Page 67 of The Lies We Tell

Tessa nodded slowly. She’d put this pain, these memories, in a box so long ago. Her father had forced her to dig them all out. He’d dangled this hope in front of her and turned her into someone she hated. Someone like him, willing to lie to and hurt and betray someone she loved to get what she wanted.

“I don’t want to be like him,” she murmured.

Sienna frowned. “Like who?”

“Like my father.” Tessa blinked, realizing what she’d confessed, and quickly tried to cover her slip. “He felt nothing when my mother disappeared. He barely looked for her, didn’t miss her, didn’t mourn her. Eventually I gave up hope and started feeling nothing too. Now we’re the same.”

They sat staring quietly out the window for a long moment, Tessa’s hands clenched tightly in her lap.

“We can choose.”

Tessa looked up to find Sienna staring at her, some emotion Tessa couldn’t name swirling in her eyes. Sienna cocked her head, studying Tessa as much as Tessa was studying her.

“We can choose which parts of our parents live on through us and which parts we stamp out. You don’t have to be the same. Not if you don’t want to be.”

Tessa gave Sienna a small smile. “Thank you. I’m sorry for crying all over you.” Pushing to her feet, she turned for the door then stopped herself. “Did you need something?”

“What?”

“You came to find me. I thought you needed me for something specific.”

“Oh.” Sienna seemed to hesitate, but ultimately smiled. “No. I just heard the great pillow toss and wanted to see if you were okay.”

“I appreciate it.”

Tessa slipped out, padding down the long hallway to the other wing. She could not afford to lose her composure around these people. She had to keep it together until her father called.

But she was tired of waiting. A week was plenty of time for him to find her mother and get in touch. And if he had nothing, then he needed to say that so she could play her next hand.

Closing her bedroom door behind her, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and brought up a new text message to her father.

I want to talk to Mama. Now.

Three dots appeared and disappeared on the screen. Then his message popped up.

I’m working on it. I’ve been a little busy, and it’s been difficult convincing her to talk to you.

He could not have said a more hurtful thing if he tried. Swallowing a fresh wave of tears, Tessa quickly typed out a new message.

If she doesn’t call me tomorrow, our deal’s off, and I’ll tell Matteo everything.

It was a risk, this particular brand of blackmail, but her father’s response came through faster than she expected.

Fine. Noon.

Tessa tossed her phone on the bed. Shoving her hands through her hair, she stared down at it. By this time tomorrow, she’d be listening to the sound of her mother’s voice for the first time in eight years.

And if it wasn’t her mother on the other end of the line… She shook her head. It had to be. She needed it to be. She’d clung to hope for this long. She could hold on a little longer.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Tessa paced back and forth in front of the doors to her balcony. Rain lashed at the windows and ran down the panes in thick rivers. The trees whipped in the wind coming off the sea, swaying until they looked like they might snap in half before righting themselves again.

It was a wild, living, breathing thing beating against the glass. The fact that it matched her mood perfectly wrung a wry chuckle from her lips. She thought that kind of thing only happened in movies.

Her gaze swung to the clock on the nightstand, and her chest constricted as the neon numbers ticked over. Eleven fifty-seven. Just three more minutes before her phone would ring. The anticipation was eating her alive.

She’d realized sometime in the early hours of the morning there was really no good outcome here. She could no longer pretend she’d be able to walk away from Matteo as if nothing happened. Whether she betrayed him and had her mother back or she didn’t, today was a linchpin moment that ended with someone suffering at her hands.

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