Page 68 of Fierce Love
“It does,” he says, and he steps toward me and tucks my hair behind my ears. “It’sexactlyyou.” He frames my face and gives me a soft kiss. “But how do you feel?”
“Beautiful,” I admit, my throat tight. The prettiest I’ve ever felt in my life.
“Then it’s yours,” he says.
“It’s really expensive.”
“I can charge it to my card. No one will even blink.”
My stomach rolls again at the cost, at the groceries I could buy, at the rent payments I could make. But it’s not my money, and if this is how Nate wants to spend his, then I can give him this. There’s so little Icangive him.
I make Nate take my dress to his house to keep in the closet in his room until prom night. Something that expensive in the apartment is asking for trouble. Even if my mom hasn’t been around for weeks, she has a habit of turning up when you least want to see her.
When I let myself into the apartment, Aunt Verna and my mom are sitting on the couches. My mom has money in her hand, and I’m sure it’s come from my aunt. Seeing the two of them together is like having a rock settle in the pit of my stomach, heavy and uncomfortable.
“Hollyn,” my mother says, a slight smile gracing her face. “Where have you been?”
I’m so glad I made Nate take the dress. If she’d spotted it, she’d have wanted to sell it, or she’d have come back to steal it. Aunt Verna has never denied me anything I earned or bought with my own money, but she is also terrible at saying no to my mother.
“Working,” I say since Nate picked me up from the lunchtime shift at the bar.
“Verna tells me you’ve got a scholarship to go to school.”
I eye my aunt warily. Giving my mother details is something she’s not supposed to do. Somehow, my mother always finds a way to twist even the best things into something terrible.
“Yes,” I say.
“Does that come with any cash?”
“No,” I say. The scholarship covers my tuition and housing for the first year, but I’m responsible for food and book costs. It’s part of the reason I’ve been working so many hours. Although, sometimes I tell my aunt I’m working longer than I am, and then I spend the night or day with Nate.
My mother stands up and saunters toward me, and I hold myself very still, try not to appear afraid. For whatever reason, my mother never touches me when my aunt is home. I don’t know if my aunt has made that a hard line between them or if my mother just senses that my aunt wouldn’t put up with it, but when we’re all together, she doesn’t grab a fistful of my hair, or slap me, or run her razor-sharp nails along my arms, thin streams of blood trickling down to the floor.
“Thanks for the loan, Verna,” my mother says over her shoulder. “I’ll see you both again soon.”
Once the apartment door clicks shut, I glare at my aunt. “You gave her money?”
“She was about to be kicked out of her apartment.”
“I bet that’s a lie. I bet she’s using that money for all kinds of bad things.” I storm past her toward my bedroom. “I’ll never understand why you let her in the door.”
“Of course you don’t,” Aunt Verna says, her anger spiking. The one thing we fight about is my mother. “You’ll never understand what it means to be an older sister. To work your ass off toprotect them. To feel the full weight of responsibility for them because your parents never feltanyof that weight.”
And as I slam my door, I know she’s right. I thank god all the time that I’m an only child, that my mother couldn’t seem to get pregnant again. I wouldn’t wish Niall and Mickie on anyone, and like my aunt, I can’t imagine what I’d do to keep another person from having to experience them.
Unlike my school, where prom is in the gymnasium in June, Nate’s prom is at the palace in July. Different months. Different worlds. Nate goes to high school with the princes, and he tells me that the royal family agreed to host prom every year they have a child in the school.
Walking into the ballroom after having my hair and makeup done with Nate’s sister Sawyer at some fancy salon, my arrival feels like a true Cinderella moment. People are staring at us, and for the first time, I’m not sure if they’re wondering why Nate’s with me or who I am. When I looked in the mirror before we left Nate’s mansion, I didn’t even recognize myself.
I try not to look with my mouth open, but it’s hard to take in the grandeur without emotion. The ceilings of the ballroom are impossibly high, and there are people circulating in Bellerive blue with trays of drinks.
“Is that alcohol?” I whisper to Sawyer, who’s stuck close to my side. She came with one of Nate’s friends as his date, but she said they aren’t dating or anything.
“No,” Sawyer says. “The Royal Summersets are pretty strict. Alex—you know he’s the oldest, right—is super by the book, but Nick and Brice are a little wilder.”
“You know them?”
“We all do,” Sawyer says with a little laugh. “Bellerive is big and small all at the same time.”
