Sweet Agony (Sweet Series Book 1) (16 page)

I held up a spoon filled with lemon sorbet, pointed in her direction. “How about a toast?”

Mom laughed and held up her own full spoon. “What are we toasting?”

“To the men who used to live across the street, may we never see them again.” My sorbet was starting to melt a little, so I ate it before any of it could drip off my spoon. One should never waste something as life affirming as ice cream. In my opinion, it was more important than regular food and water.

“That’s it? I thought surely you would have something more creative thought up for a toast, Ginny.” Mom stuck her sorbet in her mouth before it fell off her own spoon.

Shrugging one shoulder, I said, “I could say something like ‘may the fleas of a thousand camels invade their crotches,’ but I was trying to keep it classy.”

My mother sputtered, choking on the sorbet she had been in the process of swallowing.

Feeling bad, I patted her back while she coughed up any sorbet that might have gone down the wrong way.

When she was done coughing, Mom wheezed, “You just gave me the most horrid mental image of Lucas scratching his crotch due to fleas.”

My mom’s words only put the mental image in my own head, which caused me to laugh. And as I laughed with my mom, the depressing, heavy thoughts from the past six months disappeared … a bit.

My mom was right about one thing. Life would give you lemons, and you either made lemonade or poured a gallon of alcohol in your lemonade and got piss drunk to forget it all. Right now, Lucas had given me a shitload of lemons, and it was my job to turn the sour of those lemons into something sweet. Lemon sorbet seemed mighty fine to me.

Plus, the woman laughing beside me wasn’t about to let me go through my heartache alone. My mom was my rock who loved and protected me through everything in my life. Besides, if she could get over my dad, I could get over Lucas. Therefore, I was going to lean on my mom while the tough got going and be grateful to have such a strong, wonderful parent in my life. If I didn’t have my mom, I would be lost.

At the end of it all, we would be the two women who had survived the boys across the street breaking our hearts. As long as we had each other, I was okay with that.

Chapter

12

Ginny

That Weekend …

“Hey, we’re on Fifth Avenue; do you want to stop sightseeing and go in one of the department stores, Mom?”

My mother gave me that look any grown person had probably seen from their parents a thousand times in their life, the look that said:
I love you, and I’m trying to indulge you here, but you’re pushing your luck
. And I was—pushing my luck, that was—because we couldn’t afford the bigger department stores. Plus, they weren’t my thing. Regardless, I had been saving up money for six months from my tips at the coffee shop to buy my mom a designer purse she had seen on television and practically drooled over. I knew she was going to protest by saying it cost too much, but she deserved it.

My mother made sure I had everything I needed and gave me what I wanted when she could. She never did anything for herself. There were times she had worked two jobs in order to pay all our bills. The memories of her coming home dog-tired left a bitter taste in my mouth, especially now, after her revelations to me this past week about coming from a wealthy family.

All this time, the two of us had been scraping by in life when, if circumstances had been a little different, my poor mother could have been living in luxury.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t about us having the material things or not. I didn’t need designer handbags or swanky clothes. What I did want more than anything was for my gentle-spirited mother to not have to work herself to death due to her trying to make sure the mortgage was paid on time.

It just pissed me off to no end that she had worked herself to the bone to take care of me, all because my father was a monumental dickhead, which was why I was more determined than ever to buy her that purse she had ‘oohed’ and ‘awed’ over months ago. It was the least I could do for the woman who had loved me unconditionally enough to leave her comfortable, affluent lifestyle behind in order to give me a new life in a safe environment, away from my own flesh and blood who had turned himself into some sort of moral-lacking monster in the name of pride and greed.

Mom grabbed my arm above my elbow and steered me from the sidewalk and into the opening of an alley between a coffee shop and an upscale diner so we were out of the busy pedestrian foot traffic normally found in New York City.

The hustle and bustle of the people pushing past us and the loud, honking horns of traffic all disappeared as my mother studied my face intently.

Curiosity overcame her features, and she softly asked, “What’s this about, Ginny?”

I nonchalantly shrugged. “We never go into the high-end stores. I thought it might be nice for us to go window shopping for once.”

Her curiosity morphed into doubt. “Does this sudden fascination with expensive stores have anything to do with what I told you about our family?”

At least I could answer that honestly since I had saved up for that purse long before ever knowing my mother used to be rich.

Shaking my head, I said, “Nope. Promise. Since you’re not going to believe me, though, I’ll tell you the truth. Remember that purple purse you liked so much? I saved my tips for it. I want to go buy it for you.”

Her eyes got a little misty as a trembling smile formed on her lips. She brought her hand up and cupped one side of my face. “You didn’t have to do that, darling.”

I started to protest, but she wouldn’t let me get a word in.

“Was that handbag gorgeous? Absolutely. I’m sure half the women in America want that purse, but I don’t need it. You know why?”

Frustrated, I shrugged my shoulders.

Her lips stopped trembling, and her smile got bigger, warmer. “Because all I need is you, sweet girl.”

How could I be mad at my mother after that comment? Was she ruining my surprise for her? Yes. Just like she ruined the time I saved up my meager allowance and tried to take her to an upscale restaurant when I was fifteen. Or the time I saved up again and tried to buy her some real leather, knee-high dress boots that she promptly took back and traded for two pairs of reasonable tennis shoes for both of us. So, in a way, I wasn’t surprised she was doing this. I was, however, frustrated that she wouldn’t let me do for her what she had always managed to do for me somehow—give me what I wanted. I was sure, if someone added up all the art supplies she had ever bought me, I could buy at least five of those purses.

Letting my frustration get the best of me, I argued back, “Just let me do something nice for you, Mom. One time, I’m asking for this one time; let me splurge a little and buy you something you don’t need.”

Mom dropped her hand from my cheek down to the top of my shoulder where she gave it a gentle squeeze. She bit her lip in indecision before asking, “Why do you want to buy me the purse so much, sweetheart? You have to realize that it’s very expensive. You could buy those special markers you were telling me about for your comic panels, instead. Certainly, you need those before you submit your work for that internship you were hoping to get?”

Desperate to get her to understand my need to take care of her for once the way she had always taken care of me, I blurted out, “Because it’s always about me, Mom! Always! For once, you deserve for it to be about you! I know the purse is ridiculously expensive and that you could find at least ten better ways we could use the money. Except, I’m asking you not to.

“I’m asking you to let me do this one small thing to show you that I appreciate everything you’ve ever done to take care of me. This is my way of saying thank you for every double shift you’ve ever worked to pay the bills, every man you turned down for a date because you said I was your number one priority, every luxury you gave up to give me a better life. Please, just for
once
, let me take care of
you
.”

The mistiness came back to her eyes, and now her whole chin was trembling as she tried to hold in the tears I could see threatening to escape. There was such a wealth of love and appreciation shining from her eyes that I almost started to cry, too. It was in this moment I realized my mother and I had come full circle.

We were two women who had loved two very different men, yet we both had ended up broken-hearted beyond repair, left to cling to each other with the love between a mother and daughter to sustain us. Only, I wasn’t a little girl anymore, and I didn’t have to depend on her to take care of me. Now it was my turn to take care of her a little bit, and I would do that any way I had to, even if it boiled down to simply buying her a damn purse.

It was there in the look on her face as she took in what I had said to her and battled her tears that I knew I had finally won. She was going to let me buy her the purple purse from a ludicrously expensive store.

Her mouth opened, and I was seconds away from jumping with joy at my victory when the unthinkable happened.

“How fortuitous for me that I see my long-lost wife and daughter walking around New York City while I’m here on business,” a cold, low voice said from behind me.

The words almost didn’t make sense to me since I had been staring at my mom’s face, waiting for her voice, when the cultured baritone took its place. I understood all too clearly, though, when my mother was roughly pulled around me by a strong hand on her arm and into the body of a tall, slim man.

Once he had her positioned in front of him with her back to his front, he then wrapped one of his arms across her chest, just above her breasts, effectively holding her captive against him.

My mother’s eyes were now wide and panicked as she stared at me. At least, I thought it was me until I heard shuffling.

Turning my head slowly to either side, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw two large, bulky men who were now pinning me in with their presence, cutting off any possible escape route I might have had.

When I looked back at the man who held my mother caged in his arms, my heart started to thump so hard I thought it might beat itself right out of the front of my chest.

It had been sixteen years since I had seen him, but I couldn’t forget that face. That face had haunted me in my nightmares since Mom and I had left him.

His sandy blond hair was styled and combed to perfection. Blue eyes just a few shades darker than mine stared at me ruthlessly as precious seconds ticked away. In that moment, he seemed totally opposite from what my nightmares remembered.

There was no denying who this man was or what he was to me.

The monster was back.

Only, this wasn’t a nightmare, and Lucas wasn’t here to save me.

This wasn’t the furious man who had raged and roared. No, this man had an air of quiet, deadly calm. And the funny thing was that I would suddenly rather deal with the bad temper from my nightmares because this man … Well, he scared the living shit out of me with merely a look.

As a child, even though I had a vivid imagination and lived half my life with my head in the clouds, I would have never dreamed it possible that the monster who had terrified me was capable of becoming anything scarier than he already was. Apparently, my imagination just hadn’t been good enough. This man who stood in front of me with his expensive suit and polished leather shoes didn’t just ooze a menacing aura … He radiated danger.

Sometime since we had escaped him, he had transformed himself from being a monster to the sort of being monsters were afraid of. I had no idea how that was even possible.

All of my instincts were screaming,
Run!
Whereas, my mind was telling me the cold, hard truth. We were screwed, trapped, and there was no getting out of this.

He cocked one seriously impervious-looking eyebrow at me then subtly nodded his head to the street. “Follow my men into the car, Virginia. You don’t want to know what will happen if you don’t.”

I internally shuddered at the order. I didn’t need him to verbalize what he would do if I didn’t listen. The little girl trapped inside me knew well enough that, if you didn’t do what dear old Daddy wanted you to do, he got angry.

It was never good for anyone when the monster got angry.

I slowly made my way into the limousine waiting at the curb and climbed into the back after one of my father’s henchmen opened the door for me. As I slid onto the leather bench seat, the car door on the other side opened, and one of his men got in, blocking any escape I might have had.

I stopped in the middle of the seat, waiting not so patiently, terrified out of my mind, as my mom climbed in and sat herself across from me on the other bench seat. My father sat down next to her, wrapping his arm back around her shoulders as if he didn’t want to let her out of touching distance for an instant. Maybe he was afraid, if he did, both of us would up and disappear again.

The second henchman, who had held the limousine door open, slid in next to me, and my breath choked up in my chest. I was sandwiched between two men who looked like they ate professional wrestlers for breakfast and were no doubt armed with at least one gun. The word fucked came to mind, as in I was totally fucked in a bunch of not very good ways. Even that description seemed to pale in comparison to my current reality.

I was sitting across from the very man my mother had risked everything to leave in order to protect us both. It wasn’t likely we would escape him again. Now the question was, what would he do with us?

My mother had painted him as a good boy gone bad through desperate circumstances. However, as I forced myself to stare into his cold, hard eyes, I didn’t see an ounce of good left. Whoever this man was, he wasn’t the man my mother had fallen in love with years ago. No, this man, who had his arm wrapped around my mother like he would super glue her to himself if he could, had a face that didn’t just say, “don’t fuck with me.” That face said, “I’m your worst nightmare,” and in my case, he was.

It took everything I had not to tremble in fear while staring at the face that somewhat mirrored my own, waiting for what he would do next.