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And she says, “So, you must be the current little gold digger.”
“I’m sorry?”
She tsks and shakes her perfectly manicured finger in my face. “Oh no, honey, don’t ever be sorry. Just own it. If you’re going to do it, then don’t ever let anyone shame you for it.”
“I… I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“Luna? Who are you talking to?” Kingsley calls out from the other room before coming up behind me, fully dressed, his hair slicked back. “Mother.”
He says the one word with so much loathing, I feel my body shrink into itself. I didn’t think his voice could sound like that.
He steps into the office without giving me so much as a glance.
“Kingsley, really? You couldn’t be conducting your”—she gestures to me like I’m a rodent in a glue trap—“businesssomewhere else? Your father used to just go to a hotel. Or so I assume. He was much too smart to be caught. Of course, that would be hypocritical of me.” Her voice is elegant, airy, the polar opposite of the words she’s saying.
“What are you doing here, Mother?”
“I came to speak to you. Your brothers made sure we couldn’t have a word at Ernest’s funeral.”
The sound of my father’s name draws a gasp from me, and I cover my mouth a second too late.
“Are you okay, dear?” his mother says, peeking around him at me, her face intrigued.
“You need to leave,” Kingsley says.
She sighs and wanders over to sit on the couch. “No, Kingsley. You need to sit down and talk to me. It’ll be for your own good. I think you’ve heard by now that your uncle Gerry is back in London. We should talk about what that means.”
“We are. That doesn’t involve you.” His voice contains no affection, no sign that this is the woman who gave him life. I can’t imagine what she must’ve done to make him talk to her this way. Kingsley is grumpy, professional, even calculated sometimes. He commands a room with a single word. But I’ve never heard him speak with such coldness. She hurt him—or she hurt someone close to him—and he hasn’t and will not forget.
“Kingsley, I’m here to help you. You need to listen to me.”
He scoffs, his hand coming up to cross over his chest. Defiant. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t believe you. But since you’re here, I will give you the benefit of two minutes. I suggest you start talking. Now.”
The woman eyes me again, and I shrink a little more behind Kingsley’s back.
“Shouldn’t you”—she waves her hand dismissively at me—“take care of…”
Don’t need to tell me twice.
“It’s okay. I have to get ready for work anyway.” I run back into his apartment before he can say anything, slamming the door behind me, and all but hide in the shower.
Kingsley’s mother.
He hasn’t mentioned her once to me.
He’s talked about his brothers, if I’ve asked a question outright, and has even mentioned his father now and then.
But never his mother.
Well, there was one time at the dinner that night. What had he said? “You assume she taught me anything at all.”
It made no sense then, and it just feels even stranger now.
I don’t know what she did to him, but Kingsley is a different person around her.
One I’m not sure I know how to navigate.
I quickly shower without washing my hair, wanting to hold onto a shred of last night with me—the scent of his sweaty hand wrapped around my tangles as he kissed me.
