Fake Love - Jaxson Kidman Page 0,9

in each house.

And I knew our house the second I saw it.

It was down a long, private road.

It was always an amazing sight to see…

“A castle,” I whispered.

“What did you say, Winter?” Dad asked.

“What?”

“You said castle,” he said. “That’s what I always told you the house was. It was your castle. Did you remember that?”

I shook my head. “No. Why? Do I live there?”

Dad looked sad again. “Yeah. You live here, Winter.”

Okay, it kind of sucked having to lie to Dad the way I was.

But I had no choice.

I had to process everything before talking.

I just wanted to be alone. In my room.

I just needed some time to think.

Simple as that.

But that got fucked as we drove closer to the house.

Dad slammed on the brakes.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he growled in a deep voice.

I had to play it off… that I didn’t know who the woman was standing at the giant, red front door to the mansion.

But I knew who it was.

It was my mother.

Chapter 4

a little bit caught

“Tina, you can’t be here,” Dad said as he climbed out of the SUV.

He had pulled so close to the house that my mother put her hands out as though he was going to run her over.

My mother ignored Dad and came running toward the SUV.

To me.

I hadn’t seen her in two years.

Two years ago, she came to my birthday party and ended up getting really drunk and making a fool of herself.

She was incredibly beautiful, even at her age, considering all that she had done to herself throughout the years.

As much as I hated to say it, my mother was a trophy wife to Dad.

Dad wasn’t the best-looking guy in the world. He was a little bit tall, thick, sometimes he wore glasses… he was kind of dorky. His hands were small and fat. Nothing about him screamed rich and handsome guy.

Which told me that when he got some money, he wanted to have a woman like my mother attached to his arm as a way to say fuck you to anyone who ever doubted him.

And my mother loved money.

So she played her part and then ended up getting pregnant, which obviously was like scratching a winning lottery ticket to her. She would be taken care of for the rest of her life.

She even found a loophole in motherhood.

She sucked at it.

How was that a loophole?

My mother was such a bad mother that Dad gave her money to go away.

He was the one who had to make the call to end their relationship. Which meant he had to pay for my mother’s future lifestyle.

It was all a mess.

The second my feet hit the ground, my mother threw her arms around my neck.

I remembered everything… but I had to pretend I didn’t.

I didn’t hug her back, which was both truth and me playing along.

“Oh, baby,” she said. “Winter… my baby… my girl…”

She broke the hug and touched my face.

Tears ran down her cheeks.

She was really upset.

I swallowed hard, fighting back my own emotion.

No matter what she did to me, she was still my mother. I still felt something when she was near me. Or looked at me. Or talked to me. Or touched me.

“Tell me you remember me,” she said. “Tell me, Winter…”

“Dammit, Tina, stop it,” Dad growled.

She whipped her head around. “How did this happen, Jack? She just lost control and crashed? What kind of vehicle did you buy her?”

“Don’t you dare do that right now,” Dad said.

I touched my mother’s arms and backed away. “It was…”

Careful, Winter…

“I’m in pain,” I said. “I need to sit down.”

“Of course you do,” my mother said. She grabbed my hand and walked me toward the house. “Come on, we’ll get you settled.”

“Tina, we need to talk,” Dad said.

“We can do that inside, Jack,” my mother said.

Oh, she was cocky and mean.

Using me to get inside the house.

And Dad had no choice but to go along with it.

We entered the house and I told myself to make a comment or two.

“Wow,” I said. “This place is huge.”

“Much bigger than mine,” my mother said. “But I don’t need to live like this.”

I gritted my teeth.

I wanted to tell her to go away.

She led the way through the massive open foyer to the even more massive kitchen.

The place looked like a perfectly clean restaurant.

It was all windows.

Windows on top of windows…

The stainless steel appliances reflected the sunlight in a way that made me want sunglasses.

I remembered this kitchen all too well…

“Here, sit down,” my mother