Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense)(66)

I pluck the ring from her finger and grip it hard in mine.

“You’re not acting like yourself, Ellie. You wouldn’t hit me like that.”

“I know, I’m s-s-sorry,”

“Come with me. It’s time to go home.”

“My home is with Jack.”

She sighs, exasperated, as she stands up. “Ellie, you need to understand that Jack is not good for you.”

“Then who is?”

“I don’t know, honey. If you’re lonely you should have told me. I’ll help you find somebody who will value you for who you are.”

“I found somebody like that.”

“You think Jack is like that?” She chuckles a little. “Take my hand, honey. Let’s go home.”

“No.”

“Ellie, I know this is going to be difficult for you.”

She stands up, looming over me.

“I don’t know what he told you, or what happened, but you need to hear me out, and we need to leave. We can’t stay here.”

Slowly I rise to my feet, leaning my useless claw-hand on the bed. I stagger a little when I stand, and start walking. Richard’s minions surround us still. Maybe I can at least see Jack. He won’t abandon me, I know he won’t. He’ll get out of it somehow. He might still be downstairs.

When they walk me past the terrified owners of the bed and breakfast I find Jack already gone, spirited off in one of the hulking black Escalades that lurk outside. I know that if I resist now they will not be afraid to drag me off. There’s nobody else here.

“We’re going home,” Mom says firmly. “Get in the car, honey.”

Dread flows down my back like an ice cube as I step up into the car. My head spins. I slip my ring back on my finger and clutch my fist tightly, so no one will try to take it away from me. Mom sits down next to me and sweeps her blonde hair out of her eyes. The red welt on her face from my slap stands out raw and vivid, and I flinch a little when I see it.

No. She tried to take my ring. She wants to tear us apart. Her voice is as smooth and silky as ever.

When Richard’s man closes the door, she sits back.

“I need to ask you something,” she says softly.

I press my lips shut and look away. I’d rather stare at my reflection in the window.

“Have you been with Jack while you were gone? Sexually?”

I flinch at the question.

“I see. I assume you didn’t use any protection.”

“Sometimes. Not after we married.”

“We’ll take care of that. I’ll get you a morning-after pill. That should work.”

My stomach twists and I clutch my arms to my body.

No, no, no, you can’t, you can’t do that. I want to scream, no, you won’t make me, but I manage to keep quiet, as much as I begin to tremble at the thought.

She wants to take him away from me. All of him.

It was always in the back of my mind, and her words have ripped it to the front. Jack and I had sex a dozen times and we used a condom, what, three times? I could be pregnant. I could already be carrying his baby.

“Why?”

“Ellie, we need to talk to a doctor before you even think about having children. We don’t know how you would handle it, if you could handle it. More importantly… you can’t have Jack’s baby.”

“Why not?”

She sighs.

“He’s only interested in your money, dear. He wants you to give him a child so he can use the child to get your father’s money.”

That’s not true, I know it’s not. I know in my heart that Jack loves me. I know it the way I know which way is up and down, that the sky is blue under clouds, that the sun will come up tomorrow. Her words are soft and silky and there was a time when they would have slid right into my mind like a thin, sharp blade and started working us apart, but no. It’s not true.

I look over at her and chew my lip. My scars tug painfully at my mouth. I used to chew my lip like that when I was little and she’d yell at me to stop. I flinch, expecting her to say something, but she doesn’t.

Mom looks over at me with big teary eyes and that red mark on her face and her wild, disheveled hair, and it’s like looking at a total stranger. She keeps glancing at me, calculated and slick, appraising me.

Something is wrong.

There’s no love in her voice. It’s like listening to a soap opera. Her voice is like AstroTurf, like diet soda, like sugar-free candy. It’s right and wrong at the same time, too realistic to be real.

She’s f*cking acting.

She always used to do this when she wanted me to do something. She’d provoke me to anger and then use my guilt against me. Even after I was hurt, it was always the same. She’d push me until I lashed out at her and then act wounded until she got her way. She’ll find some way to guilt me until I take that pill, too.

Or she’ll try.

I’m not looking at my mother. My mother is dead. She died when I was a little girl and this creature wormed her way into my father’s bed and took over my life. My skin feels alive, crawling with disgust. It was not her place to try to force me into some acting career or whatever she had planned.

My father was seeing it, too.

My head starts to swim. I sway in the seat. It’s like I’ve been lying down forever and I just stood up, like I’m dizzy. That’s not my mother in that seat. Not my mom. I don’t have one. There’s some reptile that stole her place, cold blooded and calculating.