Page 10 of Curvy Fake Wife for the Player

I shrugged off those thoughts and added more bottles and nipples to the cart, more bottle cleaners, four triple packs of baby wipes along with a month’s worth of onesies. It was enough to get us through the week, and then Alex could take care of the rest. Okay, and I might have added a few pink and yellow dresses to the cart, and the most adorable pair of baby sandals I’d ever seen. Maybe it was overkill, but there was no such thing when it came to a little girl without a mother as far as I was concerned.

My phone rang as I turned into the aisle holding all the diaper bins, and though I knew I would regret answering the call, I did.

“Hello, Mom.” It wasn’t that I didn’t love my mother, because I did. She was just a lot to deal with most of the time.

“Sasha. I’m surprised you answered.” No one did the tone that was a mix of hurt and disappointment as well as my mother. “Does this mean you’re making time to come back for a visit?” The hope in her words almost made me reconsider, but the truth was the truth.

“Sorry, Mom. I can’t. I’ve just accepted another placement, which means it’ll be at least a few more months before I can even think of coming for a visit.” The truth was whenever I thought about returning home, the answer came quickly and decisively. Hell no.

Mom let out what I liked to call thedisappointed mother’s sighand I could almost picture her pinching the bridge of her nose as if I was the source of all of her troubles.

“You will have to forgive him at some point, Sasha. He’s your father.”

I rolled my eyes. “It would have been nice if he’d remembered that over the years,” I shot back. “And for the record, I don’t have to forgive him. Not if I don’t want to. But it’s irrelevant right now because he isn’t the reason I can’t come home.” The fact that my mother stayed with my father after all the abuse and the affairs didn’t do much to encourage visits back to Connecticut. “I have to work, Mom. That’s how the bills get paid and how I take care of myself.”

Not that I had very many expenses here in Texas. Usually, I stayed with one of the other girls between assignments, but I’d been with Jenna and James for just over five years so it’s been a while since I’ve had to pay rent or utilities. It was another benefit of having a live-in position.

“You shouldn’t have to work just to survive, Sasha.”

I rolled my eyes as I scanned the best rated diaper disposal system and added it to the tally. “You mean like ninety percent of the rest of the world does?”

“Exactly. You’re too smart and too privileged to work like a commoner.”

I bit back the smart ass comment that was on the tip of my tongue and sighed instead. I decided that a drastic, unsubtle change of topic was my best bet for not ending this conversation in a shouting match with my mother.

“Anyway, how are you doing Mom?” I walked up and down the aisles as I listened to Mom drone on about her friends at the country club, the many committees she sat on, not to mention the latest charity gala she was helping to plan. It was the mundane details of her life that made me miss my mother fiercely, just not enough to come back to Connecticut.

Not enough to seehim.

“Oh, Sasha, you remember Wallace Emerson? He’s back in town and I have to admit that he’s had what you kids call aglow-up. Now he is both handsome and accomplished with his shiny new MBA.”

“Good for Wallace.” He was, of course, a douchebag of the highest order, and that was being as kind as I was prepared to be when it came to him. “I’m glad to hear you’re keeping busy.”

Mom groaned to show her frustration, something she only did with me. “Wallace would make a good husband.”

“For some woman maybe, but even that’s doubtful.” I would rather stay single before entering into a loveless marriage or worse, a dangerous one. “Are you in charge of planning the Emerald Ball again this year?” It was the perfect topic to distract her from trying to marry me off to one of her friend’s awful sons. Her entire life was this ball or that gala, raising money for a worthwhile cause, but mostly just for show.

“Sasha, please,” she begged while I’d spaced out on our conversation. “You can’t be a nanny forever and Wallace is a good man from a good family.”

I laughed, the sound was harsh and bitter. “As if you would know what a good man looks like. Wallace will be just like his father and mine, drunk and abusive and disrespectful.” I knew the words were a mistake before they flew from my mouth, but it was too late to take them back, not that I would even if I could. I knew the truth about my family and their peers, and I was the only one who dared to voice that truth out loud.

“I guess you just know everything there is to know about everything, don’t you?”

“No, Mom. I never said that. I don’t know everything, and neither do you, but you insist on trying to dictate how I live my life even though I’ve told you so many times that I don’t wantyourlife. Why can’t you just let it go?”

“I just want you to be happy, sweetheart.”

I sighed, knowing there was no point in saying what I was about to say next. “I just want you to be happy too, Mom. That’s the one thing we can agree on. While I am grateful for the opportunities your life has given me, I don’t want to live like that.”

“Because it was so awful?”

“Mom,” I sighed knowing my patience would snap soon. “Yeah, it was pretty awful, not knowing what kind of mood he’d be in after a long day at work. Locking my door so he wouldn’t wake me up with a lashing. Hearing you scream for your life. Awful is putting it mildly.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Sasha.”

“Yes, they do. But it’s only a mistake if they don’t repeat them, and if they’re sorry.” My father was neither. He was defiant about his past deeds. “I miss you, Mom. But I’m done having this conversation. Love you. Goodbye,” I murmured and ended the call before she could rope me into another conversation that went nowhere.

I stared at the picture of my mother, smiling shyly as I snapped a photo of her when I last saw her, eighteen months ago. I stared with a heavy heart until the screen turned black. And then, with my mood soured, I finished shopping and paid for everything as two young workers helped me load everything into my SUV.

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