Chapter 18
Piper
Ididn't know whatI had been thinking. No, I knew what I'd been thinking. I'd been feeling like crap because my parents had shown up. Add alcohol to the mix, and I just needed someone to make me feel better.
Sure, Rayne and I had been playing this back and forth act for a bit now, and I probably shouldn't have tried to make our first time something to boost my confidence, but then again, I should have known he'd ruin it somehow. He always did. You know, for a mind reader, he really didn't think before he spoke.
After Rayne left, I was irritated and still horny as fuck. I didn’t give a crap if any of them heard me, so I climbed into my bed and finished what I thought was going to happen with Rayne. When I came, it was hollow and unsatisfying. I wanted to hunt him down and apologize for freaking out, but I was too much of a coward to do that. Besides, I had my parents to worry about, I couldn't be thinking about the masters right now.
But tell that to my mind which gave me endless dreams of the masters all night long that left me tossing and so turned on that I had to take a cold shower the moment I woke up. That alone should have told me how the rest of the day was going to go. Instead, I pulled on a pair of jeans and a yellow V-neck shirt and headed to my parents’ room.
As I got closer though, I realized they weren't even in their room. I could hear my mom's over the top laughter coming from the bottom of the back stairs. Why were they already up this early? I mean, I was used to being up before seven, but my parents had never been the type to roll out of bed before nine, not unless my dad had a sunrise tee off.
What kind of game were they playing?
I wasn't stupid. I knew my parents. They didn't just drop in unannounced to see how I was doing. The last time I had spoken to them, they hadn't given two shits about me and were more worried about getting to some dinner party they were going to. Now, for them to show up out of the blue and pretend to be all charming and protective over me was suspicious, that's what it was.
They wanted something, and I was going to get to the bottom of it while avoiding Rayne at the same time.
After making my way down the back stairs to the kitchen, I prepared myself for all manner of scenes. My parents could be real dicks when they wanted to be, but they could also make anyone love them, even a stupid, gullible daughter who should know better.
"Oh, Piper, darling." My mom cooed from the kitchen table in the corner. "Come and have breakfast with us. Darren here was just regaling us with the tale of how you came into the Durand’s’ employment."
I shot an annoyed look in Darren's direction, but the butler just arched a brow and continued to pour my dad a cup of coffee at the island where he sat. Seeing that I wasn't going to get out of it, I pretended not to be bothered by my humiliating first-day story as I went to get coffee.
After grabbing a cup from the cupboard, I waited for Darren to bring back to the pot to whisper to him harshly, "Don't tell them anything. They're the devil."
Darren gave me an amused smirk before pouring coffee into my cup. While I filled my coffee with enough sugar to turn a weaker person into a diabetic, my mom continued to talk.
"Piper, dear, you know you are awfully clumsy and should have been more careful. You're lucky they didn't sue you for that vase." She sipped primly from her coffee cup while smiling at me over the rim. "It's just like that one time with the antique tea set you got for your birthday." She turned her eyes to Darren with a gleeful tone. "She hadn't had it longer than it took to unwrap it before it was in a million pieces on the floor. Poor Nana was devastated."
My mom pouted like it was the end of the world, But I wasn't fooled.
"Well, that will teach you to give a five-year-old a glass tea set for their birthday." I tried my best to keep the venom out of my voice, but it was hard when I had a lifetime of crap like that coming from the people who were supposed to love me the most in this world.
"Piper, don't sass your mother." My dad looked up from the newspaper to reprimand me. "She cared a lot about that tea set."
I sneered. "Yes, more than your five-year-old daughter who ended up with ten stitches to go with her birthday cake."
Darren's jaw ticked next to me, but he didn't say anything. I knew I was airing our dirty laundry in front of him, but my mom had started it.
"Piper Marie Billings!" my mom gasped. "You'll make poor Darren here get the wrong idea about us. I was simply stating a fact about your mannerisms, and here you are, putting me on the chopping block as a bad mother."
I almost choked on my coffee. "Bad mother? Ha. You only care about yourself and what the neighbors think."
"That's not true," my mom simpered, then took a drink from her cup as she pretended to compose herself. "I care about you a great deal."
I snorted and opened my mouth to retort, but it was Darren who swooped in.
"And when Piper was living in her car," Darren asked with a hint of animosity, "where were you then?"
My parents were befuddled by Darren's words as I gaped at him. My dad was the first one to react, and that reaction was to slam his cup down on the island, the contents sloshing over the side of his cup.
"Piper got herself into that position, not us,” he growled. “I do not like what you are insinuating."
Darren gave him a cool stare. "I'm not insinuating anything. I'm stating a fact. You claim to care about your daughter, but you would let her live in her vehicle? I have a hard time believing that."
My mom finally got herself together enough to snipe back. "Oh, we offered to let her live with us, but then again, Piper always does like to leave out the truth." She narrowed her eyes at me with a cold glare.