Ew. I slid back on the table so my back hit the wall and Charlie’s soft dick slid out of me. He sighed and tucked himself back into his pants before turning around.
“Mum, I swear to god, get the fuck out of my house.” He could have slapped her across the face, she looked so shocked.
“Who do you think you’re speaking to that way,” she said indignantly.
“It's one thing that you keep showing up here unannounced, mother. I've almost given up on telling you to stop but I’m drawing the line at you letting yourself in.”
“Then you should have locked the damn door. Who is that you’re with?” she asked. Uh-oh.
She gasped. “You!”
The jig was up.
I slid off the table, fixing my clothes so I didn’t flash her. I didn’t expect that to be the way Veronica Hampton and I reunited. I could have done with an informal coffee together or something, just anything that wasn’t this. I felt sick, embarrassed, small, stupid and even a little ashamed. There was no way in hell that I could let her know how much I wanted to drop dead right then. I cleared my throat.
“Veronica. Pleasure seeing you again,” I said; the most shameless lie I had ever told in my life. The woman looked disgusted to see me and the feeling was mutual. Charlie was baffled, looking between the two of us waiting for it to make sense.
“I certainly can't say the same,” she said. Oh yeah, me neither but while she was an unabashed bitch, I had the manners to conduct myself honorably even with people I didn’t care for.
“Pity,” I said under my breath.
“What the hell is going on here?” Charlie asked.
“I remember you… it is you,” Veronica said. “You have some nerve involving yourself with my son again. Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time?”
“What last time?” Charlie asked. He looked at me.
“Your little summer jaunt in California. She worked on the beach selling peanuts or something,” his mother said. I worked the beach shack, she wasn’t all the way wrong but we didn’t sell peanuts. Nice to know that in her old age, her memory was at least kind of still intact. Charlie turned to me.
“You’ve met my mother before?”
Unfortunately. Why didn’t she tell him? Did he really not know about the showdown that had scarred me to this day?
I didn’t want to do this again. The feelings from that day flooded back. Feeling under attack by a woman much older and richer than me who made me feel like a piece of dog shit on the bottom of her designer stiletto.
“Ask your mother,” I said to him. He did whatever she said after all. She had walked in at just the right moment to convince him never to see me again. It would be just like the charity ball or whatever that thing was where he met Elizabeth Thomas. For someone so rich and powerful, he really wasn’t hard to sway, at least not when his mother was concerned. I left the room as he rounded on her for the interrogation. Good luck to them. I didn’t need to be there for this one. I didn’t even want to eavesdrop.
I went through to the kitchen instead of heading upstairs. There was an exit that led out to the back of the house. We were done done. It had been nice while it lasted. So much for this meaning anything or lasting or even being possible. Why the hell had I believed that? With the history that we had, why had I ever thought that we could have had something now? Those weeks with Charlie in the past were paradise, I thought we were back there again, but it was impossible. Those days were done. They were dead.
27
Charles
“What is she
talking about mother?” I looked back over my shoulder for Brenna but she was gone. I wanted to go after her to make sure she was okay but she wasn’t going to tell me what was going on. I turned back to my mother.
“I don’t have time for this, Charles.”
Oh, she barges into my house and suddenly when things get a little dicey she doesn’t want to talk anymore?
“You’ve met Brenna before. When?”
She pursed her lips and fingered her hair, looking awkward and uncomfortable. I almost never saw my mother like that. Usually, she was the most composed person in the room, whether it was an act or it was authentic. Something about Brenna totally knocked her off balance.
“The summer you spent in California. I was at the beach house and suddenly this… this girl walks in. This fat little thing who said she was your girlfriend.”
“Don’t talk about Brenna like that,” I snapped.