When I didn't reply, she turned her gaze away and inhaled deeply. When her eyes moved back to me, they seemed colder somehow. She stepped up to me, and I stepped back. We repeated the process until I was pressed back against the nurses' station, the edge of the countertop digging into the middle of myback.
"Grayson belongs with his own kind," she said slowly. "I'm sure you think that you're helping him, perhaps you even think that once he turns twenty-one, he'll get his inheritance and you'll be set for life. But I'll die before I see that happen." Her smile turned lethal, her teeth seeming to gleam in the harsh fluorescent lighting. "Or maybe," she pulled back, "you think you actually love him." Her laughter was severe—raspy. "If that's the case, then let me reassure you, sweetheart, men like Grayson don't marry for love. They marry for money because money lovesmoney."
"I-I—"
"And," she interrupted, "I think we both know that, in a relationship with my son, you're not bringing anything to the table." Her gaze strayed down to my cheeks and then my neck and then even further down. She appeared to think something over before speaking again. "Well, maybe your looks, but I promise you—without money like mine—those won't lastlong."
I grit my teeth against the insult, but really, was she wrong? I didn’t have money or much in the way of material to offer. I had myself. The guys. Friendship? Love? But she—her words—even made me questionthat.
"Can I help you, ladies?" I jerked at the sound of a new voice, banging my hip back against the counter. I winced as Theodora took a confident step back. Reaching into her purse, she retrieved a pair of sunglasses and slid them over her eyes. They were so large, they almost covered the upper half of her face, hiding her expression as she turned a dazzling smile on the approachingwoman.
"I'm good, thank you," she said politely to the nurse now standing behind the station. "Just having a short girls’chat."
"Harlow? Sweetie, did you need something?" the nurse—whose name I couldn’t remember as I watched Grayson's mom turn and make her way down the hallway—asked.
I shook my head, my hand sliding away from where it had landed on the countertop. I glanced down sharply when my fingers touched paper. She had left the check. Even holding it in my hand made me feel sick. But I grabbed it anyway—knowing I needed to show it to the guys—and shoved it into my purse before I thanked the nurse and headed away. Each step down the hall echoed like clanging bells, ringing in the end of all of my hopes that my troubles wereover.