I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her, which would evict her from my mother’s condo with only one toss, and the distrust is heard in my tone when I point to the chair she vacated in a hurry and say, “Sit the fuck down.”
“Nero!” my mother scolds at the same time Tasha says, “I swear, baby. I had no idea. I just asked her to take a little to force you back to our marital bed. I wanted you home, with me, where you promised you would forever be during our vows.”
She releases a bunch of crocodile tears that instantly unearths the entirety of her ruse. My mother canoodles her as if she is her child, while promising her she hasn’t done anything wrong.
“What did you tell her?”
“Enough, Nero,” my mother pleads. “Your wife is upset. Can you not see that?”
“She isn’t my wife. Can you not see that?” I’ve never snapped at my mother like this, but I’m at the end of my rope, struggling to hold on. “Is sheanythinglike I would usually go for? She’s blonde. I favor brunettes. She cuts people down with insults. I prefer women who lead with kindness.” I drag my eyes down Tasha’s body like I did the morning I woke to her standing over my bed, showing me our marriage certificate. “I like my women with meat on their bones.”
“Meat?Please,” Tasha pushes out with a mocking laugh. “She’s fat, Nero. There’s a big difference between a piece of steak and a flabby slab of pork belly from a pig incapable of rationing its daily food intake.”
She just made a fatal mistake. My mother is a curvy woman, has been her entire life. She’s lived with the stigma of what that means for as long as she has the scars of a scorned woman.
Tasha’s concern picks up when my mother moves to my side of the kitchen to gather the rolling pin she lost when she flung it at my head.
“I’m not saying all women are like that. We’re built differently by God.” She went too far to try to pull the good Christian girl routine on my mother, but she keeps trying. “And that’s what makes us unique. It is just…her.Miranda is?—”
“Miranda?” my mother asks, her brows as quirked as her pitch.
When Tasha remains quiet, my mother strays her dark eyes to me. A smirk plays at my lips from the hope in her eyes before I notch up my chin.
She looks pleased for me… until she remembers one factor my father’s betrayal will never allow her to overlook. “But she’s married, Nero. She was not yours to touch.”
“Shewasmarried,” I correct. “But that was all said and done with when she walked in on her husband with hismistress.”
The narrowing of my eyes and the heat of my scorn when I stare at Tasha at the end of my reply tells my mother everything she needs to know.
“You cheated onmyson?”
Tasha’s reply comes out at a million miles an hour. “He had already filed for an annulment?—”
“You cheated onmyson!” This one is more a confirmation than a question. “Get out of my house. Now!”
A broom isn’t as painful to the head as a rolling pin, but it is the perfect instrument to remove rodents from your home. It and a handful of expletives in Russian deposit Tasha and her conniving ass onto the porch of my mother’s condo in under thirty seconds.
“Nero, baby, please?—”
Her reply is gobbled up by the brutal slam of my mother’s front door.
While sucking in big breaths, my mother keeps her back facing me for several long minutes.
Fifteen years ago, I would have bolted from her expression alone when she eventually spins around. This time, I keep my feet rooted. I’m not going to lie. It is a fucking hard feat. My mother is a ballbuster. She had to be to remain on the Popovs payroll for so long. Not even some of its founders have lasted as long as she has.
“Speak.Now.”
It dawns on me that some of the confidence flourishing in Miranda pollenated with me as well when I say, “I will… after you’re done spilling the secrets I see in your eyes.”
22
MIRANDA
“Wait, wait, wait.” A server freezes partway out of the catering tent before pivoting to face me. I wipe up the juice of a medium-cooked angus steak from the edge of a gold-rimmed plate before twisting to face my crew. “Please ensure all the plates go out spotlessly clean. They should only be smeared while being licked clean. Presentation is as important as taste.”
Justine and Nikolai’s wedding reception is going off without a hitch. The vows were as beautiful as the blushing bride, and the guests enjoyed the menu selection so much some have asked for a second helping of the main meal.
It is the event of all events, and I’m incredibly proud to have pulled it off after such a tumultuous week.
