Before You(34)

Chapter Fourteen





“Well, Bre, I must say I’m shocked. Don’t you two look cozy?” She didn’t even have to open her eyes to know that voice. She felt arms tense around her stomach, and her eyes flew open, panicked. Her eyes narrowed in on Jax’s chest, which was resting next to her face. Somehow they’d fallen asleep on the couch together.

Sitting up, she turned to greet the person standing in front of the television. “Hi, Mom. What are you doing here?”

“I came back to make sure you took care everything for my mother.” Her mother’s hands were on her hips.

“I’d say you’re a few days late for that. The funeral was yesterday.”

Her mother shrugged, wholly unconcerned. “So? I’m here now, but I’m just stopping by to pack.”

“Where are you going?” Bre asked, pushing her tangled hair out of her face.

“Charles asked me to move in with him.”

“What are you going to do with the house?”

“Nothing. It’s not mine. Unfortunately, my mother left everything she owned to you.”

“What do you mean?” Bre asked, entirely dumbfounded.

Her mom’s eyes narrowed. “I’m homeless because of you. She left everything—the house, the shop in Aspen—to you. I don’t know what you said to her to make her turn against me, but she said she wanted to make sure your future was secure. I guess that means she didn’t care about my future.”

“That’s not true, Mom.” Bre didn’t know what compelled her to console her mother as if she were the parent and her mother, the child. “She loved you.”

“Apparently not as much as she loved you. She never cared about me. From the moment we moved in with her, all she cared about was making sure you had everything you needed. What about what I needed? I was her child, not you.” Her mother flopped into a chair across from the sofa, calculated tears running down her face. “She’s left me destitute. I have nowhere to live.”

The look on her mother’s face was clearly designed to make Bre feel guilty. She hated how her mother always managed to suck her back into a pattern of placating and appeasing her. Old patterns died hard. Even when her mother’s words made absolutely no sense, Bre had a hard time putting her mother in her place, not that it would matter what she said.

“You haven’t lived here since I left for college. She probably didn’t think you wanted the house. You always complained about living in a small town in the mountains. Before you met Charles, you were living with…” Bre forgot his name, and her voice trailed off absently. It was too early to deal with her mother’s baggage. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Jax pull his shirt back on over his head.

Her mother sniffed. “Edward, but he was too controlling, so I moved back a couple weeks ago. He made so many demands on me. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Bre shook her head. “Right. Edward. Where’s Charles?”

Her mother’s tears were immediately forgotten. “He’s checking us into the St. Regis in Aspen for the night. Then, we’re going to his house in the morning.”

“Don’t you think you’re rushing into this relationship? How long have you known each other? It can’t be more than a couple weeks.”

Her mother’s spine stiffened. “You’re such a moralist sometimes. It’s irrelevant how long I’ve known him. He makes me happy.” Her mother’s eyes floated to Jax, who was now standing behind the sofa. “Who’s he? What happened to Camden?”

“Mom, this is Jax Carmichael, and Jax, this is my mother, Erica Keaton. Jax is visiting from LA.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Keaton,” Jax said.

“What do you do in LA?”

“I sing in a band.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t happen to be affiliated with Carmichael Studios, would you?”

Jax eyes instantly cooled. “My dad might be affiliated with the studio,” he answered evasively.

Bre’s eyes flew to Jax’s face. She knew his father was involved in the movie industry, but she’d never put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Bre’s mom’s face morphed instantly into the familiar sugary sweet smile that made Bre’s stomach turn. Most people thought her mother was charming, but Bre thought of her mother as a predator that chewed people up and spit them out when she was done using them, and the way she was looking at Jax made her ill.

Instead of shaking his hand, her mother stood up and hugged him, rubbing her hand up and down his back. “Any friend of Bre’s is a friend of mine.”