Page 3 of Phillip

Plop. Plop. Plop.

“Phillip!” she cried, gagging. “No!”

He clipped the leash on as his eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”

Laughter boomed through the auditorium. She staggered from the mess on the stage floor. His lips quirked, and he offered a helpless shrug.

Disgusted, stunned tears streamed down her face. Dean Dunbar called for a janitor and yelled for silence as her mother, Harvard’s esteemed special guest, left without so much as a concerned glance or wave.

“That’s…” Phillip couldn’t finish without a laugh.

She wiped her cheeks, now the laughingstock of Harvard’s campus.

“That’s unfortunate,” Phillip finally finished.

“Do you think this is funny?”

“Come on, Ash. Itisfunny.”

“You think everything is funny! And if it isn’t, you make it that way.”

“Ease up.” He gave her a sideways glance and tugged on the goat’s leash as Dean Dunbar yelled for him to leave.

“Ease up?” she shouted, catching an awful whiff of the animal waste. “I can’t do this anymore.” She gagged, slapping her hands over her mouth.

Ashley stepped away and saw that the toes of her shoes had beencontaminated. Her stomach turned. This time he’d gone too far. She kicked off her high heels as the goat bleated. The auditorium roared with laughter. The chaos surrounded her, strangling her, stealing her manners and compassion. “I hate you,” she hissed.

Phillip, trying to lure the goat down the stage stairs, gave her another sideways glance.

He doesn’t get it.“I’m done. I can’t do this with you anymore.” She turned away and ran.

CHAPTER ONE

Present Day

Upstate New York

All alone.Well, Ashley wasn’t really all alone, but that was how Agatha Cartwright would see Ashley’s breakup from Sean Paget, the man her mother had set her up with. There had been an unagreed upon expectation that he would bethe one. He wasn’t even close.

Ashley smoothed her hands over the silk skirt recently highlighted inHomemagazine. She’d worn it especially for her mother to note. Though, if she had, Mother hadn’t mentioned it, despite the skirt having been front and center in this month’s list of Mother’s favorite things.

Ashley crossed her legs under the mahogany table, waiting in the formal dining room of her childhood home for Mother’s lecture. It had taken several hours for Ashley to drive south to Upstate New York, but there she was, coming when called. All the therapy in the world hadn’t helped her with that yet.

“The tulips are lovely,” Ashley offered to kick off the conversation. That was true. The flowers were breathtaking. The entire home was always immaculate.

No matter if there were film crews on location to tape B-roll for Mother’s nationally syndicated lifestyle show, or if it were asimplefamily dinner, the Cartwright residence sparkled.Always picture perfect.

“They are,” Mother said in a way that confirmed rather than agreed.

Ashley forced a grin but dropped her gaze to the square glass vases. Each had a ribbon tied near its top. Garden-fresh tulips packed each vase and lined the antique linen table runner in a way that softened the harsh dark wood.

But the antique table linen didn’t soften her mother. With sharp features and perfect posture, Mother walked behind the chairs on the opposite side of the table. Her manicured fingernails trailed over the tops of the ornate high-back chairs.

“Mother?”

The older woman stilled then and turned, letting disapproval tug the corners of her coral-pink lips down.

Ashley refused to shrivel under the scorn. Even if she couldn’t keep from coming home when called, she had mastered the ability to ignore the criticism… sort of. “Look, Mother—”

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