Page 19 of Call You Mine

I feel more eyes on us, sensing the group approaching us from where they stood beneath the tree. This is Stella’s wedding and this woman just shows up uninvited, threatening to ruin it all because of me.

My hands fist at my sides, sharp nails digging into my palms, nearly making me bleed. “How dare you come here, Willa?”

She playfully flicks her hair over her shoulder. “I had no other choice. I needed to see you, but then I heard you hadn’t come back. I thought maybe you’d show up here. Stella was a friend of yours after all and I’d heard she’d invited you.”

“Heard from who?”

She rolls her eyes and shrugs her shoulders, looking around at everyone gazing toward us before stepping closer to me and whispering so only I can hear her. “That doesn’t matter. I don’t have a lot of time. We need to go somewhere to talk, alone.”

I scoff, taking a step back from her. “I have nothing to say to you,” I snarl, but she reaches out for me, gripping my arm and tugging me to her.

“Oh no dear, you’re going to listen to me.”

“Wynter,” Drake says, suddenly coming up behind me. I close my eyes, frustrated he’s come over to us. The last thing I need is for Willa to suspect I’m here with him, or worse, use that against me. She’s a manipulative woman and I wouldn’t put anything past her at this point. What Willa wants, Willa gets, it’s how it’s always been.

Not that Damon is mine for her to take, but she has a way of ruining things with a simple touch. Like poison dripping from her fingertips, she’s the true Wicked Witch in my happily never-after. “Is everything okay?” he asks when I don’t respond, stepping closer to me, his chest now flush against my back.

For a second, I let myself get taken away by the feel of him behind me, protectively coming to my rescue yet again in twenty-four hours. A strong hand rests on my waist and he gently tugs back, asserting his protection over me in case it wasn’t already obvious to her.

“And who may this delicious young man be?” Willa asks, her eyes roaming over Damon, drinking him in as lust flashes in her eyes. It’s sick, the way she licks her lips in response. Willa maybe only thirty-eight years old, and thanks to her plastic surgeon look exactly the way she did at eighteen, but the fact she’s looking at him like she’d take the first opportunity to fuck him makes me want to tear her white hair from her scalp and watch it turn red, saturated in her blood.

I really fucking hate my mother.

“He’s no one,” I spit out, urging her to drop her petty act and get to the goddamn point. I shrug out of Damon’s hold. “You wanted to talk, mother, then talk before I have you thrown out of here like the dirty trash you are.”

That makes her laugh, her fake grin hiding her true intentions. “You always were a spoiled little brat, just like your father,” she spits out at me.

Now it’s my turn to laugh at her. “Which one?” I ask, mocking her. I hear a few gasps come from somewhere behind me, but I don’t turn around.

Fury blazes in her eyes and this time the woman can’t hide it. “You watch your tongue, Wynter Servite. I am still your mother.”

“That word means nothing to me, Willa. Absolutely fucking nothing, just like you.”

She reaches for me, yanks me by the arm and pulls me with her to the end of the garden. Like a petulant child, I stomp my feet behind her, turning to Damon and urging him not to interfere. If the quickest way to get rid of her is to play her little game, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.

We stop at the edge of the fountain, her nails digging into my upper arm as I pull away. “I need you to get married,” she says, like it’s the most normal fucking thing in the world to say.

A burst of laughter leaves me at her remark. “Wow, you really have gone mad.”

“I’m serious Wynter,” she says. Her voice is so desperate, I know she’s not joking around. “I’m almost out of the money I took with me before the Servite assets were frozen. Not to mention, living as a fugitive is quite expensive.”

I scoff. “You mean recklessly blowing money on expensive champagne and caviar when you can barely afford a pack of cigarettes?”

Willa rolls her eyes, ignoring me as she continues. “I have a list of potential suitors. They’re all successful, rich, and willing to marry you despite your inadequate social status.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Servite name’s tarnished darling, not to mention you’ve been paraded all around New York as some high-class whore for the last three years.” Panic crashes into me at the possibility she knows about myrelationshipwith Enzo. “However, these men will overlook it so long as you continue to.” Her eyes rake over my body, like she’s assessing my appearance. “So long as you continue to look the way you do. Given what they see,” she says, running her hands down her body. “They know what they're getting and are more than willing,” she adds, doing the same to mine.

“You're trying to pimp out your daughter?” I shout in disbelief. Yup, now I know for a fact I was right. She’d have freely given me away to Enzo.

“Don’t look at it that way. This would be equally beneficial to you.”

I used to believe nothing about her would surprise me anymore, but this is a new low, even for her. “Wow, way to win the award for mother of the fucking year, Willa.”

“Enough with the disrespect and sarcasm Wynter, I need you to go on a date with a few of the men. In the end, you’ll have the last say in which one you choose.”

Gee mom, thanks for forgiving me a say in my life. “For one, you must be clinically insane for even for one second, thinking I’d go along with your psychotic plan, mother. You really should see someone for that. Two, and this one is totally on me, I honestly never imagined you’d go to these lengths.”

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