“Well…” I tried to take a step back and consider it. “I don’t want to be pushed into a corner. I don’t want to have to love him just because I got pregnant. That’s so teen movie, and it’s never how I wanted to live my life, and—”
“Okay, turbo.” She held up her hands. “Hold on. First of all, you just said that you loved him. And judging by how fast you took off after you got the news, I’m guessing you came to that decision well before you found out you were pregnant, right?”
“…I guess so.”
“So they’re really not related,” she said practically. “You love him. And, you happen to be pregnant with his child.”
“But it’s more complicated than that…” I said helplessly.
“Okay.” She gave me a thoughtful frown. “Explain it to me.”
My mind scrambled as I tried to come up with some sort of tangible response to the rush of emotions I’d been feeling since I left.
“We perpetuated…this lie. We did it to the media and Marcus’s business associates, and we did it to our family and friends. This whole thing started out so wrong.”
She tilted back on her heels and stared up at the ceiling. “When I met your father, I was engaged to another man, living on food stamps, and seriously considering becoming a Wiccan.”
My jaw fell open. “…Really?”
“Not the point.” She shook her head. “Point is, good things start in strange places.”
“But you divorced Dad after he walked out on us,” I ventured.
She clapped a hand on my shoulder. “And that, my dear, is the other marital life lesson I wish to impart.”
I shook my head and smiled. “What’s that?”
“Marry the guy. If it doesn’t work out—you can always divorce.”
We laughed uproariously until we had no breath left to speak. Laughed until we’d made a serious, flailing dent in her perfect arch of photographs. I leaned down to start gathering them back up, but she reached out and caught my hand, examining the gigantic ring.
“And honestly…I should have known something was up. I’m your mother.” She sighed a little before turning back to the photographs. “I just thought—this is one of those teenage rebellions I’d read so much about in the parenting books. Those flash decisions that leave everyone else in the dust. She’s just having it a few years late.”
I smiled wistfully. “If only it were so.”
“But I knew that you’d never get engaged to a guy I knew nothing about. I should have put two and two together,” she chided herself. “I was just so happy that you’d found someone!”
My lips curled up in a mischievous smile. “If it’s any consolation, you raised a daughter who makes keen business decisions. Think of this as, I’m finally taking control of my finances.”
“Keen business decisions—ha!” She shook her head in despair. “The man’s worth almost fourteen billion dollars. You settle for twenty thousand? Please.”
My heart palpated, and I felt like I had a minor stroke. “Fourteen billion?” I repeated in disbelief. “No way is he worth that much.”
“Honestly, Bex, don’t you read?” My mother held up a picture of me sticking my face into a plate of pasta. “This should have been my first clue.”
“Actually, I’ll have you know that I read a lot of things.” I jutted up my chin importantly. “For example, did you know that Marcus Taylor started an adult education program from the ground up in Singapore?”
She crossed her arms and stared at me skeptically. “You saw the Time article in Doug Wentworth’s drug store, didn’t you?”
I thought of the soggy copy molding in my bag and flushed defensively.
She laughed again and stuck a copy of the pasta picture into the book. “One way or another, I’m glad you found him. I’ve never seen you light up that way around a man. And the way he looks at you? Please. The man’s crazy about you.”
A warm glow bubbled away in my stomach. “Yeah, Marcus is…well, Marcus. He’s the perfect guy, right?”
“No, sweetie,” she said suddenly, surprising me. “But he’s your perfect guy. That’s all I care about.”
The words couldn’t have come at a better time, and without any warning or explanation, I seized her in a huge hug. She laughed in surprise, but held me tight, kissing the side of my head, smiling.