Page 43 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
It’s not our parents who answer the door, but a member of the staff, and Lachlan and I look at each other in surprise.
“Mary?” Lach asks, stepping through the door and away from her, shaking his head as she reaches for his coat. “What are you doing here? It’s Sunday.”
Mary glances over her shoulder at the dining room, then smiles at Lachlan, though her eyes give a silent warning. “Your parents thought it would be nice to have everyone here for the family dinner.”
I can feel Soren’s eyes on me, and I know that all this is over-the-top surreal to him. The differences between our two family homes—his cozy and familiar one with his grandfather, and mine, palatial and chilly. The kind of building you could wander for days and not run into another living soul.
Other than the staff, apparently.
We’ve entered the dining room and seated ourselves, and Lach and I trade nervous glances as we wait for our parents to arrive. This is not normally how Sunday dinners go.
Ten minutes later, they finally walk in, and I feel the weight of my mother’s stare instantly. I stand as though she’s the queen and I’m welcoming her in.
“Oh, Aurela!” she says, hurrying over to me, gathering me up in her arms as though I haven’t been in this house for ten minutes while she’s been doingwhatever—waiting to make an appearance, or planning her strategy with Dad.
“Aurela,” my dad says, “I’m glad to see you’re okay.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, then clear my throat, determined to get through the elephant in the room and the most awkward part of this thing—the entire reason I’m here right now. I reach down and take Soren’s hand, staring at my mother as I do so.
“Mom, Dad,” I say, hoping my voice sounds as strong as I think it does, “I’m sure you remember Soren. He’s a friend of Lach’s, and a friend of the Sorels.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Cambias,” Soren says when I’m finished. “Thank you for inviting me to your lovely home—”
“You were not invited,” my mother snaps, the smile falling from her face as she shoots a betrayed look at Lachlan.
It’s like up until this moment, they thought there could be some other explanation for the man at my side.
“I…” Soren starts, then he glances at me, clearly unsure where to go from here.
“I invited him,” I say, clearing my throat. “And I know there’s a history here. We were hoping to—”
“I wasn’t aware you still lived in this house,” my father interjects.
“That’s right,” my mother says, her eyes growing teary. “Gone for nearly two weeks, and when you return to town, we’re not even close to the first item on your to-do list. We found out from Lachlan the dayafteryou returned to Silverville that you were alive. Do you have any idea what that does to a mother? To worry like that? Then to find out that I don’t evenmatterto you?”
Soren and I stand awkwardly around the dining table, Valerie and Lach sitting as my parents face me and Soren. I swallow down the urge to give in, to cave.
“Mom, Dad,” Lachlan says in a surprisingly cool tone, considering the way he lost his shit on Soren this past week. “Why don’t we sit down to dinner? Looks like the staff worked pretty hard on it.”
Dad opens his mouth as if to say something, but Mom puts her hand on his wrist and tugs him down to sit with her. Soren and I take our seats, and I find his hand under the table.
The only way out of this is through.
I can only hope I still have my mother and father on the other side.
The staff come flooding in, bringing in an array of food that’s more like Christmas Eve than a random Sunday night. Soren blanches at the sight of it all—a roast duck, baked Alaska, potatoes au gratin, ratatouille, prime rib, vegetables, and gravy. It’s like they told the chef to make anything that would look resplendent on our table.
Soren shifts uncomfortably, but doesn’t glance at me. I squeeze his hand reassuringly, and he squeezes back, but it’s like I can feel his insecurities coming back to him. The way my parents made him feel like he wasn’t good enough.
And I think back to that first time Valerie came over here with Lach, the way our parents spoke to her then. Thegotchamoment they seemed to savor when they remembered who she was. Their nasty way of making people feel like they’re not good enough.
I realize with a start that although this has most recently been directed at our romantic interests, their making us feel like we’re not good enough ispreciselywhat they do to us, too. My mom with the constant food monitoring. Both of them are trying to pressure Lach into stuff he doesn’t want, hinting that fighting fires is somehow beneath him.
Forks clink, and ice jostles in glasses. Dad disappears and returns with a bottle of wine, wordlessly pouring it only into his and our mother’s glasses, as though they’re the only ones who could possibly need it tonight.
The longer we go without talking, the harder it feels to open my mouth and break the relative silence. I keep waiting for someone else to talk, for Lach or Val to step in, but each time I glance at them, they give me the look of an older sibling, like they’re trying to urge me to handle this one myself.
All at once, I don’t feel like I can.
