington Lightly corporate app, and oh my God.

She did.

She completely locked me out.

I can’t access my work email. I can’t access my files. And it’s not that someone’s changed my password.

My username doesn’t even exist.

And while I’m having a next-level crisis here, Mom’s already on the phone.

“Hello, Rosita? This is Margot Lightly. I’d like to book a full spa experience, please, but I’m going to need you to bring the spa to me, because my mother-in-law is having a late-life identity crisis and she can’t be left alone. No, no, no need for services for her too. But if you could pack an extra therapist and massage table, I’ll treat my daughters as well. I—excuse me? She did what?”

Mom goes as pale as my favorite shade of platinum blonde.

One guess what’s happening here.

Estelle Lightly. My grandmother. Ruler of our universe.

She’s blocked us from any chance at connecting with our real world.

“Yes, thank you. I’ll simply make arrangements with a different spa. One who caters to their clients’ actual needs.”

She hangs up, gripping her phone so tightly that I wouldn’t be surprised if she launched it out the window next. The lines at the corners of her mouth are stark white, lips pressed together so hard she could probably crack a macadamia between them. “Your grandmother—”

“You should go home, Mom. Home home. To New York.”

I didn’t think it was possible for her to get any paler, but her entire complexion is so pasty I actually feel the need to touch her to make sure she hasn’t morphed into a ghost.

She snatches her hand back from my grasp. “What kind of mother would I be if I abandoned my babies to the whims of that psychopath? I blame myself for letting her have any influence on you at all, you know. Phoebe, you’re so—you’re so bright. And such a hard worker. You could succeed anywhere. There’s no reason for you to take this treatment by your grandmother. I’ll slip you money, sweetheart. I have a little hidden away. Save yourself. Run away and save yourself.”

My phone dings again, and I glance down to see a notification from Fletcher.

Ignore me one more day at your own peril, Lightly. I’ve already turned half of Manhattan against you.

Before Tickled Pink, I wouldn’t have hesitated to reach into that secret folder on my phone and send him the same picture I could send to any gossip rag in the city to remind him who he’s playing with.

But I can’t do it.

Not because I have any qualms about destroying Fletcher Barrington. He’s a scab on the crust of humanity.

No, it’s because I’m picturing someone sending photos and gossip regarding Teague Miller’s daughter to a tabloid. I’m feeling the wrath that would come from Papa Bear at anyone attacking Bridget for who she is.

Fletcher’s lover is married with kids.

It’s not my place to ruin his life too.

“Phoebe—”

“Why are you here, Mom?”

She looks me square in the eye, and for that moment, everything hangs still.

I know Gigi has dirt on all of us. She probably knows everything from why I didn’t get the promotion I wanted to where Fletcher’s grandfather’s watch is right now to when I lost my virginity and how many times I have leaked damning pictures to the press.

Sometimes pictures of my friends.

Sometimes pictures of colleagues.

Sometimes pictures of former friends and lovers.

I’m no angel.

None of us are.

I know my mom has skeletons too.

But I don’t know what they are.

She breaks eye contact, looking back down at her phone. “I’m here because I could never let my children endure this alone.”

My dad’s always said that I’m the spitting image of my mother. Watching her profile, the way her lips move subtly as she scrolls her phone, the curve of her ear, the soft indent in her cheek that’s not quite a full dimple, the line of her nose—I realize he’s right.

I am completely my mother’s daughter.

And I always thought it was only on the outside.

I like fashion, but I had no desire to go into that business. I like parties, but not to the degree she does. I like travel, but I’d never drop everything to jet off to Monaco on a spur-of-the-moment girls’ trip.

But I would drop everything to head to a corporate retreat with company-provided spa treatments. I would give my Louboutins to be able to stroll into Persephone Richardson’s engagement party tonight. And while my mother’s handbags and shoes haven’t reached the level of success that she pretends they have, probably because her true talents don’t lie in designs and her pride won’t let her admit that, I have no doubt I got my business sense—not my drive but my sense, the instincts to leap on trends to sell things and the ability to adapt when necessary—from her.

God knows my father has none, despite what he tells his buddies on the fairway, where he spends more time than he spends in the office.

But I still don’t know why Mom’s here.