CHAPTER TEN
AURORA
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“W hat the hell?” I whisper quietly as my gaze locks on a man dressed all in black standing under the trees in the near distance.
I know who it is.
I recognize him immediately.
I feel Chloe, more than see, her turn her head in question.
“What?” she asks just as quietly.
Someone gives us a dark look, but they can shove it. This is my mother’s funeral. The celebrant keeps speaking as her coffin hovers over the empty grave ready for the moment she’s lowered into it.
I’ve cried, but it felt empty. I am sad, don’t get me wrong, but I never felt close to her. The older I got, the more obvious that became.
Then her sudden show of wealth and angry resistance to any reasonable questions I had—I honestly don’t know who it is I’ve lost.
Yesterday came an even bigger shock. The lawyer phoned me and told me the legal name of my mother was different from the one I knew her as.
What the actual fuck?
Mary-Anne Whitlock is actually Marianne Baker. She was born in Chicago—not New York—and is a year older she told me she was.
Why?
“Are you sure?” I asked Mr. Lynch, feeling like I was going to throw up as my world wobbled on its axis.
“What does that mean for me? What is my real last name?”
He was quiet for a while, then replied, “I don’t know. There are papers here you should look through. When we read the will you might get some answers.”
Would I?
It was as if life had pulled the rug out from under me.
There were no relatives to give me any answers, and most of the people standing around her grave were strangers to me. The odd face I mildly recognized but no one I could walk up to and say hey, so Mom wasn’t who she said she was, do you know anything?
I’d sound crazy.
I listen to all the official words being said while my eyes remain on Parker, wondering why he is here.
Spring had sprung back into winter for a couple of days, so I was also wearing a long coat to keep the chill off and was grateful for the feeling of comfort it gave me. An insane desire to have his arms wrapped around me hits as he watches me just as intently back.
“Babe.” Chloe squeezes my arm.
Snapped back to the funeral, I glance between her and the celebrant. “Oh.”
A lady holds out a basket of roses and I take the top one with a ribbon tied around it. Then step to the edge as they lower Mom’s coffin down into her grave.
Tears start to slide down my cheeks and I shake as if I’ve only suddenly realized Mom is gone. Goddamn. Of course, I wait until all eyes are on me to break down.
I can’t do this.
I can’t do this.
A panic attack begins to take hold of me, anger and fear bubbling up inside. I’m milliseconds from my legs collapsing under me when a large body envelops me.
Parker wraps his powerful arm around me, his hand resting on my hip.
“Take a breath,” he whispers into my hair.
I do as he says noisily and hear Chloe clear her throat behind us.
Parker presses his body against mine as I shake and glance around at the others present. Then he reaches down, takes hold of the hand holding the rose, and says, “Say goodbye, Aurora. You have a lifetime to unravel everything else.”
I lift my gaze and for a moment those blue eyes of his, so familiar and yet so dark and dangerous, tell me he’s no stranger to pain.
Gone was the cheeky grin and flirty billionaire I’d been on a date with on the weekend. This was a man giving me his support and what felt like protection.
I feel safe, and it hits me that I’ve never felt like this before.
No one will hurt me while he is near me.
No one.
There is no doubt in my mind.
I don’t care that he didn’t kiss me—fine, yes, I do—because right now, his presence is powerful and unyielding.
I glance once again at Mom’s coffin, seeking a bunch of words that are both expected of me and appropriate.
I don’t find any.
How can I when she might not even be the woman I knew?
“Rest in peace, Mom.” I sniff, wipe my cheek with the arm of my jacket, then add, “If that’s who you are.”
Parker’s arm stiffens.
I toss the rose on top of her coffin and turn into his chest, and he wraps his arms around me before I can second guess what I’m doing. His palm runs over my hair affectionately.
I hope he doesn’t ask what I meant. Parker won’t be interested in a woman who comes from unknown stock. I bet he’s a well-bred New Yorker.
Bringing home someone with no idea who her mother is would be unacceptable.
I feel like a leper.
There are already so many gaps in my life and now it is just one big gaping hole.
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PARKER
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W HAT DID AURORA say ?
If that’s who you are.
What in the motherfucking hell does that mean?
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AURORA
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P arker hasn’t left my side. He drove Chloe and me to the wake and has been standing beside me greeting people and shaking hands for hours.
“Don’t you need to go back to work?” I ask, sipping on my third white wine.
He reaches out and shakes another hand. “Thank you for coming.”
“My condolences.” The man I’ve never seen in my life says.
Chloe wanders over, munching on a little triangle sandwich. “Who the hell puts cucumber in between bread and calls this nutrition?”
Parker snorts, then his face returns to a more appropriate funeral brood.
“The British.” I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Right. But like in wartime or something. Couldn’t your mom afford to add some ham or lettuce?”
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. Then I remember she might not be my mom. I haven’t told Chloe yet. The drive to bury her—not Chloe—didn’t feel like the right time to bring it up and go over it.
What if my mother is some kind of criminal?
Or perhaps we are in the witness protection program?
Chloe has no filter, so the last thing I needed was her walking around asking people incredibly vague and strange questions that could backfire.
What if something terrible happened to Mom?
Imagine if I find out she was nearly murdered or raped, and I’ve stood by her grave and disrespected her.
Her only child.
Tears prick in my eyes as a woman heads toward us.
“We never met. My name is Diane. Your mother was a strong woman. My condolences.” She stares at me intently until Parker reaches out his hand.
Like my bodyguard.
“Thank you.”
Diane doesn’t look away immediately, and a shiver runs through me. Then her gaze drops to his hand, she shakes it, glances at me one last time, then walks away.
What the hell was that?
Parker looks at me and I shrug.
I’ve never met her.
“Damon—I mean, Parker—I’m a little confused,” Chloe says, munching on her little sandwich. “How do you know everyone?”
“I don’t.” He grabs a sandwich off a tray beside us and hands it to me. “Eat.”
“No, thanks.”
“You’ve had four wines and no food.”
“See, that’s why you are a business owner. Math.” I giggle.
His raised brow has me taking the soggy bread and shoving it in my mouth. Ugh. I immediately regret it.
“See.” Chloe says pointedly. “Anyway, nice diversion, but...” She glances around.
“I replied. I don’t know them.”
“Neither do I.” I spit the food into a napkin and toss it on the table.
Parker turns his body to face me. “None of them?”
I guess if he is going to find out who I really am, there is no time like the present. I toss back the rest of the wine and feel the alcohol burn in my veins. One more and I should be feeling so much better.
“I know her lawyer and those two women over there. Barely. They’ve been friends for years and meet for lunches and yoga. I think they went on a Caribbean cruise once. I don’t know them all that well. Enough to say hello.”
“No relatives?”
I sigh. “Nooooo.”
My reply comes out a little loud and dramatic. Parker is expressionless as he watches me, but those deep blue eyes of his try to get inside my soul.
I can’t let them.
He’s going to fully reject me completely now, so I may as well just tell him everything. Almost everything.
“No dad. No aunt. No siblings. No cousins. Maybe I was hatched?” I throw out my hands and knock over a glass of water.
Everyone turns at the noise.
“Ooops.” I scoop up the bottle of wine and refill my glass, feeling myself wobble. “Sorry, my wings get in the way.”
Then I chuckle at my joke.
Chloe laughs and then apologizes when he glares at her. “Babe. Eat some of the shit cucumber sandwiches. Parker is right.”
A snort escapes me.
Parker looks horrified; like he doesn’t know what to do with the two of us and it makes me laugh even more.
In true best friend fashion, Chloe keeps laughing with me and before I know it, we are bending over in hysterics.
At my mom’s funeral.
Or whoever she is.
Parker curses, but I don’t care. I just want to escape the thoughts in my head and my dumb life.