Addicted (Ethan Frost 2)

So that’s where I am when it happens. In the kitchen, bent over and rummaging in the refrigerator for the last of the tortellini salad. I’m humming at the top of my lungs and composing a law school application essay in my head when a cultured, well-modulated voice sounds from behind me.

“Well, well, nice to know nothing has changed. You’re still a low-class little thing, aren’t you?”

I whirl around at the voice—I’ve only heard it once before but I know exactly who it belongs to. Aural memories are powerful things and the last time I heard it was the most miserable day of my life. I’ve never forgotten it. Never forgotten the woman it belongs to. And never forgotten the emotions I was feeling the last time I heard it.

Sure enough, Vanessa Frost Jacobs is standing at the doorway into the kitchen. Ethan’s mother. Brandon’s mother.

She’s dressed in a pale pink suit that costs more than my entire wardrobe—the Armani suit Ethan just bought me notwithstanding—and she looks like a beautiful, blond viper. It’s truth in advertising, if you ask me. I’ve never met a more cold-blooded, scaly and poisonous woman in my life. Not to mention the fact that she’s more than willing to take a bite out of anyone who gets in her way.

Judging from the narrow-eyed look she’s giving me at the moment, I’m the latest offender—and more than likely her latest victim. But I’ve already been one of her victims, and I swore to myself when it happened that I would never let it happen again. No matter how much she scares me, no matter how intimidated I am by her frigid, frankly terrifying confidence, I’m not going to back down to her. Not here. Not now. Not this time. I’m a far cry from the fifteen-year-old girl I was when she last tangled with me.

The thought gives me comfort, or it would if I wasn’t so damn drunk. As it is, I stand frozen to the spot, swaying and seeing two of her as I try desperately to sober up.

“Chloe, isn’t it?” she says as if we’re at an afternoon garden party. As if she has no idea who I am. As if she isn’t here specifically to see me.

I know it’s all part of a plan—she can’t make it seem like she actually cares enough to remember my name. But she does, oh she does. I wonder how much it must be grating on her that I’m with Ethan now. A hell of a lot, judging from the fact that she’s here. And looking like she swallowed a lemon.

“It is,” I tell her after a long minute of trying to decide how I want to play this. Besides plucking her bald-headed and then rolling her and her pretty pink suit down the huge hill at the back of the house, I mean. “And you’re Vanessa.”

I didn’t think it was possible, but her eyes narrow even more at that. Ethan’s mother definitely doesn’t like being on a first name basis with me. It’s a feeling that is completely mutual. But no way does she get the advantage here. No freaking way.

“It is. Nice to see that you have no problem making yourself at home in my son’s house.”

“Yes, well, he’s a generous guy. And since we’re practically living together anyway …”

“Are you, now?” She looks past me and for the first time I realize I’m still standing in front of the fridge, the door wide open. Damn it. Stupid wine tasting. Faced with this—with her—it doesn’t seem nearly as fun as it did just a few minutes ago. Not when I know I’ll need every last one of my wits about me to deal with her.

I move to close the fridge, but my balance isn’t quite right and I end up stumbling backward with the door, bumping my hip on the handle.

“Good Lord, you’re drunk. And it’s only two-thirty in the afternoon.” For the first time, she doesn’t bother with the mask and simply lets her disgust shine through.

It’s a lot of disgust and I can feel myself wilting under her disdain. The knowledge infuriates me and I straighten my spine. Force myself to maintain eye contact. Keep at bay the memories of that long ago day in the lawyer’s office when she was so icily polite and horrendously rude all at the same time. She has no right to judge me. Not this woman who has done so many truly awful things.

“Look, Vanessa,” I say, forcing myself to put my big girl panties on and deal with the situation at hand instead of lingering in the past that seems to be closing in on me from every side. “Ethan isn’t here right now. But when he gets back, I’ll be sure to let him know you sto—”

“Are you kicking me out of my son’s house?” she interrupts and for the first time I see a flicker of surprise on her overly Botoxed face. It actually looks more like incredulity, but I’ll take what I can get.

“Don’t think of it as me kicking you out. Think of it as me uninviting you until a later date.”

“Oh, Chloe. What makes you think you have the right to uninvite me from anything in my son’s life? Ever?”

Even as recently as a couple of weeks ago, my resolve would have faltered in the face of all that disdain. All that superiority. But that was before I’d faced Ethan’s secrets, before I’d had to learn what I could live with and what I couldn’t. And while I can live with a lot for Ethan, this woman isn’t one of those things—and she never will be.

“Because Ethan’s with me now. And if I don’t want you here, I promise you, you won’t be here.” They’re brave words, though I don’t know how true they actually are. It doesn’t matter, though. Nothing does at this moment but getting her out of here before I lose it completely. I thought I could handle it, thought I could handle her, but already the panic is crawling up the back of my throat. If I was sober I could do this. But drunk, I’m no match for her and I’m smart enough to know it.

Amazingly, my little display of bravado works. I can tell that I’ve scored by the way her shoulders straighten and the way her spine gets even more stiff. Well, that and the way her lips twist together like she’s been sucking on a particularly sour lemon.

“You don’t actually think I’m going to let you get your hooks into another one of my sons, do you?”

“My hooks?” It’s my turn to stare at her incredulously. “I’m not a fisherman. And for the record, I never had my hooks—or anything else of mine—into Brandon.”

“But you don’t deny that you have them in Ethan.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite that way, Vanessa.” She almost flinches at my use of her given name this time and it gives me an unspeakable amount of joy. “Ethan and I are together and we’re going to stay together.”

“I know you’re playing for keeps this time, but let me assure you, Chloe, my son will never marry the likes of you. You may think that you’re going to end up with access to all of his money and property, but I can promise you that that’s never going to happen.”

I don’t want access to his money, never have, never will. But I don’t feel like telling her that. Besides, it’s not like she’ll believe me. The tabloids might call me a gold digger, but Vanessa Frost Jacobs has trophy wife written all over her too-smooth baby face.