Page 118 of Cherry Beats

I didn’t have to make too many guesses to figure out what that reason could be.

Pushing my red hair out of my eyes, I threw the contents of the tumbler down my throat. The burn wasn’t sweet; it was a hard, deep fire that made me want to cough it all back up until the very moment it hit my chest.

“And so it begins,” I whispered to myself, having no other option but to stand there waiting for Presley’s return.

He lied to me.

He wasn’t ‘right back’.

It took twenty minutes of me standing there, smiling at people I didn’t know, and receiving a few questioning glances before he eventually returned, looking a lot less carefree than he had when he left my side.

Presley’s face was pale. His brows pinched together as he drew closer to me, grabbed my arm and leaned in.

“We need to get out of here.”

“What’s happened?” I moved closer to him. “Presley, what’s wrong?”

“We need to get out of here,” he repeated.

“Is it Trey?”

“He’s been taken care of. Security are escorting him out as we speak.”

Relief flooded me. “Thank God.”

“We need to go, Tess.”

I gasped, letting my thoughts get carried away with me. “Shit. Is it Janey? Is she here?”

“Worse.” Presley ground his teeth together and set his jaw tight, the muscles twitching as he looked down at my lips and studied them for a moment. “A thousand times worse. My fucking mother is here.”

“Your… mum?”

The very mum Uncle Dex had told me about. The one Presley had barely mentioned in any of the time we’d been together, other than to say she was as selfish as he thought he could be.

“I’m guessing Dicky let her through.”

“Does he know you don’t want her here?”

“The woman is relentless when she wants something, Tess. It doesn’t matter what I want. Olivia can be very persuasive.” Presley huffed out a humourless laugh, taking a second to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose before he released a groan. “Of all the nights for her to show up.”

“Hey,” I said in a hushed voice. “It’s fine. I’m here. We don’t have to go anywhere. You don’t have to run from her or hide. How bad can she really be?”

“You have no idea.” He glanced behind him like he was trying to stay hidden, before he looked back at me. “If we stay here, she’ll ruin this night for us.”

“You just marched me on stage and told me you loved me in front of nearly seven thousand people, remember? Nothing can ruin this night for us now. Not even—”

“So, you’re Little Red-Riding-On-The-Coattails-Of-My-Famous-Son? I’ll be honest, Presley, I expected more,” Olivia said, annunciating every word with perfect precision.

Turning slowly, I found myself staring into the familiar, sparkly blue eyes of a well-dressed woman with curly blonde hair. Her brows were high as she stared at me with disdain. Her ruby red mouth held a fiery pit of venomous words waiting to be set free from her pinched lips.

I gave her my full attention.

Bright, white, crisp blouse unbuttoned to her chest.

Tight blue jeans that somehow looked expensive, pulling her slender curves in at all the right places.

Nude-patent stilettos that made me wince for her poor toes.

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