Page 88 of Her Dark Angel

“Nash, your mother passed away tonight.”

My heart stills in my chest. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. “What do you mean? What happened to her?”

Jason scratches the back of his neck and turns to his partner who is still on the phone. They share a long stare before Spencer says something into the phone and hangs up. The room is dead silent as he joins us at the table again, his eyes unable to meet mine.

“I’m sorry, Nash,” Spencer says as he finally lifts his pale blue eyes to meet mine. “Your mother was found murdered earlier this evening. I promise you that we’re going to find the person who did this.”

My heart hammers in my throat as I gaze at the photo of my mother hanging on the wall beside the run-down refrigerator. The wooden frame is slightly lopsided, but her bright smile still penetrates my soul either way. She’s holding me as a baby, with so much happiness spread across her face.

I don’t know what happened to make her resent me.

Was it something I did or said?

Did Dad ask her to hate me simply because he does?

Now that she is gone, I will never know. She took that piece of knowledge with her, forcing me to play the never-ending guessing game of what if. But she also took with her the nasty comments she would throw my way and the hateful glares she so often liked to give me each morning before she left for the day.

At that moment, my life has been changed forever. It’ll never be the same. I feel like I’m standing in the eye of a hurricane, but instead of chaos and destruction consuming me, I feel… relieved.

So much relief.

30

KINSLEY

Present—1989.

“And… cut! Okay, that’s a wrap everyone!”

I sigh with relief. I have never been so happy to hear those words come from Jason’s mouth. Nearly nine weeks of filming later, I am finally finished with this project, which means I am done with having to see Wesley every day.

I couldn’t be happier with that realization as I step away from him.

Forcing a smile onto my face, I go around and thank the entire cast and production team. Despite disliking working with my co-star, I enjoyed working with these incredibly talented people every day. They put in a lot of effort, and for that, they need to be thanked. Without them, there would be no film.

When I finish speaking with everyone, even Jason, I make my way to my dressing room for the last time. Closing the door on It’s Always Been You means I feel like I can finally breathe properly again. Although it’s a bittersweet feeling wrapping up a project I enjoyed working on, I’m looking forward to focusing my time and energy on something else.

The ringtone of my phone has me holding back an eye roll. I can never have a moment of peace.

“Hello?”

“Kin, why have you been dodging my calls the last two weeks? And you haven’t been home whenever your father and I have stopped by.”

With a sigh, I drop onto the couch and cradle my head in my hands. “Mom, I’ve been busy, you know that.”

“Too busy to talk to me?” she accuses, her voice sharp. It cuts through me like a knife. “We need to discuss the Nash scandal.”

The scandal Nash created when he got caught with that woman has been a hot topic in the media for the past two weeks. Adam and James are working overtime on damage control to ensure we can get our fake relationship back on track after it was derailed.

I swallow hard and lean back against the couch, my stomach twisting painfully. “There is nothing to discuss. Our managers are handling it as we speak. I’ve got this under control.”

“Well, clearly you don’t,” she snaps, “or else the tabloids wouldn’t be constantly discussing your relationship with him. God, Kin. You had one job and you couldn’t even do that right.”

The pain of my jaw mashing together rattles my head, but I fight through it. If I don’t, the anger building rapidly in my chest will explode like a volcano and my mother will be a dire casualty.

Her words don’t hurt me as much as they used to in the past. I got used to her talking down to me and telling me I wasn’t good enough. The more I heard it, the more I started to block it out as a way to protect myself.

I didn’t want her words of hurt to influence my life more than they already had, so I pushed them to the back of my mind.

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