Page 41 of Bonking the Billionaire

I looked from Chloe to Stella and back again, searching their expressions for even a smidge of compassion. Instead I was met with a matching pair of determined scowls.

We were screwed. To my horror, that left onlyoneoption.

I turned to Layana. “Looks like we’re going on TV.”

Yay.

THIRTEEN

TRISTAN

The seat beneath me rumbled and the unforgivingly hard surface of the car window pressed against my face. Voices belted out lyrics to a song I didn’t know. I couldn’t make out the words. My body was cold and numb and heavy all at the same time.

Sensation faded as I slipped back into my dream.

So short my legs couldn’t reach the floor, I kicked the sofa with the back of my heel. It hurt, but not as much as my heart did.

Fiery injustice burned through my veins, a sensation I had no idea how to articulate.

A woman knelt down in front of me so we were at eye level. Puffy ringlets of hair surrounded her face like soft blackberry Slinkies. She smiled at me with pink cheeks and adoring eyes.

She was my mother.

“You’re entitled to feel whatever you’re feeling,” she told me.

“I’m mad,” I told her.

She nodded encouragingly and placed her big hand over my small one.

I looked down at the Christmas card in my lap, at the picture of my father and his wife, who wasn’t my mother. I glared at the baby in her arms.

“It’s not fair,” I said. “That’s supposed to be you and me.”

“Life often isn’t fair,” my mother said. “But we can’t control other people, only ourselves. And we choose each other, right?”

“Yes.”

“We’re a family, you and me, and we have all the love in the world.”

“Not Father’s.”

“We have each other’s. Now come here.” She scooped me up into her arms and gave me a squeeze. I squeezed her back, wishing I felt better, wishing I never got that card, wishing it wasn’t that stupid baby with my father, wishing it was me.

* * *

“Look out!”

The loud exclamation accompanied a dropping sensation, lurching my stomach down to my knees. My eyes shot open to bright sunlight. My heart hammered against my rib cage behind the seat belt digging into my chest. I reached my arms out for something to hold onto. My fingers met stiff wire.

“You can’t expect me to swerve aroundallthe potholes,” Layana said from the driver’s seat.

This was Morgan’s car, or at least she’d been driving it yesterday. So why was Layana driving now?

An oscillating chirp came from beside me. It sounded like the vocalization of a furious half-cat, half-bird.

I turned my head slowly toward the sound. My fingers gripped the wires of a metal cage. Inside was a furry serpent with beady black eyes.

“Ah.” I pulled my hand away.

---