Page 65 of Remember Me

Determined and optimistic, I head back home. The drive along the 101 from Santa Barbara to the edge of Malibu takes less than an hour. The sky darkening as I pull into the driveway, I muse how I already think of Finn’s compound as my home. Where I belong. With my husband and child.My family.Parking my Jeep, I make a decision to have dinner with them. Something I’ve never done before.

To my surprise, the last person I want to see greets me in the kitchen.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the babysitter!”

It’s Kayla, dressed in another one of her white designer ensembles. I meet her glaring green eyes, as hard and cold as raw emeralds. My gaze stays on her as she saunters to the Sub-Zero refrigerator. She swings the door open and pulls out a chilled bottle of Prosecco.

“It’s a shame Phineas doesn’t have any peaches so I could make a Bellini,” she mutters as she expertly uncorks it and pours some of the sparkling wine into a flute. Without offering me any, she returns to the island where I’m sitting and takes a seat opposite me. Her monstrous bag is on the counter.

She sips her drink. “I was just about to leave.”

Don’t let me stop you.

“And if I didn’t have to pick up my car, thanks to Phineas who deserted me yesterday, I wouldn’t be here at all.” She scoffs. “I can’t believe he had the gall to make me Uber!”

Poor little Miss Entitled.

Imbibing more of her sparkling wine, she gives me the once over. “Maybe it’s good you’re here too. We can have a little girl talk.”

“I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.” My voice is icy.

“Think again.” She fires the words at me. “It’s one thing babysitting the little imp—”

“Excuse me. I’m thechild’steacher!”

“Whatever. But it’s another thing babysitting her father.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Puh-lease. Don’t tell me Miss Know-It-All doesn’t have a clue.”

Fortified after my afternoon with Sister Marie, I narrow my eyes at her. “Enlighten me.”

She sneers. “I see the way you look at him. Watch his every move. Like a pathetic puppy. You’re practically drooling.”

Her python eyes take on a venomous glint. “You’d better keep your hands off him if you know what’s good for you.”

My eyes don’t stray from her. “Is that a threat?”

“No, it’s a statement.” She flashes the big diamond on her ring finger at me. “He belongs to me.”

No! He belongs to me!I so want to spit out the wordsandtell her he kissed me, but bite my tongue. My blood is simmering, my temperature rising faster than the bubbles of her beverage. My next words tumble out of my mouth.

“I know about your past.”

She purses her lips, her expression piqued with curiosity. “Enlighten me.”

“A BA from Yale? An MFA from Sotheby’s? I. Don’t. Think. So.”

Not reacting, she takes another sip of her drink. I’m not deterred.

“A little cocaine habit, perhaps?”

Turning beet red (Ha! That got her!), she slams her flute on the granite. “So you’ve been spying on me?”

“No. Researching. I like to know whom I’m dealing with.”

“Well, the past is the past. And thanks to all of Daddy’s connections, my little screw-ups don’t matter anymore.”

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