Page 64 of Trusting Blake
LeAnne appears at the door of her office, a purse over one shoulder and a laptop bag over the other, wearing her usual professional attire of a pencil skirt and elegant blouse with stilettos. She’s caught off guard at the sight of Blake and me in her office. It’s probably the last thing she expected to arrive home to, but her surprise immediately diverts into rage.
“Blake!” she gasps, dropping her laptop bag to the floor and striding into the room to pluck the letter straight out of his hand. She clearly knows exactly what it is. “I showed you that in confidence! How dare you?”
“LeAnne,” I interrupt in a quiet, empty tone.
“And you!” she snaps, pointing the letter in my direction as she glares fiercely at me, taking in the clothes I’m wearing. They aren’t mine. They’re Blake’s. “Do I even want to know what you’re doing here so early in the morning? Well, I guess it’s pretty obvious.” I can’t help but blush and dip my gaze as she shakes her head at Blake in disgust, her defined cheekbones sharp as she clenches her jaw.
“No, LeAnne, please. Listen to me,” I beg as sensitively as possible, moving toward her and gesturing at the letter in her hand. “I’m pretty sure my dad didn’t write this.”
LeAnne eases up on her fury for only a moment to hear me out. “What?”
I swallow hard and tell her, “My mom did.”
LeAnne wordlessly looks at Blake, then back at me. Her breaths are shallow and she lets her purse slide off her shoulder as she sits down heavily into her desk chair. She opens up the letter with trembling fingers and reads it again, though I have no doubt that she’s read it a million times over the years. “Mila, what makes you think your mom wrote this?” she asks in a subdued voice, and for once, the expression she turns to me with is raw and unfiltered. It’s honest and real, it’s pained and confused. There’s no venom in her tone, no scorn in her eyes.
“The wayEverettis written,” I say breathlessly, moving closer to her and pointing down at the letter in her hand. We are on the same side. “He doesn’t cross his Ts like that, not in his own name, but my mom does.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” she whispers, and I nod.
As I confirm it to LeAnne, it dawns on me just how sickening this is. How could Mom write such a cruel, deceitful letter to LeAnne? It’s not the mother I know, but that woman in the Walmart parking lot, the one making snarky comments to LeAnne, that wasn’t the mother I know either. So maybe I don’t know Mom at all. Dad has been the one I doubted, the one I placed so much pressure on to be perfect, but I never thought that maybe Mom had her own dirty secrets too.
My mind is racing, trying to make sense of who knows what, trying to piece together a timeline of events that happened long before I was even born. I can already feel a migraine probing.
So, Dad tried to apologize to LeAnne after the affair happened, because clearly he does have a conscience. . . but LeAnne wasn’t ready to forgive him just yet, so his apology was rejected and that was probably a dent to his ego. Then, when LeAnne decided shewasfinally ready to forgive him and move on, she left him a voicemail asking to meet, but he never showed up, and instead received a horrible letter – which was actually written by Mom. But if LeAnne had gone to the effort of trying to call him in the first place, why would Dad, years later, try to buy her silence with that stupid NDA? He shouldn’t have been worried about her still. He should have known that she’d forgiven him.
Unless he didn’t ever know about the voicemail.
Oh no.Nausea churns in my stomach and I hold my hand to the wall, steadying myself as the thoughts keep on pressing down on me from every corner of my mind.
Dad has remained angry at LeAnne all these years, hostile because he thinks she rejected his apology and never forgave him. LeAnne has remained angry at Dad all these years, because she thinks he shunned her when she tried to offer an olive branch, to be reasonable and adult. They both have it wrong. Their attempt at a civil existence around each other was intercepted by Mom, who then made sure to destroy it.
“That voicemail you left my dad,” I say, meeting LeAnne’s appalled eyes. “I don’t think he ever heard it.”
LeAnne regains her strength, composing her features and drawing her thin, dark eyebrows together. “There’s only one way to find out,” she says fearlessly, rising from the chair. “Blake, pull on a shirt – you’re coming with me.”
“Mom,” Blake says unsurely, scratching the back of his neck. “Are you sure you wanna do this?”
“I’d like answers.” She closes her fist around the letter, her knuckles turning pale.
“I’d like some answers too,” I say, moving to the office door.
LeAnne and I lock eyes once again, just like we have done so many times this summer, but her stare isn’t piercingly threatening this time. It’s gracious and empathetic with a hint of remorse, and I can almost see it dawning on her, the realization that I am not my parents. I don’t represent the mistakes they have made in the past. I’m just Mila, and I think LeAnne knows that now.
She grabs her car keys from her purse and takes a deep, affirmative breath. “Let’s resolve this once and for all.”
25
Blake drives. LeAnne’s emotions are too conflicted to focus on anything but digging her way to the core truth of her history with my parents, determined to uncover every nitty-gritty detail. Meanwhile, in the backseat, my nerves are completely shattered as we pull up outside the closed gate. I point my remote out the truck window and open it.
My parents have only just started trusting me again and granting me freedom, yet I’m about to roll up alongside their nemesis and confront them. I’ve spent the ride over here doubting myself, wondering if I’m betraying them by throwing Mom under the bus like this, but I have to do what’s right. Mom played a bigger role in the whole scandal of their relationship than even Dad knows, and if he finds out the truth that LeAnne did try to reach out to him to forgive him, then maybe they can move forward. And, more to the point, maybe Blake and I can date without our parents being at each other’s throats.
As Blake parks outside the house and we step out of the truck, I spy Sheri making her way over to us from the stables. She blows a strand of hair out of her face and wipes her hands together, nonplussed.
“LeAnne,” she says. “Is everything okay?”
I imagine LeAnne hasn’t stepped foot on the Harding Estate property in twenty years, so although Popeye and Sheri are friendly with her in public, a personal home visit is disconcerting. Sheri shoots me a wary glance and doesn’t even give the boyfriend clothes I’m wearing the five seconds of judgment they deserve.
“Morning, Sheri,” LeAnne says coolly, her manner back under her usual icy control. “I need to talk to Everett and Marnie. Urgently. Are they here?”
