Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 211 - Chapitre 219

SELENEIt's been two weeks since I've been back from Susan's, two weeks of never getting enough of the other Victor, and something about me finally feels like it's settled.I noticed it gradually. The night sweats stopped first, then the restlessness underneath my skin, then, eventually, the strange, insistent pull toward Victor that had made absolutely no sense given everything unresolved between us at the time. I've decided it was simply my body catching up to something my head hadn't fully admitted yet, that I wanted him, and once I'd finally acted on it, whatever pressure had been building just quietly released and left. It makes sense, in its own way. I've never been a woman who does well denying herself something she wants. Apparently my body agrees.Victor and I sat down together properly last week, both of us finally calm enough to actually discuss the agreement instead of arguing around it. I brought my own clause, the one I'd worked out at Susan's place weeks ago. If the

ARIANAI'm halfway through a call with Greg about quarterly logistics numbers when my phone buzzes with a second incoming call, and I nearly ignore it until I see the name.Linda.I let it ring twice more before I mute Greg and pick up. "Hello.""Ariana." Her voice comes through warm, careful, the particular tone of someone who's rehearsed the opening line more than once. "I hope this isn't a bad time.""I'm working." My voice is clipped and straight to the point."Of course. I won't keep you long." A pause, brief enough to be deliberate. "I was hoping we could have dinner. Just the two of us."I don't answer right away, and she seems to expect that, waiting me out without filling the silence herself for once."You're not obligated," she adds when I've let it sit a beat too long. "I know that. I just thought it would be nice to actually sit down and talk. It's been a long time since we saw each other properly. Since the day I found out you were my daughter."Something in my chest tigh

SELENEI put off the call for another four days before I finally make it."We need to talk," I tell her, the moment she picks up."Of course, sweetheart. What's going on?"I hesitate, not ready to say it over the phone. "Can we meet? In person.""Actually, perfect timing." Her voice brightens immediately. "I'm in Lakebridge this week, visiting someone. It would save you the drive to Blackbridge. I'll send you the address.""You're in Lakebridge?""Just for a few days."I don't think anything of it. She sends the address a moment later, a restaurant I don't recognize, and I tell her I'll see her there Thursday.I have no reason to suspect anything else.***The restaurant is the kind of place that makes you lower your voice just walking in, soft lighting and white tablecloths.The hostess looks at my jeans like they've personally offended her before she catches herself and smiles."This way, ma'am. Your party's already seated."I follow her through the dining room, and I see them befor

###218: What You GetARIANAI watch Selene go, the door swinging shut behind her, and then I turn back to the woman sitting across from me.Linda. My mother. The woman who encourages her own daughter to chase after men twice her age for the sake of a name, and somehow still manages to look at me like she's the one who's owed something.If I had to choose between her and Juliana, the woman who raised me without love, who saw me as a burden she never asked for and wished, more than once, that I simply hadn't existed, I might genuinely end up with no mother at all. Neither version is exactly the one you dream about as a child.But you don't get to choose your family. You only get to decide what you do with the one you're handed.I pick up my glass, take a slow sip, and set it back down."Can we do this again?" I ask. "Just not here."Linda looks up, surprised. "Not here?""Somewhere ordinary. Somewhere that actually tells me something real about you, instead of a menu with no prices on i