Mending Hearts

5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Mia

I sat in the car at the back entrance to the hospital. At just after six in the morning, I rubbed my eyes and wished I’d slept worth a shit last night. At one point, I considered fleeing Little Falls and heading to New York City to make my appointment. Keeping this baby wasn’t the right choice, and I knew that, had known it from the minute I found out I was pregnant. But the idea of doing what needed to be done to no longer be pregnant caused a surge of panic. I couldn’t do that either.

Pasha glanced my way but said nothing, his hands flexing on the steering wheel.

“I know,” I said. “I need to go in.”

“I go too.” Pasha unlocked the doors and popped his open.

“I’m putting a lot of trust in you.” I slid my gaze to him, not in any rush to get out of the car.

He nodded, his hand on the door handle. “And him.”

“And him,” I whispered, and I slid the tip of my fingernail between my teeth. “Am I being dumb?”

Pasha scrunched up his face and shook his head. A string of Russian words left his mouth in a blur that meant nothing .

“Just a sec,” I said, searching my phone for a translation app. Once it was downloaded, I turned on the record function and made a reeling motion to Pasha. “Say it again.”

The briefest smile touched his square-jawed face. A stream of Russian came again, and I recognized a few of the words from the last time he spoke. When I hit the button on the app to have it translated, my stomach dropped to my feet.

“How do you know I’m pregnant?” I stared at my phone and then looked at him.

He made a puking gesture and then pointed to the hospital entrance. Oh, Lord. He added those two things together, and he came up with the right answer. Who else would get there? I had to be careful for the next three months.

“From now on, you only speak to me in Russian, okay?” I stared at him, trying to convey how serious this was. “And you never, ever again say the word baby around me. Okay? Deliveries or packages or something, but the B word doesn’t exist.”

“I tell no one. Big secret. I understand.”

“The biggest secret. There’s no way you can understand. No one understands. If this gets out, my life is over. My mother will murder me.”

“No murder. No baby.” He nodded and focused on his hands in his lap.

I threw open my door, his words echoing in my head. His exact meaning wasn’t clear, but I didn’t want to get into it. I’d made my choice. My skin prickled at the number of people who already knew I was pregnant. A disaster waiting to happen .

I texted Tyler as we climbed the flights of stairs to the fifth floor. Pasha followed, his footsteps echoing in the stairwell. When I pushed open the door to the right floor, Tyler was pacing on the other side.

Our gazes connected, and then his light-brown eyes swept over my face. I could tell by the way his body relaxed that he’d started to wonder whether I would turn up.

Part of me didn’t want to go through with this appointment any more than I wanted to go through with the one in New York. The sheer number of pregnancy tests I took had to be enough.

“I don’t want to do this,” I whispered, eyes pleading.

With only the briefest hesitation, Tyler gathered me into his chest, his arms circling around me. His biceps toned and firm, flexed, holding me close at just the right intensity. My mother claimed there was a sweet spot with hugs, a right number. I never hit it. There were always too many. Fan after fan after fan. Or too few. Days and nights on the bus. Sometimes, like right now, I wondered if it wasn’t a number, but a feeling that a hug could give, when I could sink into it, let my worries melt into someone else.

“You change your mind?”

When his breath drifted down, a warped version of jasmine lingered. How many lollipops had he chain sucked this morning? Oddly comforting to realize he was also nervous, unsure. “Every five minutes.”

“I’m not going to keep talking you into having the baby. If you’ve changed your mind, now is the time to say it. We’ll figure something else out.”

“Do you want me to change my mind?” My cheek was pressed to his chest and I could hear the boom of his heart through his shirt. The elevated staccato made me feel safe .

“No.”

“You smell like lollipops.” I pulled back and glanced up.

“I’ve got addiction issues.” His eyes lit with a hint of amusement. “I swear it’s just to half-eating lollipops.”

“But it means you’re not sure.”

His expression turned serious. “No, it means I’m nervous, too. We didn’t plan this. We’re in the middle of planning this. Our lives are going to change forever. It would be weird if I wasn’t nervous.”

I ran my hand through my midnight hair, pulling it down my shoulder and along my arm so I could play with the ends. “Okay. Let’s go see what Doctor David has to say.”

He laced his fingers with mine, and I knew I should pull away, keep my distance. But having Pasha trailing behind us toward the examination room wasn’t enough to make me feel safe. Physical safety wasn’t the kind I was craving, but it was the type I’d gotten used to needing when this hint of panic flickered. When I glanced up at Tyler, he was looking down.

“Want me to lie to you?”

“Yes.” A quasi smile touched my lips.

“Everything’s going to be fine. We’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Just before we entered the examination room, Tyler dropped my hand. I laced my fingers together in front, already missing the contact, the support. If I asked, would he take my hand again? Did I want that?

No. No. I couldn’t want that. This baby was a contract between us, an agreement.

Doctor David had a jolly round face and a wide frame. He hugged Tyler and then stuck out his hand to me. “Tyler tells me you’re expecting. Congratulations. ”

“It’s uh—I mean—we’re keeping this very private.” I gave him a tight smile.

“Don’t worry. I won’t say a word. We’ll need a nurse, but I have absolute faith in the one I asked. I was surprised when Tyler said you’d agreed to be his surrogate, but he has always loved kids, even as a kid. He was always offering to hold babies, doting on his younger sisters.”

I cocked my head at Tyler but didn’t contradict the doctor’s version of events. “Yeah, surrogacy. Who knew? Such a rewarding experience for both of us.” I batted my eyes at Tyler in mock sweetness.

He ran a hand through his hair and shot me a warning glance. I wasn’t going to mess up his cover story, but I wished he mentioned it in the hallway.

We should be marking this occasion with something, a toast maybe. To the first lie. A shitty surrogacy lie is how we started.

“I’m surprised your regular doctor wouldn’t have continued your care,” David said as he gestured to get onto the examination table.

I used the stool to slide over the crunchy papered surface. “A few information leaks were traced back to her.” I gave Dr. David a pointed look. “That’s unacceptable.”

Tyler’s shoulders relaxed, and he winked. A ghost of a smile threatened, and I was tempted to roll my eyes. Who’d believe that a famous popstar was opting to be a surrogate? And yet, I guess, it wasn’t too terribly far from the truth of our arrangement.

“I’ll just grab my nurse to draw some blood. If you can fill out this form while I’m gone so we can get a sense of timing, that would be great.” When I tensed, David patted my hand. “Don’t worry. The nurse is my daughter. There won’t be any problems there. ”

Why did everyone in this town believe everyone else was trustworthy? In my experience, family was the least trustworthy of all. Across the room, Tyler straightened at the mention of David’s daughter. As soon as the doctor was out of the room to fetch his nurse-daughter, I narrowed my eyes at his change in demeanor.

“If she’s not trustworthy, we’re outta here. I’m not having this fall apart before we even start.”

He shook his head but pulled a lollipop out of his pocket, twirling it between his fingers. I was starting to realize that motion was as much a nervous habit as sticking the lollipop in his mouth was a substitute for smoking. “You can trust her.”

“Then why’d you get all weird?”

“It’s a small town. People know each other.”

“That’s bullshit. What happened to the guy who sat beside me yesterday and said we’d lie to everyone else but never to each other?” I raised my eyebrows in challenge.

“We dated in high school. Satisfied?” He flushed.

A swell of something I couldn’t quite pinpoint ran through me. Envy? Jealousy? I took out my phone to check dates and scribbled the answers to the questionnaire about my last period and all the other relevant health details. Anything to avoid analyzing whatever feeling had zipped through. He was roughly fourteen years older. Of course he had a history, and probably most of it existed in this town.

When I finished, I leaned back on my hands and let my gaze roam over him. There was definitely something about him that drew me in, even now when I should be angry that he hadn’t given the truth right away. Honesty was going to be vital between us, at least on his part. I needed to know what was coming and how to navigate it. “I’m intrigued.” What sort of woman had Tyler been attracted to in high school? “You only dated in high school?”

“College, too.”

“So, long term.”

His left shoulder rose and fell. With a chuckle, he wandered closer, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trendy jeans. The clothing he wore was another thing that threw me off when I first met him. He didn’t dress like a thirty-something man with no sense of style.

“News flash for you, Mia. All my ex-girlfriends were long-term.”

I frowned. How did that fit? Long-term relationships everywhere, no wife anywhere. He’d said he’d only been dating the other woman for a few weeks. “I don’t get it.”

The door popped open, and Doctor David strolled in with a petite brunette woman behind him. Unlike Tyler, she looked like she was in her thirties. I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten used to seeing women with too many face fillers, but the lines at the edges of her eyes were oddly satisfying. Someday, I wanted to be like that—let the cracks show through, not give a shit if I looked my age. My mother hated any sign of aging, and her constant criticism of what she saw in the mirror drove me insane. Despite the lines, this nurse was pretty, but she only had eyes for Tyler.

When he didn’t greet her or return her longing gaze, I cocked my head and stuck out my hand. “Mia. And you are?”

“Katie,” she said, shaking my hand with the briefest motion. “I’ll just grab some blood for the lab.”

While Katie’s head was bent over my arm, I examined her, trying to figure out what it was about this woman that made Tyler so uncomfortable, made the air thick with tension that the good doctor seemed oblivious to but was written all over them both. He was more relaxed about his current girlfriend meeting me than this encounter. My curiosity lit. A smile tugged at the edges of my lips, and when I looked up from the blood being drawn, Tyler’s gaze was intent on me, ignoring Katie’s presence completely. What? I mouthed to him, but he shook his head in response.

Katie withdrew the needle and disposed of it. The vial of blood was clutched in her gloved hand. “I’ll let the doctor know as soon as we have the results. It won’t take long.”

“Is it a family affair? Your mom the one in the lab?” My lips twitched in amusement.

“No.” Katie’s cheeks turned pink. “It’s—it’s very confidential. The laws for the lab are very strict.”

At least someone seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. This weird tension between Katie and Tyler was pricking at my sixth sense for gossip. People with grudges or wounds weren’t good secret keepers. I’d moved out of my old neighborhood a couple years ago, but every Tom, Dick, and Harry had tried to sell a story before I left. No loyalty in those people to either me or my mother. Whenever one of the trashy tabloids ran a story, I rarely even remembered the person with the tall tale. None of my neighbors had much money. I knew why they did it, but it didn’t stop me from experiencing a range of feelings from annoyance to outright anger at whoever was spinning lies and half-truths.

When David brought the ultrasound machine close to the bedside and had me lie back, he gestured for Tyler to come closer. I adjusted my clothes and closed my eyes, the gel cold against my skin. This was the part I dreaded.

When the thump thump of the baby’s heartbeat filled the room, I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to block it out. Two large hands sandwiched one of mine, and I opened my eyes to see Tyler, his gaze intent on the screen, a look of awe on his face.

“We can’t know the sex yet, right?” he said.

“No. Around twenty weeks, if we can get a good picture, we’ll be able to figure out the sex.” Dr. David glanced down, and I tried to ignore him, kept focused on Tyler. “You’re doing a good thing.”

Tyler tore his gaze from the monitor to peer down at me too. His face softened at the look of panic that must be evident. I felt the emotion rising, threatening to push me off the exam table and out the door. He leaned down so our foreheads were almost touching. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, “To everyone else, never to each other.” Then he pulled back far enough for our gazes to connect, and his thumb brushed my cheek. “I’ll protect you with everything I’ve got.”

All the tension flowed out as we maintained eye contact, and through all Dr. David’s notes on due date, nutrition, next appointments, and everything else I now had to consider, Tyler held my hand and nodded along. When Katie came back with the test results, Tyler’s frame tightened, but he kept my hand in his, as though he knew the contact kept me stable.

I didn’t know how I was going to face my mother knowing what I knew and not crack or bend, or in some way, offer the truth. But if I told her now, while there was still time for a different outcome, I’d break my promise to Tyler. And to the baby. After hearing the heartbeat, I couldn’t deny someone else was living inside of me now. For me, there was no going back.

At the rear entrance to the hospital, I stood outside the car facing Tyler while Pasha waited patiently behind the wheel as the engine hummed. “Two days,” I said. “Will that be enough? ”

“If you told me I needed to come with you today, I’d make it work. Two days is fine. If anything happens and you need me earlier, or if you’re having second thoughts or anything, call me. Doesn’t matter what time. Don’t even look at the time. Just call.”

I slid into the car, and Tyler shut my door. As we pulled out of the parking lot, he waved, and I waved back, feeling like he held a piece of me, one too important to leave behind. Already, I needed him. Panic swirled in my stomach, and I shook my head at the ridiculous thought. I needed his help; I didn’t need him .

Laura Malone was on a rampage. The venue organizers hadn’t left a single package of orange-flavored gum taped to my dressing room door as stated in the rider, so she was threatening to cancel the show. To be fair, my mother had stolen the trick from Van Halen. She always buried something loopy in the setup section of the venue instructions—for safety reasons, of course. Though, sometimes I wondered if Laura got off on the power trip more than the safety aspect. Nothing ignited her more than the missing item, whatever it happened to be.

The mistake meant I hadn’t had to worry about my mother’s focused attention when I got back from Little Falls. Most of the crew were standing outside the tour buses, waiting for further instructions. From the back parking lot, Mom’s voice boomed out, each word a detonated bomb. Laura assured me that I should be proud to have someone who cared so much.

Sometimes, I did feel that way. But most of the time, Laura’s behavior was embarrassing. Was it the manager or the mother at work? The two were so intertwined I never knew whether to call her Mother, Mom, or Laura around the crew. She was all that and none of it.

Laura’s curvy frame strode toward all of us waiting with my stage manager, Rebecca, trailing behind her. Liposuction and a boob job had created her artificial curves. Unlike me, my mother had no patience for diets.

“Mia, you can get back on the bus. Until I’m sure the safety specs are up to snuff, you’re not stepping foot on this stage for a sound check. No one else does anything until they have the all clear from me, Rebecca, or Taryn. Understood?”

No one dared to grumble, though I suspected a few people were covertly rolling their eyes. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, and with almost three months left in the tour, it wouldn’t be the last.

With a sigh, I climbed onto the bus. Rebecca followed, and Taryn, my road manager, was close on her heels. Two managers, one purpose. Keep me on the track, sliding along the money rails. Plopping down onto the closest couch, I removed one of the lollipops from my pocket and stared at it, twisting it between my fingertips.

Tyler.

The lemon-ginger flavor quelled the tropical storm in my stomach before it became a full-blown hurricane. A miracle. Divine intervention. Never knowing when I might feel the urge to puke on stage had been the worst part of this nightmare so far. When I’d stopped by Tyler’s store on my way to the airport to see if he had more, he’d given me his whole stash. Then, he’d promised to order more to bring with him. Laura would freak out about the sugar content, but at least I wouldn’t be losing my dinner on stage every night.

“Am I really going to sit here until she’s satisfied? I haven’t looked at my schedule.” I slotted the reminder of Tyler into my jacket pocket. I was still wearing the bulky winter coat, and sweat pooled under my arms. We were in Miami, and while it wasn’t exactly hot today, I didn’t need the parka.

Taryn and Rebecca exchanged a glance that only couples could pull off. Silent communication. Who needed words when you knew each other so well you were practically telepathic? Technically, Rebecca was the stage manager and Taryn was the road manager, but they swapped duties all the time depending on who had more patience for me or my mother.

“Radio interview in about an hour.” Taryn checked her watch and pushed her glasses closer to her angular face while Rebecca slipped out the door.

I let my head loll back on the couch cushions and focused on the recessed lights in the ceiling. If I opened more of the curtains on the bus, they wouldn’t need to be on. The windows were heavily tinted, but I didn’t like feeling as though I were in a fishbowl. The curtains were pretty. The windows were a reminder I was on display. Someone was out there watching and waiting for me to screw up.

“You all right? Have a good visit with Sarah?”

“The best.” Most of the time, I didn’t pretend with Taryn or Rebecca. Other people? All of the time. But the two of them had seen through the bullshit too fast to keep it up. Besides, it was exhausting to pretend perfection or indifference or any of the thousands of masks I wore depending on who was at the window looking in. “Does it matter if I fire Bonita?” I eyed Taryn, who was leaning against the opposite wall of the bus.

“Fire Bonita?” Taryn frowned and peered at her phone. She shoved her glasses onto the top of her head as she read an incoming message. “Why are we firing Bonita? I thought you liked her.”

“I found someone else. Fresh blood.”

“Did you run this past Laura?”

“Of course not. I’m running it past you so you can get my mom to follow through. Tonight is Bonita’s last. I want her replacement here and up to speed before the next stop.” I ruffled my hair and sat forward. Tiredness blanketed my shoulders, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to fake my way through this radio interview. Every interviewer wanted perky, full of interesting anecdotes, as though I held the world by the tail.

“Okay.” Taryn’s brow puckered. “And who are we bringing on? Feels a bit late for this change.”

“Sarah suggested Tyler Sullivan. Grady Castillo knows him, too. They’ve both worked with him. He fixed one of my costumes at that benefit a few months ago.”

“You want to bring a guy on tour?”

“Yeah.”

“I can see why you’re routing this through me. Laura would lose her fucking mind if she thought you were trying to bring a distraction on the road.”

“It’s not like that.” It was both better and worse than Taryn thought. Once Tyler was here, it would be easy enough to prove I hadn’t brought him on board as a boy-toy. We hardly knew each other. What did I care what he did in his spare time? As long as my costumes fit and no one discovered I was pregnant, he could look after himself. “He’s supposed to be good. References from two of my favorite people. All I need is for you to make it happen.”

“It’s really not like that?” Taryn pulled a clipboard out of a slot by the door and readjusted her glasses.

“No. I need a change. I’m bored. Sarah said he was amazing.” I might be overselling. Was he amazing? He’d fixed my costume at the fundraiser easily enough. And apparently, his ability to procreate was above average. That counted for something, didn’t it? Fixing costumes and having sex—there were probably worse resumes out there.

“You sure it was his costume designs she was talking about? I’ve heard she and her husband have a very loose arrangement.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but it was Phillipe who started that loose arrangement. If Sarah wants to screw around, I’m not judging.” I shrugged, but inside darkness swirled. Stupid, irrational jealousy. Sarah hadn’t slept with Tyler; she’d never met him. But the idea of them together was a scab: rough, hard to ignore. Other than being the father of whoever was growing inside of me, Tyler meant nothing. A warm body on a cool October night, that’s all he should have been.

The door to the bus hissed, and Mom’s heavy footsteps trudged up the stairs. I braced myself. Would this performance be the doting mother or the irate manager? Even in my head, I could never figure out if I should call her Mom or Laura. I knew what I wished for, but I was also aware of the person she’d become.

When she rounded the corner of the entrance, Laura smiled, her gaze raking over me. Our blue-green eyes and our smiles—the only two physical traits that labeled us mother and daughter. “You look tired. Long trip? ”

Looks like doting mother today. I grabbed one of the silver throw pillows and traced the circular design with my finger. “You know Sarah. Always a party.”

“We leave in twenty?” Laura eyed the clipboard in Taryn’s hand.

“At least I don’t have to get dressed.” I flipped my long hair to the opposite shoulder.

“Yeah, you do.” Laura moved to the closet near the back. “There might be paparazzi or fans. Leaving this bus is a commitment to those people to be your best.”

“Is it? Or is it just a commitment to go talk on some radio show?” Doting mother was quickly morphing into irate manager.

“Do you want to go back to being poor?” Laura turned on her heel, her eyes blazing. “’Cause when you treat your fans like shit, they stop buying your shit.”

“I could be poor. I wouldn’t mind.” I crossed my arms and sank deeper into the couch.

“Spoken like someone whose mother protected her from feeling too poor.” Laura yanked a patterned dress off one of the hangers and laid it over a chair. “If you remembered what it was like, you wouldn’t go back there. No one wants to decide between eating and buying medicine for their kid.”

Without thinking, my hand strayed to my flat stomach. I’d heard the baby’s heartbeat, which made him or her more real than they’d been before, but the burning desire to put the baby above myself didn’t exist. Had my mother been like that five years ago, before this all started? Had she put my happiness above her own? I couldn’t remember, and I couldn’t imagine it was true. Once the money train had started to chug along the tracks, Laura had become desperate to keep it going. At any cost.

Bitterness sat on my tongue as I watched her pull out underwear, a strapless bra, and some accessories for the dress she’d selected. My mother might have sacrificed a lot when she was poor, but I wondered sometimes if she’d sacrificed more once she’d gotten rich. I had, still was. But I loved the music, the stage, lived for it or at least lived this life for those two things.

“I’m old enough to dress myself.”

“Tell that to Bonita.” Laura rummaged around in a jewelry box that housed most of the inexpensive things. Anyone on the bus with light fingers wouldn’t get much. The good stuff was locked away.

My gaze slid to Taryn, who had been silent during our exchange. Taryn raised her eyebrows, prompting me to spill the Tyler beans. Good fucking luck . Even if Laura was in the right frame of mind to hear it, I wasn’t in the mood to beg or make my case. There’d be no pleading. Taryn and Rebecca were masters at building stories to win over Laura Malone. They could be the architects of this one, too. To make sure my lie to Taryn stuck, I couldn’t seem too invested in Tyler. No one could put the pieces together like Pasha had done in the car that morning.

“I need to chat with Rebecca about a couple of things. I’ll be back in fifteen to round you two up.” Taryn slid the clipboard into its spot by the door and gave me one last encouraging look before slipping out.

Laura flipped through a set of necklaces before selecting one and draping it over the dress. “How is Sarah?”

“Same as always.” I tossed the pillow onto the opposite side of the couch and wandered over to where the stack of clothes and accessories lay .

“You really do look exhausted. Are you going to fix your face, or should I text Gina to get her ass over here?”

“I’m exhausted.” I stared at her while she was focused on a box filled with bracelets. “When we’re done with the tour, I think I need a break.”

“We can chat about that when we’re closer to finishing.” Laura plucked a silver bangle out of the box. “We have financial commitments.”

“We’re not going to be poor if I take a break.”

“How long? A few weeks?”

I laughed. “No, more like a few months. For God’s sake. I’ve been working flat out for five years. Albums. Tours. TV shows. Talk shows. Fan appearances. Private concerts. That doesn’t include the diet, haircare, body treatments, and whatever else you’ve piled on.”

“Someday, you’ll look back on these years as the best of your life.”

That was always her defense for this frantic pace, as though cramming so much into a short time would make me nostalgic one day. I knew what would come next from her arsenal of guilt trips. It was the most effective one, though lately, I had developed some resistance.

“You know, there are lots of young girls out there—hell, not even young girls, but grown women—who would literally murder someone to be you. The success you have, the audience, your fan base. It’s almost unparalleled.”

Off the top of my head, I could name several artists who’d had a similar record of success. The only difference? I hadn’t yet shaved my head or chopped off my hair and bleached it blond or even written albums full of breakup anthems. Nope. So far, my image was squeaky-clean, even if my day-to-day vocabulary landed in the gutter.

But I had also met enough wannabe singers and performers to know Laura was right about the feverish desire. Did I want this life? I wanted the writing, singing, and performing. The rest of it wore me out, wore me down, made me feel as though I was someone to everyone and nothing like myself. Who was Mia Malone? My value came from what other people saw, and that realization kept me up at night, staring at the ceiling, practicing my Russian accent, pretending to be someone else. Most of the time, I weighed the truth down, sank it deep, and acted like it didn’t exist. I was Mia Malone, too famous for an existential crisis, whatever that would look like.

“Sure, until I do something that pisses them off, and then I’m fucked.”

“I really wish you’d stop using that word. Someday, you’re going to slip up and say it in an interview, and then we really will be fucked.”

“You’ve trained me well, Mother.” I grabbed the hem of my shirt and tugged it over my head. “Just like a seal. I clap my flippers and bark on command.”

“Yeah, right.” Laura put a hand on her hip and scoffed. “You think I’m doing all this for my benefit? Traveling around the world for me? Ensuring the safety guidelines are followed for me? Sitting up at night making charts and following trends to further my career?”

I snatched the dress from the back of the chair and stepped into it. “You’re right. What possible benefit is there for you?” I stared at her, waiting. “What was the price of the last house you bought with your share of my money?”

“You’ve come back from seeing Sarah in a foul mood.” Laura rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath. “Lord, give me patience.”

“Yes, Lord.” I looked up at the ceiling of the bus and put my hands together in a praying motion. “Please, please give my mother more patience for her overachieving daughter.” I was riling her up on purpose, which I loved and hated doing in equal measure .

“Look at me.” My mother’s features were taut. “There is no one in the world I love more than you. Your happiness is the most important thing in the world.”

I swallowed down my retort. I could only push so far before a layer of ice solidified between us, sometimes lasting for days. With Taryn and Rebecca working behind the scenes to get Tyler on the tour, I didn’t want her to have a reason to say no. Whether she loved me or not, Laura would thwart Tyler’s appointment here if it meant winning one of the silent battles we sometimes waged.

“I know you love me.” I slipped my fingers under the straps of the dress and tugged them onto my shoulders. I was likely the person Laura loved most in the world. The problem, as far as I could tell, was that Laura loved money more. I offered her a small smile, a peace offering. More than the fame, more than the money, I wanted my mother’s love. And sometimes that meant I backed down, gave in, rolled over and took whatever she dished out. After all, a little bit of love, even love attached to purse strings, was better than no love at all. “I love you, too.”