Exposed (Exposed 1)

"That's ridiculous." The chuckle that accompanies the words sets me over the edge.

"It's not." I bite my bottom lip to hold back the anger.

"Why then?" He leans back against the couch before he crosses his arms across his chest. "Why is Sadie Lockwood so different than the rest of the world?"

"This." I scream the word as I pull open the front of my sweater. The buttons scatter. The room is so deathly silent that I can hear them all bounce when they hit the floor.

My eyes catch his for a brief moment before I turn to leave. The hand over his mouth and the clear shock in his eyes say it all.

Chapter 18

"How's Dylan?" I sit on the edge of my mother's bed watching her unpack one of the many suitcases she took with her when she raced off to Europe several weeks ago to rescue my brother from whatever legal hole he'd fallen into this time.

""Dylan is Dylan," she sighs as she rolls her eyes. "Daddy is staying there for a few more weeks. I couldn’t stand it. I had to get home."

The faint smile she throws my way suggests that she's back and happy to see me. I know that she's back and happy to be lunching with her friends tomorrow and having her nails done the day after. I've never been high on my mother's priority list.

"How did the benefit go?" She turns her back to me as she places her jewelry box on her nightstand. "There were no hiccups, were there?"

"It was fine." I answer. "The usual suspects were here and a couple of new faces."

"Like who?" She twirls around quickly. I realized at a very early age that the ultimate bait to catch my mother's attention is gossip. The juicier the better in her eyes.

"Rob Archer has a new wife."

"What?" The question comes out with a shrill shriek. "What's she like?"

"Young and pretty." I shrug my shoulders. "I didn't talk to either of them."

"Who else?" She sits down next to me.

"There was a guy here I hadn't seen before." I pretend to search my mind for his name. "Hunter Reynolds was his name."

She stares at my face before she responds. "I've never heard of him. Who was he here with?"

"I don’t remember her name." I try to pull back a mental image of the woman Hunter arrived with. "She was maybe in her early thirties, brunette, short hair."

"Was she wearing an emerald colored gown? An off the shoulder gaudy thing?" She motions towards her shoulder as she purses her lips together as if she's just eaten a sour lemon.

I laugh when I realize she's spot on. "How did you know what she was wearing?"

"Judith handled all the alterations. She showed me the gowns on Skype."

I burst out laughing. I don't know if I'm more bothered by the fact that my mother was scoping out everyone's dresses from across the Atlantic or that she was using Skype at all. I'm just grateful she's never tried to talk to me on it.

"I think that fellow, Hunter, owns a restaurant with her husband." She's a never-ending source of information today.

"He does consultations for restaurants," I correct her.

"That sounds right." She quips before she walks over to her suitcase and silently starts sorting through it again.

***

"Are you doing the whole surprise party thing for you mom this year?" Alexa pulls the bright red polish across her toenail. "Because if you are, I want first dibs on the guest list."

"Why?" I realize that I haven't even thought about my mother's birthday yet and it's less than two weeks away now. "There's a hot guy who works for my dad. I thought I could invite him."

I shake my head to clear away all of the confusion I'm suddenly feeling. ""What? Why on earth would a guy who works for your dad come to my mother's party?"