Lu flinched. Suddenly embarrassed to have an audience for this conversation, she glanced to Natalie and Stacy, who had already begun to remove themselves from the area.
“I am not at his mercy,” she hissed furiously. “How can you say that?”
Amber’s anger made her rigid, almost robotic in her movements and speech. “For the last nine years I have watched everyone bend over backwards to make Lex’s life easier. At first, I thought we were too much of a force for you. Imposing our will on you. Now, I see that you’re weak. And we made you that way.”
Lu stood up out of her chair so forcefully that it flipped over behind her. “Weak?” she yelled. “I’m weak. The fact that you can even say that to me just illustrates how little you know of me. If you had been stronger, strong enough to stand up to Dr. J., I wouldn’t be in this situation. But you weren’t. You fed me and your unborn grandchild to the fucking wolves. So don’t sit there and call me weak. I’ve managed to accomplish a lot while raising a pretty amazing daughter. Your precious prodigy has surpassed expectations, even after having a child at seventeen.” She paused to take a deep breath and to calm down. “What I’m choosing to do now is what’s best for my child. A concept you know nothing about.”
With that, Lu turned and walked back through the house. Amber sat, anger mounting, as she thought back over those fateful couple of weeks when they’d made the decisions that continued to shape the lives of her daughter and Lex. So focused was she that she didn’t hear the scrape of the chair. When his hand reached out to grab a glass of wine, she noticed Lex watching her.
Amber blinked. She found herself looking into a pair of green eyes, flashing with anger.
“That was pretty magnificent,” Lex said, in an eerily calm voice.
“What did you hear?” Amber asked, not really caring.
“Just that last part. About doing what was right for her child.” He slowly swirled the wine in his glass. “Let me be very clear on this, Dr. A. No one is to interfere with my family anymore.”
“Family?” she spat. “What do you know about family? You haven’t been here in almost ten years. You don’t know anything about the mother of your child, nor your child. Don’t you dare talk about your ‘family’ when you’ve known about the birth of your child for less than twenty-four hours!”
“And whose fault is that?” He stood up, looking down on her through a haze of contempt. Then, leaning down, so that his face was directly in front of her he said, “I’m going to say this again, so that you don’t misunderstand my meaning. You. Are. Not. To. Interfere.”
As Lex walked away, Amber watched, angry at the world. She knew that she had had a hand in everything that had happened. She knew she hadn’t protected her daughter as she should have. She knew that she’d given in because she had been so angry with Lu for throwing away her future. She knew all of that and even accepted that part of this was her fault. But she couldn’t help it. She blamed Jo. They’d all bent to her indomitable will. She’d just been more stubborn and determined than the rest of them. Much like her son. That apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Seething with anger, she stood up and headed to the library.
Chris and Jo looked up at the same time as she entered. Chris smiled, but quickly registered concern as he noted the look on her face.
Without preamble she said, “He’s making her move to England.”
If Jo and Chris were surprised, it didn’t show. They both digested the information. Nodding slowly, Chris said, “That actually makes a lot of sense.” Had he been able to properly gauge her anger, he would have kept that comment to himself.
Jo noticed and kept her mouth shut.
“Makes sense? Are you fucking kidding me?” Amber said, anger rolling off of her. “Once again, her life has to change to accommodate the great Lex Pellitteri. What is the matter with everyone?”
Chris, suddenly realizing his mistake and finally noting the magnitude of her anger, walked toward her, hoping to stop her from saying anything that would irreparably harm their decades-old friendship. “Amber, this isn’t the time,” he said as he stepped in front of her and grabbed her hands. “Not now,” he whispered, hoping Jo didn’t hear him.
But Jo, bracing herself for what came next, waited. As much as she liked to kid herself that Amber had forgiven her, she knew that underneath the foundation of their friendship existed a sinkhole of bitterness that threatened to pull it all under.
Amber stepped around Chris. “This is your fault. All of it. The outcome would have been different if we hadn’t all agreed to sacrifice my daughter for the benefit of your son. Once again, he’s dictating her life. He got that from you. That sense that the whole world is at his command.” Amber took a breath, not even trying to control the anger that threatened to destroy everything between them. “You need to do something. You need to fix this.” Pointing her finger in Jo’s direction, she wisely didn’t move any closer to her. “If he hurts her again, like he did today. If I ever see that look on her face again, I’ll find a way to hurt you just as bad.”