At the Stroke of Midnight (Naughty Princess Club 1)

“He didn’t look shitty,” I sigh. “He looked . . . like Brian. Stuffy and boring and judgy. And he won’t stop showing up here or calling. He wants to spend time with Anastasia. He actually had the nerve to tell me he missed his daughter and wanted to see her. I left it up to her, and of course she refused to go anywhere near him. I wanted to give her a big hug when she said she wanted nothing to do with him, but I don’t want to be one of those mothers.”

“Wanna one mudders?” Ariel slurs. “Jesus Christ take this wine away from me!”

I take the glass from her outstretched hand and set it down by my feet on the carpet, since I haven’t gotten around to buying new end tables yet.

“One. Of. What. Mothers?” Ariel tries again, enunciating each word carefully.

“One of those mothers who bad-mouths her ex in front of her child. I don’t want my opinion of him to skew hers,” I explain to her, flopping my head onto the back of the couch to stare up at the ceiling.

“Her opinion of him was skewed the minute he walked out on the two of you. Nothing you say is going to change that for her,” Ariel reassures me.

It still doesn’t stop me from worrying. Anastasia was doing so well, we were getting along beautifully, and PJ was able to bring her even more out of that hard shell she surrounded herself with when Brian left. Now she’s back to wearing all black and staying locked up in her bedroom. I hate Brian for doing this to her. I hate him for leaving in the first place, and I hate him for showing back up here out of the blue, expecting everything to be the way he left it.

“I saw her this morning at the grocery store when I was getting wine,” I mutter, wondering if my ceiling would look good with a coat of red paint to match the awesome new couch.

“Saw who?” Ariel asks, mimicking my pose and resting her head on the back of the couch next to me.

“Brittany.”

Just saying her name makes me want to throw the glass of wine that’s still clutched in my hand across the room.

“The twenty-one-year-old babysitter he ran away with?!”

I nod my head and take a few deep, calming breaths as I think about our exchange and how she came bouncing up to me in the wine aisle, talking to me like we were old friends and I didn’t entrust her with my daughter’s care for years while she screwed my husband behind my back and then fled the country with him.

“She’s got some perky new double Ds and her lips have so much collagen in them I was afraid they’d explode all over my face when she was talking to me.”

“Well, at least now we know where all that money went he stole from his parents,” Ariel muses. “New tits and lips for the babysitter.”

I never even realized the deadline Vincent gave me to come up with the money had come and gone without my notice. I was too busy with PJ and the Naughty Princess Club and catching up on my own bills to worry about him and his misplaced anger and accusations. And now that Brian is home and has told them that ridiculous lie about being kidnapped, they’ve obviously hashed all of that out on their own and realize I’m no longer to blame, and that’s why I still haven’t heard from him. Which is pretty shitty considering I deserve a goddamn apology, at the very least, from Vincent and Claudia.

Regardless of that, this also means I shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Business is good, I’m no longer drowning in debt, and Brian can do whatever the hell he wants, as long as he leaves me out of it. I’m not going to pick up the phone and call Vincent and Claudia and help him fabricate his lie, but if I’m asked directly, I suppose I can be the bigger person and do whatever I can to help him repair his relationship with Anastasia, as long as he knows I’m doing this for her and not to save his ass from going to prison. I’m not going to keep him from his daughter, but I’m also not going to push it with her. She’s old enough to make up her own mind about whether or not she wants to give her father a second chance. I should be happy that I stood my ground with Brian and only respond to his text messages when it pertains to our daughter, but I’m not. Nothing about this makes me happy because PJ isn’t here. And I don’t understand why.

“You should just go over there and confront him,” Ariel says suddenly, lifting her head from the couch.