Chapter 22
My steps faltered as I moved into the kitchen, where I found Mona at the counter, prepping some kind of meal.
It was a surprise to see someone who wasn’t part of Byron’s culinary team in the kitchen. There was no need for it when there was always a chef in the house to prepare everything from the simplest of snacks to the most elaborate meals.
Mona glanced up, startling for a moment when she saw me. She recovered quickly, her face stretching in a small smile. “Please, come in, Dempsey.”
I swallowed, uncomfortable. Any kind of interaction with the guys’ mother was the last thing I wanted after the conversation I’d just had with my father, but I forced myself to make my way to the fridge and pull an electrolyte drink from the refrigerator.
“I know this must be hard for you,” Mona said from behind me.
Turning to face her, my face pinched at her words.
“With your father and I being here, I mean. Antonio explained to me that you and he had a strained relationship.”
I coughed on the sip of my drink I’d just taken. “Is that what he wants to call it?” I asked, swiping at my mouth with the back of my hand. “Definitely not how I would describe it.”
If Mona picked up on the venom in my tone, she didn’t acknowledge it, just went about her meal prep with a bland expression on her face.
Was she heavily medicated? Was that how she could stand to let someone like my father near her?
“I want you to know that I understand. And I’m sorry if our presence here has a negative effect on you, but I had to come and get my boys back.”
Her eyes locked with mine, and my brows raised on their own accord at her words. She had to know that her coming here, with my father no less, was hardly going to get her the result she wanted.
It was insane to bring your new unhinged husband to squat at the McMansion you used to share with your ex-husband, when he now lived in it with his new wife, in order to win back the three children you abandoned so thoroughly. But I wasn’t about to be the one to say that to her.
“I hope it works out how you want it to,” was all I could muster.
She smiled at me, reaching across the counter to cover my hand with hers. I was instantly uncomfortable, but didn’t want to offend her by jerking my hand away.
Sure, my own mother had turned her back on me while keeping up the appearance of not having done it at all, but that didn’t mean I was so desperate to be loved that I’d turn to Mona as an alternative.
Presley took that moment to arrive in the kitchen, his eyes landing on me at seeing me finally out of my room and within reach, then his mom, then dropping to where her hand covered mine.
He shot me a look that asked, ‘Are you okay?’ and I summoned a smile-slash-grimace for Mona before sliding my hand free.
“I’m going to swim laps…” I strode for the doorway and the safety that Presley offered.
“Good idea, I’ll come with you,” he said, eyes never leaving me as I moved around him.
“Wait,” Mona said, and we both stopped like obedient little puppies.
We shifted back in her direction in unison.
“I could really use your help, Presley,” Mona said tentatively. “If you have the time…”
The words hung between them. It was an olive branch of sorts, one I knew deep down Presley would desperately want to accept.
At his core, all Pres wanted was to be loved, and it was a role I’d tried to fill as best I could.
But it stemmed from the loss of his mother and now here she was, reaching out to him and asking him to reach back.
I hated it.
And I hated myself for hating it.
Because maybe Mona was genuine. Maybe all she wanted in this world was to reconnect with the sons she’s left behind.
Or the ones she’d been forced to abandon when she’d left Byron, if her version of events was to be believed.
But it was near impossible for me to believe that honesty and goodness could come from anyone who had aligned themselves with my father.
Pres’s gaze dropped down to me, his voice dropping too. “Are you okay without me for a minute?”
“Never,” I whispered back with a small smile. “But I’ll manage.”
I desperately wanted to be wrapped in his arms, my tears flowing as I cried into his warm, comforting chest. I had to tell him about my father’s real reason for being back here. I had to tell them all. I just knew it was going to crush them the same way it was crushing me.
His fingers brushed mine, giving them a small squeeze, then he strode across the kitchen to join Mona at one of the lengthy counters.
The smile that lit up her face as she reached for him made my stomach twist.
I didn’t want her to have the opportunity to hurt him again, but if he was willing to allow it, it wasn’t my place to try to come between him and his mother.
I just had to hope that Pres didn’t decide to cope with whatever happened by mainlining tequila.
The three of us had only just managed to get him onto healthier coping mechanisms.
His mother and my father had the power to undo it all.