The Prenup - Lauren Layne Page 0,40

a polite word.

“Has she ever been to dinner? Family dinner, I mean, on Sundays?”

“Goodness, no.” My mom seems genuinely affronted by the suggestion. “Why would she?”

I’m surprised by the depth of my relief. I don’t know why, but I don’t think I could bear the mental image of Rebecca and Colin laughing across my family dinner table from my parents.

Though, who are we kidding? There’d be no laughing with that foursome, just long dreary talks about the electoral college, Plato, and the stock exchange.

“Do you think—” She sips her drink, and I notice it’s a big sip. “Do you suspect she and Colin …”

“Yes,” I say quietly, saving her from having to come up with a phrase polite enough to meet her standards. “Yes, I think they definitely.”

She huffs. “Well, that hussy.”

I choke on my drink. So much for polite phrasing. “Mother.”

“Well, honestly, Charlotte, he’s a married man.”

“Yes,” I say slowly. “But you know—you have to know that he and I—” I flounder for words. “Didn’t you and Dad talk about this? After the party?”

“We did, but I see no reason why the initial circumstances of your marriage and the distance of the past few years have to dictate what happens between you and Colin now.”

I pretend to clean out my ears. “I’m sorry. Are you suggesting that the fact that our marriage was fake and we literally haven’t spent a single moment together in a decade, shouldn’t affect us?”

“Hush,” she says with a frown, as she picks up her menu. “That isn’t the sort of thing you want someone overhearing.”

I roll my eyes and pick up my own menu, mostly because I’m starving. Colin and I did a hell of a job avoiding each other after Rebecca’s appearance yesterday, and since he was hogging the kitchen last night, I skipped dinner and am thus starving.

I order the French toast, and Mom gets some healthy-sounding quiche before she surprises me by asking a blunt question.

“Why me?”

“What do you mean, why you?” I ask, smiling in thanks as the server tops off my mimosa from a crystal carafe.

“You’re upset about this Rebecca situation, and you came to me. Why?”

“Honestly? That’s a good question,” I admit. “I didn’t really think about it. I was just up all night thinking about it, I needed to talk to someone, and next thing I knew, I was on your front porch.”

It’s a lame answer, but the one I try to tell her with my eyes is the real one. The better one. Because you’re my mom.

I hope she understands. And I think she does because her eyes seem just a little misty before she turns and gives the server a chiding look for dropping a minuscule amount of mimosa onto the white tablecloth.

“So, about this Rebecca woman,” she says.

I make a grunting noise and slump down a little in my chair. But instead of telling me to sit up straight the way she used to, she simply studies me for a moment.

“It matters,” she says softly.

I look up. “What?”

“His relationship with her bothers you. It shouldn’t, but it does. Do I have that right?”

“Unfortunately,” I say, my voice quiet as I sit up straighter once more. “I know I shouldn’t be upset. That I have no right to be upset. Our marriage isn’t a real one; I don’t even know the man, not really. And yet I’ve gotten to know him a little in these few weeks, and when she showed up, I felt …”

I take a breath, not quite sure how to explain. “I don’t know what I felt, or what I’m feeling, but whatever it is, I feel it here,” I say, placing my fist just below my boobs. “It’s just like … a knot.”

My mother says nothing as she takes a sip of her mimosa.

“She’s all wrong for him,” I babble on. “I think that’s my problem with the situation.”

She gives a slight knowing smile. We both know that’s not my problem with the situation—not my only problem, anyway.

“Well,” she says, finally. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Well, if I knew that, I wouldn’t be here,” I say in exasperation. Then I backpedal. “No, that’s not what I mean, I just … I could really use some advice here.”

She nods in understanding. “What did Colin say about the situation when you discussed Rebecca?”

“We didn’t discuss it. I mean he started to, but then I tried to be the bigger person by suggesting he resolve things with her first. I figured