Page 119 of Red Flag
She started to gather flute glasses on thecountertop, counting them once and then again. “David wanted lemons for his lemonade.”
“David, ah,” I said, leaning against the side. “Your newbeau?”
I tried to be light about it, joking and unbothered.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh, don’t be so childish. We also got some champagne.”
“Nix and I got your favourite champagne as part of your present — let me just go and—”
“That was your dad’s favourite. Not mine.”
Dad’s favourite? She was the one quick to open it on every occasion, not him. Dad wasn’t a big drinker.
She’d always spoken so kindly about him.
“You don’t even—”
A man, tall and wide, with greying hair above his ears, came out of the pantry, holding said bottle of champagne. “If you’re talking about that bottle from the supermarket, I can assure you this is far better, Olivia.”
Right.
“Wait until you try it,” he said andunpoppedthe cork. The pop felt like a sensory assault as I jumped out of my skin.
“You’re buying me a birthday present with your client?” Mum said, brow cocked as she refused to look at me, instead getting the potatoes out of the oven. “I know he’s your client, Olivia.”
“Yes, but—”
“You need to stop fucking people you work with. First Adam, thenVinny… now, whatever his name is. I would have thought after the whole world found out with that photo…” She sighed. “You said this was your last chance at your career.”
I flinched as if she’d hit me.
David only leaned against the counter, reading the label of the champagne. Completely unsurprised. She’d told him. She’d bloody told him.
“Mum,” I called, my voice high and broken. I had no idea what else to say, whether to cry or scream, to shout or run.
Before Nix and my therapist, she was the only person I’d told exactly what had happened. Two weeks after Dad’s death, a week after the event.
She’d hugged me but told me she had too much to cope with. She couldn’t take the burden of me regretting a one-night stand with my client.
And I’d accepted that. I’d understood thatIwas the burden and there was nothing more to say.
Ben walked in with a glass and stopped when he saw me wiping at my eyes. His eyes scanned the room. “What’s going on?” he asked and came to my side.
“Nothing, darling,” Mum said, dishing up the plates. “Food will be ready in a second.”
“Liv, you okay?” Ben asked, bending slightly to look into my teary eyes.
I nodded with a sniff. “Yeah.”
Mum was old-fashioned. I knew that. And I also knew she thought I was an attention seeker.
She was too preoccupied watching David pour the drinks for her to notice Nix’s arrival.
I stepped back into him, needing to feel his body behind me.
“Mum, this is Nixon,” I said, my voice still wobbling. I cleared my throat and gestured behind me, not looking at Ben’s concerned gaze. “Nixon, this is my mum, Victoria.”
She turned with a surprised smile.
