I've just decided to make a break for our bedroom to quickly primp, when they step into view. I freeze in the middle of the kitchen, confused. Because Damien is standing with Noah Carter.
"Hi," I say, looking between the two men and wondering why Damien didn't tell me we were having company. "Did you guys have a meeting planned?"
"You said you needed more time," Damien says. He gestures to Noah. "I brought you the next best thing."
I stare at him, then at Noah. Then back to Damien. "All right, I'll bite. What are you talking about?"
"I have a month before my contract starts with Stark Applied Technology," Noah says as if that explains everything.
It doesn't.
I look to Damien, then hold out my hands in an expression that says I got nothing.
"Hire him," Damien says. "I promise you won't regret it. You have coding to blow through? The man's a genius."
"Hire him," I repeat as I let Damien's suggestion sink in. Then I smile, first at Noah, then at my husband. "You really are amazing."
Damien grins. "So they say."
"All right," I say to Noah. "You're hired."
"Excellent." He cocks his head. "You do have major medical and a decent severance package, right?"
I roll my eyes and point to the kitchen table. "Your workstation. Come on, I'll show you what I'm doing, and we can set up a file-sharing protocol."
He nods and follows me. Damien lingers, leaning against the refrigerator. "Don't look so smug," I say. And then I mouth, thank you.
He actually does look a little smug when he leaves, but I realize I'm smiling, and since that feels pretty good, I decide to give it a pass.
Noah's as sharp as advertised, and having him around gives me a little time to breathe. Over the next few days we hit the deliverables, outline the next phase, and I even have some time to poke around on the Internet, exploring a few ideas that have been bubbling in the back of my mind.
And for the first time in a long time, I genuinely feel good.
I pause for a moment, just to let the pleasant emotion linger. It's been far too rare lately, and although it's wonderful to feel my heart lighten, there's a little bit of guilt there, too. Like I shouldn't be ready to laugh again yet.
I push the guilt aside, though. I don't need it. Not yet. Not when the sorrow still comes in waves.
The intercom buzzes, and I leave my seat across from Noah to go and check in with the guard. "Hey, Jimmy. Do we have a delivery?"
"A guest, Mrs. Stark. She says she's your mother?"
He says it as a question--one I don't particularly want to answer.
"Oh. Well, okay. You can send her down."
Damien's in the gym, but I call him over the intercom, and by the time I transfer a couple of files to Noah and head downstairs, he's waiting for me in the entryway in gray sweats and a UCLA T-shirt.
"I can send her away," he says. "You don't even have to see her."
I shake my head. She'd been on my mind before, but since the miscarriage, I've been thinking more and more about family and parenting and mothers and daughters. "No," I say. "No matter what else she is, she's my mother. She's family."
"She hurt you."
I nod because there's no denying that truth. "I know. But Sofia hurt you. She hurt both of us." I lift my head to look at Damien. "She's family, too, right? Isn't that what you said?"
I can see on his face that he wants to argue--and honestly, I know the arguments he'll make because I can make them, too. That Elizabeth Fairchild was never a real mother to me. That I was a pretty dress-up doll to her, never a little girl. And that, once I became inconvenient, she had no use for me. At least not until I married Damien. Only then did I become interesting--and even then, only until she realized she wouldn't be getting any of Damien's money.
I know all that--I do. And yet there's still a hole in my heart that is the shape of a mother's love. And though I know that my sister fell through that hole and never managed to crawl out again, I can't escape its dogged temptation.
"Sweetheart," he says, but in a voice that makes it clear he knows I've already decided. "You're going to get hurt."
"Maybe," I admit. "But you'll be here if I do."
When the doorbell rings, I jump, then hurry to let her in, pausing only for one deep breath before I open the door wide.
"Mother." I hesitate, then step to the side. "Come in."
"Elizabeth," Damien says. "What brings you here all of a sudden?"
She flashes her most charming smile at him. "You look as dashing as ever, even in such unappealing attire. And, of course, I came because of the tragedy."
She turns to me. "I saw you at the premiere," she says, sweeping inside then standing still as she tilts her head from side to side, taking in the whole, huge room. "I was one of the plebeians in the crowd. I called out to you--did you hear?"
"I heard you, Mother. I was a little preoccupied, what with losing my baby and all."
She makes a tsk-tsk noise. And though she says nothing else, I get the distinct impression that she's criticizing me for making such a spectacle of myself.
I hold tight to Damien's hand, grateful when he says nothing, but simply squeezes back.
My mother sighs heavily as she crosses to the sofa and takes a seat. "I wanted to come see you at the hospital, but I didn't know how long you'd be there."
"It's fine," I say. "I wasn't in the mood for company."
"You mean you didn't want to see me. No, don't argue," she says, though I've made no move to contradict her. "You probably still don't, but there are times when a girl simply needs her mother."
I press my lips together and nod, and all the ways I've healed over the last few days seem to slip away from me as tears fill my eyes. Because she's right. I wouldn't trade Damien and my friends and all of their support for anything, but I can't deny that I would have liked a mother's arms around me through all of this.
I'm not so foolish, though, to think that the mother in my imagination is Elizabeth Fairchild. But even so, there's a tiny little bud of hope growing inside me, and I don't know whether to nurture it or crush it under my heel before it once again grows thorns.
"You sold your house," Damien says, presumably to fill the silence that is starting to grow. "Have you moved to LA?"
"I have," she says, then offers me a picture-perfect smile again. "I've been here for a while."
"Where are you living?" he presses.
Mother looks annoyed, but she smiles prettily. "I haven't settled yet. Right now, I'm in a small rental in a darling section of the Valley."
He nods as if she's said something fascinating.
I assume he's just trying to be polite. I'm much bolder. "You've been watching me," I accuse.
Her fingers twist in her lap. "Yes, well, you must admit that our last time together didn't end well. I was afraid you wouldn't want to see me. But I very much wanted to see my little girl. I wasn't certain you'd noticed me. I hope I didn't disturb you?"
"No," I lie, fighting a frown, because she might be telling the truth. I sent her back to Texas before our wedding, making it perfectly clear that she had no business meddling in my life. "Not in the least."
Mother clasps her hands in her lap. "Yes, well, despite everything, I had to come. I'm of an age now, you see. And one thinks about such things." She looks at Damien, and her voice trembles as she speaks. "I want very much to repair my relationship with my daughter."
She looks down, and in the brief moment that I can see her eyes, I think I see tears.
My stomach clenches, and I think of Sofia, who I believe, and my mother, who I want to believe, but I can't quite make the leap.
"I don't want to disturb you," she says. "I know how much your work means to both of you, and it's the middle of the day. I just wanted to say that I'm here. And I wanted to give you this." She reaches into her purse and pulls out a small box, then hands it to me.
I open it and find a familiar gold necklace with an engraved charm han
ging on it. A heart with the initials NLF.
"You're still my little girl," she says.
"I remember this," I say. "I thought it was lost."
"It's been in my jewelry box for years," she says lightly, as if I should have thought to look there when I was nine and had believed the gift from my sister had gone missing. "You refused to take it off even for school. We couldn't let it get lost, could we?"
I feel a slow burn begin inside me, and I clench my fist tightly, letting my fingernails dig into my skin. I'd been frantic about that necklace, which I'd believed really had been lost. I feel wrong and unbalanced, and I know that without Damien beside me to hold my hand and keep me centered, the first thing I'd do after my mother left, would be to find a blade and cut until this horrible feeling flows out of me.