All-American Princess - Maggie Dallen Page 0,28

never knew when my mother would leave again. Her eyes grew wide and filled with fear. “They’ll ruin you too, Brandon. I can’t let that happen.”

I took a deep breath and walked toward her slowly. “No one will ruin me, Mom.” And no one ruined Dad. I had no doubt that it was the stress of being in the spotlight and the scrutiny that came with it that led my dad toward pills. Maybe my mother’s hatred of the Devereaux name was warranted, and maybe Lila’s father’s manipulative ways helped push him over the edge. But my father had always taught me that a man was responsible for his own actions, so no matter how much the big bad wolves of Hollywood might’ve hurt him, my dad was the one who’d turned to pills. He was the one who mixed them with alcohol. And he was the one who’d taken too many one fateful night eight years ago.

“You’re just like him,” my mother said. “You’re soft like your father. Easily led astray.”

I stiffened at the cold judgement in her voice even though I knew by the vacant look in her eyes that she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to herself or maybe to the ghost of my father. She didn’t even see that I was standing right in front of her.

But that didn’t make her words sting any less.

My mom was religious when I was little—her father was a pastor, and she’d been raised in a strict Christian household. I didn’t know if she was so fanatical about it when I’d been little, and we’d spent more time in California than Montana, but I did know that since my father died, she’d turned to the church to help deal with the grief.

I had no problem with God and no beef with the church, but I hated the way my mother talked as though my father had turned into the devil himself. As though his human weaknesses had been a sign of moral corruption.

But even worse was the barely veiled judgements that clouded my mother’s eyes when she looked at me. The spitting image of my father, that was what she always said. She wasn’t just talking about my eyes and my hair. In my mother’s eyes, I shared his same propensity for evil.

The funny thing was, she didn’t even know the half of it. I mean, I knew my secrets weren’t really evil. I’d inherited my father’s logical mind, as well as his ability to withhold judgment—against myself and others.

But my mom? Well, if she thought that I was ruined now, just imagine if she knew the truth about me.

I squeezed her shoulders, willing her to look into my eyes. “Mom, we could use that money.”

She took a step back and turned her head away.

“Mom,” I said again, trying and failing to hide my frustration. “You should have told me that they were offering us a way out—”

“No!” She clapped her hands over her ears as she shook her head back and forth. “No, we don’t need them.”

I drew in a deep breath. Why was I even trying to reason with her? I didn’t know. Some days were better than others, and I’d thought—I’d hoped—that maybe I could get her to see something other than the past and her fears and the secrets she so desperately clung to.

I didn’t know what those secrets were, but I was a pro at keeping secrets of my own, and I could see it in her. I’d always seen it. The darkness that ate her alive, the veiled looks and whispered words, especially in the days, weeks, and years just after his death.

There were secrets she was keeping, and maybe that was her right.

Just like it was my right to keep secrets of my own.

But this… this wasn’t just about her. Whatever her fears were about me, about my father, about the wicked world of Hollywood—it didn’t change one pertinent fact. “We need the money, Mom.”

She turned to face me then, and the flash of heat in her eyes was dangerously close to hatred.

It wasn’t. It was just anger, frustration, maybe the memory of her fights with my father. My mother loved me, I knew that. Still, the look in her eyes chilled me to the bone.

Maybe there was some hatred there. But if there was, I had to believe it was aimed at herself.

Sure enough, her guilt revealed itself in her next words.

“I won’t have you paying for my sins.” Her