Page 92 of Brassy Bigwig

“Please, call me Genevieve.”

Please don’t.

“Mom. I wish you would have called first. You can’t just show up here like this.”

“Well, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You know, since you moved out of the apartment and all.”

Panic.

How the hell does she— Shelby! I’m going to kill her.

“I shouldn’t have to hear about your life from Shelby’s flavor of the week, dear.” She turns her attention back to D and lays the loving mother act on thick. “She never tells me anything. I swear, it’s like she’s trying to punish me for caring about her.”

“Wait, what?” Reed told her?

“You’ve been dodging my calls, so I decided to show up to your apartment last night. That boy said you moved in with your boyfriend. I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”

I fidget uncomfortably while I try to think of what to tell her. I don’t want her knowing I’ve gone and shacked up with my boss. That can wait until… never… or at least until I find a new job. But my mother is like a CIA operative. There isn’t much that gets past her.

“Well, are you going to tell me about him?”

“Not right now. Not when I’m trying to work.”

“Well, I’m sure your boss won’t mind if we catch up for a little, right?” It’s the wink she gives me that tells me she already knows exactly who my boyfriend is. “Shelby was quite inebriated when I stopped by. She was rather loose-lipped, although there’s not really much about her that isn’t loose. By the way, is she going through a phase? The new boy she’s with seemed a little ragey. Angry.”

As quickly as she makes the statement, she shrugs her shoulders and waves the entire idea off.

Shelby. Is. Dead.

What the fuck was she thinking, telling my mom about me and D?

“Don’t you think you’d have more fun with someone your own age? Someone with more experience?”

Are you fucking kidding me right now?

“You are completely out of line, Mother. It’s time to leave.”

“I’m just trying to get to know your boyfriend a little more, Chloe.” She runs her fingers over the long, gold chain that dips in between her cleavage.

“No, you’re throwing yourself at him like a desperate hooker.”

“Chloe, do not take that tone with me,” she scolds, as though I were a child. “Do you honestly think you can hold his attention for very long? You’re so young, so inexperienced. This office fling is going to be over and done with before you know it. Then you will be out of a job and out on your ass. I’ve been down this road before, darling. It never ends well.”

I refuse to have her come to my place of work and treat me like a child in front of D. Let alone eye-fuck the shit out of him. Before I’m able to tell her off, D comes to my rescue.

“I’d like to make something very clear, Ms. Moreau. What I feel for your daughter is, quite frankly, none of your fucking business. However, since you seem to be overly interested in my intentions with her, I’m happy to tell you I have incredibly deep feelings for your daughter. Feelings that make it impossible to look at or think of another woman as anything more than an annoyance. It didn’t start as an office fling nor will it end as one. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t see an end to our relationship at any time in the near, or far, future.”

My mother looks like she just got slapped across the face. If I wasn’t still seething with animosity, I think I’d be smiling.

“I know your type. You go for young, insecure girls who would do anything to get your attention. You pay them compliments as a form of foreplay and use their vulnerability to get into their pants. Right before you drop them like a bad habit. Gaslight them to make them think you didn’t do anything wrong. Make them think they’re crazy and bring too much drama into your life. Make them believe they’re too much of a liability, so you have to cut them loose.”

“I’m sorry for whatever happened to you in the past, but it sounds to me like you put your faith in the wrong person a time or two. You sound like a bitter woman who lost the only man she ever truly loved—if you were ever capable of love in the first place—and is hell bent on making the rest of us pay for your mistakes.”

Now both my mother and I are speechless. My heart is thrumming faster than it ever has before. Adrenaline and anxiety rip through my body as heat seeps from my pores, and a sheen of sweat covers my skin. I’ve never heard anyone speak to my mother this way—except my father a couple of times. Usually, men kiss the ground she walks on.

“I would never do anything to hurt Chloe. I think it’s time you leave.”

With her head held high, my mother looks from D back to me before turning on her heel and marching out of the office. As soon as the elevator doors close her in, I lunge at D, cameras be damned.

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