Stirring Up Trouble(42)
“Are you and Lola a couple?” she countered, a glimmer of defiance in her eye.
“That’s none of your business. Tell me what happened with mother in Athens.”
She worried her lip and crossed her arms. “Mother’s getting divorced.”
He wasn’t surprised. She got divorced like other people got haircuts. Regularly. “I’m sorry to hear that. But why does it bother you? It’s not the first time, and you know it won’t be her last.”
“I know. It’s why she’s divorcing I’m upset.” She started to cry. “She’s already engaged to another man. David. She had an affair with him and they got engaged even before she told husband number five she was leaving him.”
He stood, got a box of Kleenex, and brought it over to her. “I can see why that would upset you,” he said even though he didn’t. She’d never cried over their parents’ divorces in the past.
She dabbed at her tears with a tissue. “Oh, there’s more, Braden. David is twenty-five years old.” She looked down at her lap. “I first met him in film school. We had a final project together, so he spent a good amount of time at the apartment. Mother showed up one night claiming she missed me and wanted to spend some time with me.” She laughed bitterly. “Now that I think about it, she’d probably left Gregory and needed somewhere to go. Stupid me, I thought she really wanted to mend our relationship. She took me on shopping sprees and fancy dinners, but she also seemed genuinely interested in me for the first time. I told her everything. About school. About David . . .”
He squeezed her knee. She didn’t have to say anything more. He knew his mother well enough to connect the dots and anger and disgust began to fill his gut.
She continued and the tears ceased, replaced by a mask of icy anger. “After a couple of weeks, she started spending less time with me and didn’t bother coming home most nights. Then, out of the blue, she announces she’s returning to Gregory in Athens. She asked me to go with her since the school term had ended. Braden, she’s never asked me to travel with her. Of course, I said yes.”
As Rose spoke, his rage toward their parents increased, but for her sake, he remained passive.
“When we arrived, things changed. She’d take me shopping, hand me her credit card, and then disappear for hours. Later, I overheard her telling Gregory she’d spent the day with me.”
“She used you for an alibi,” he guessed, his hands clenching into fists.
Rose nodded. “I decided to follow her one day after she’d dropped me off at a museum. She walked and I stayed a block behind her. She went in to an upscale apartment building. She had to sign-in before the guard allowed her to pass, but I could tell from his expression he knew her. When I came in, I checked the register to see who she was visiting. Then I told the guard the truth. I was visiting my friend. He told me the apartment number and I knocked on the door.”
Braden pulled her to him for a hug and she buried her face in his shoulder. This was who he was, a product of a woman who used her daughter for her own purposes. A father who sent checks on birthdays even though they could afford to buy anything they wanted . . . except their parents’ love and time.
Even if Lola stayed in town, he’d screw it up. Maybe not now, but eventually, he’d break her heart. She trusted him not to hurt her. And he would. Hell, he’d already behaved like his mother, placing his own selfish need to save Acropolis over Lola’s feelings. He was a lost cause and he couldn’t forget that for a second. Just look at what he’d done to his ex-wife.
“It was David,” he stated without a doubt in his mind.
His sister looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes and lost innocence.
“Yes. Mother is marrying the man I lost my virginity to.”
CHAPTER 15
Wherefore are these things hid?
Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before 'em?
William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act 1, scene 3
On her way to Acropolis, Lola cranked up the music in her car. Seriously, having Rose discover her in Braden’s house was more than awkward. Rose was technically an adult, but she was also Braden’s little sister. It wasn’t exactly a secret Lola had temporarily shacked up in his mansion, but as far as she knew, everyone believed it was to meet the conditions of Alexander’s Will. No one knew they were . . . whatever it was they were doing.
Rose couldn’t have faked the surprise in her eyes at finding Lola in Braden’s house, and she obviously had come to the right conclusion about their involvement. Not that Braden did anything to stop her. He’d thrown his arm around her as if declaring her his possession and announced they lived together. How could he have done that to her?