Page 108 of Conquering Conner

And then I was going to be free.

“Jeremy,” I call out, even before I have the front door to the apartment open all the way. I toss my keys on the counter and turn. He’s still in bed. Probably went back to bed after Conner left. “Jer—”

He’s not in bed.

Jeremy’s wide awake, sitting on the couch.

He’s not alone.

“Mother.” I’m surprised how steady I sound. How calm. “I thought you were in Paris.” I look at Jeremy, but he won’t look at me.

She’s standing at the window, her back to me. Hands clasped behind her back. Hearing me, she turns. “And I thought you were in Chicago.” Her gaze flicks over me, my jeans and sweater. My boots and my ponytail. “Imagine my surprise when I get a call from Janice Horne, telling me you were here.”

Janice Horne. Dalton’s mother.

The friend from New York I ran into my second night here. I introduced him to Conner. Told him the truth about me. Everything my mother worked so hard to keep hidden. That I wasn’t the daughter of some dead foreign diplomat. That my mother wasn’t a widow. That I didn’t go to Swiss boarding school.

“Mother, I—”

“Save it,” she snaps as me, her spiked heels sinking into the carpet as she crosses the room in long, angry strides. “You think I didn’t know?” she closes the gap between us, laughing at the way my mouth falls open and flaps like a fish out of water. “I’ve known since the moment you bought your train ticket, I just hoped some of Jeremy’s discretion had rubbed off on you.”

She knows.

I look at Jeremy. He still won’t look at me.

“Jeremy.”

“He won’t answer you.” My mother’s hand snaps out, fingers wrapping around my chin, hard enough to hurt. She turns my face, angling it under her scrutinizing glare, lip curled in disgust at my freckles. The mark Conner left on my neck. “And still with that Gilroy boy. You’re like a sad little homing pidgeon…” She clucks her tongue at me. “Would you like to know what Dalton told his mother?”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, you should.” Her fingers dig in, squeezing my face. “He told her that you let that trash fuck you in the bathroom in some sleazy bar, like a common whore.”

People knows I’m with Conner.

That we’re together.

I’m supposed to be ashamed. I’m supposed to be afraid of the scandal. Of what people are going to think, but I’m not.

What I am is relieved.

“Conner isn’t trash.” I shove her hand away, jerking my face out of her grip. “I love him.”

“Love him?” She laughs at me. “How stupid can you possibly be?”

“I’m not marrying Jeremy.” I say it out loud. “I’m staying here.”

I forgot how fast she is. How quickly she turns. Her hand lashes out again, this time she doesn’t grab me. She slaps me, hard enough to knock me back, into the wall. “Who do you think you are, you ugly little slut?” She glares at me. “Everything you have—your education, you face, your precious Spencer—you have because I gave them to you. You have nothing—you are nothing—without me.”

My heart twists painfully in my chest when she says Spencer’s name. He’s not my father. I’m nothing more than baggage that my mother carried into their marriage. I know he’s fond of me but…

“I’m not marrying Jeremy.” I shake my head, mind made up. “I’m staying here.”

I brace myself for another slap, but it doesn’t come. Instead, she smiles at me. Smooths her hands down the front of her skirt before folding them in front of her. “You will marry Jeremy. You will, or I’ll call his father and tell him all about Dr. Gregg Deaver.”

My mother must see my resolve crumbling because she smiles. “I have photos, Henley. Photos that will ruin both of them. I have several friends on the board of directors at Manhattan General. Friends who won’t want their hospital involved in a scandal of this magnitude. Your friend won’t be able to get a job at a free clinic by the time I’m through and Jeremy…” She casts him a pitying look. “Jeremy will be ostracized. No family. No friends. No money.” She looks at me again and shakes her head. “All so you can keep screwing a man who rotates tires for a living.”

“Dalton’s mother,” I say, grasping at straws. “She knows about Conner. She—”

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