Better than Sexy (The Sexy 3)

“You ready for tonight?” he asked.

She nodded. Turning away, she looked at the mirror, pulling out a tube of lipstick and reapplying the color. “I’m good to go.”

Her cell phone rang from its place on her vanity table, and MOM flashed on the screen. Knowing her mother wouldn’t call this close to show time unless it was important, she answered, hitting the accept button.

“Hi, Mom, you’re on speakerphone. What’s up?” She smiled at Landon as she spoke.

“Hey, baby girl. It’s about Vic. Your brother.” Her mother’s voice broke on the word. “He was killed in prison.”

“What? Dead? Victor’s dead?” she asked, dazed by the news.

His face a mask, Landon grabbed a chair and gently lowered her into it, keeping a hand on her shoulder.

Her mother sniffled over the phone. “Apparently the other inmates don’t take it well when someone snitches on a cellmate to get themselves out early.” As her brother had done prior to his current parole violation and return to jail.

Oh, God. “Mom, I’ll be right over. You shouldn’t be alone.”

“Yeah, that would be good, honey. Thank you.”

It wasn’t like her mother to admit to needing her, so Vivi knew she had to be there. “I’ll see you soon.” She disconnected the call and looked up at Landon, knowing better than to expect sympathy from him when it came to losing her brother but wanting his arms around her anyway.

No doubt he was happy Victor was dead.

As for Vivi? How should she feel right now? Vic had been her sibling, albeit estranged. A boy who’d tormented her, a man who’d used her. But they were related by blood, and her mother, for certain, was grieving her son.

“I have to go. I’m sorry about the performance but my mother needs me,” she said in a choked voice. Tears formed in her eyes and took her by surprise.

Landon managed a nod. “Of course. Go,” he said in a neutral tone that squeezed her heart.

Doing her best not to show him that he’d hurt her, she gathered her purse and her cell and pulled up the Uber app.

Landon didn’t stop her when she walked out to meet the car.

* * *

Vivi held it together until she reached her mother’s house and fell into her waiting arms. Together they cried for the little boy Vic had been before their father’s belittling and fists had changed him.

“It’s my fault, you know.” Her mother placed a hand on the baby book she’d been turning the pages on, brushing her fingers across her son’s footprints and all his firsts.

“What’s your fault? Staying with Dad? Because I know you were scared to leave,” Vivi murmured.

For all Anne Marie’s professional strength, it hadn’t extended to her personal life, where she’d let Victor Senior walk all over her. And abuse his son. Vivi had read enough self-help books about abuse not to blame her mother, but she was sure her brother hadn’t felt the same way.

Her mother swallowed hard. “I will never excuse your brother’s behavior, but I do blame myself for not getting him out of that situation when he was a child.” She drew a deep breath, her eyes damp with tears. “Your father treated Vic the way he did because he wasn’t his real son, something he didn’t find out until after we’d named him Victor Junior.”

“What?” Vivi sat back in her seat. “Did you just say–”

Nodding, her mother said, “I had an affair. I don’t know if you remember, but life wasn’t always hard with your father. It started after Vic was born … after he found a letter in my dresser from the man I’d been seeing. He put the pieces together. He blamed me and he couldn’t look at your brother without seeing a reminder.”

Brushing at the tears on her face with the back of her hand, Vivi looked at her mother, seeing her with new eyes. “Why didn’t you leave him then?”

“Guilt over the affair. The fact that I’d made wedding vows and meant them at the time. And your father always promised he’d get over my betrayal.”

He never did. And he’d always taken it out on Vic. God, what a mess, Vivi thought. But she wasn’t going to blame her mother or lose the only family she had left.

“We need to make decisions about Vic now,” her mother said and Vivi knew what she meant.

“I think we should have a quiet burial. Just you and me. Lay him to rest.” And go on. It wasn’t like she’d had a relationship with her sibling, but like her mother, she felt the loss.

Not that Landon had seemed to understand or even care. His light touch on her shoulder hadn’t exactly been compassionate. Although a part of her couldn’t blame him, there was still the fact that they were in an intense relationship that she thought went beyond physical attraction.