I inwardly grimaced. I was twenty-one, for God’s sake, and yet my mother insisted on calling me sweetie like she did when I was in preschool. “Hello, Mom.”
I knew my mom didn’t like calling me, and I really wasn’t trying to be a bitch. But ever since she married Derek Prescott, I had a hard time keeping my temper around either of them. It wasn’t like Derek was a bad guy, but he wasn’t my Daddy. “Did I call at a bad time? I was kind of hoping I wasn’t interrupting anything.”
I glanced at the timer on the bike and realized I’d only be giving up a minute of cool-down, so I let it slide. “No, Mom, you didn’t interrupt me. What can I do for you?”
Like I ever could, even if I wanted. Since marrying Derek, my mother didn’t want for anything. The man had more money than he could count, and I had to give him credit, he was a loyal, almost doting husband. My mom had hit the gold digger lottery, that was for sure.
“Well, honey, this upcoming weekend Derek wants to have a family gathering before our five-year anniversary. I know it’s been a long time since you’ve been by the house, and I know you’re busy, but it would really mean a lot to Derek and me if you could come.”
“Oh, Mom, you know how my work is,” I started, before I heard something in my mother’s voice I hadn’t heard before. She was sincerely asking me; this meant a lot to her.
“Please, Alix? I . . . I miss you.”
What about missing Daddy? You never missed him, now did you? I wanted to ask, but somewhere inside, I clamped down on it. It was perhaps the most infuriating thing about my relationship with my mother. I’d be ready to go off on her, to yell or to ask her about why she had done what she did to my Daddy, but then something inside would just shut up, not letting me vent my anger. I knew I was wrong for it, but I just had this deep resentment that was hard to shake. It was the same this time. I wanted to tell her to kiss off, but instead, with a voice I could barely recognize as my own, I agreed to go over to their house on Friday after my photo shoot.
“By the way, Derek spoke with Kade, and he’ll be coming too. He’s driving in sometime Friday afternoon.”
Kade. My stepbrother, who I had tried so hard to make a good relationship with. I mean, it wasn’t his fault that he was Derek Prescott’s only son. In high school, I’d always looked up to Kade as he studied his way through USC and then Stanford, before going up to Portland and starting his own law office.
There was only one problem. In public, at least when Derek or my mother were around, he was polite, charming, and really very friendly. But as soon as it was the two of us, he would mercilessly taunt me. When I showed him one of my test shots from a new photographer I had been working with, he’d said I looked like a zombie. When I was interviewed by a magazine, he’d made fun of some of my answers, saying I was the epitome of a Valley Girl blonde. After I’d done one, and it was the only, photo shoot with Khloe K, he was so brutal with his taunts and jibes that I’d thrown myself into my pillow crying after he left.
I didn’t even know why, because I was never mean or snippy with him. I honestly tried to be nice, but for some reason he kept pushing me away. I’d almost given up on him, which made me kind of sad. I didn’t want to have nothing good come out of my mother’s marriage to Derek Prescott.
After a moment of silence, I finally replied. “I see. Well, I hope he has some good stories about life in Portland. I haven’t had a chance to go up there yet.”
“I know, it’s been a long time for me too. Okay, honey, thank you so much for agreeing to come over to the house and give up your weekend. I know you must have a busy social schedule and everything, I really appreciate it. Love you.”
I smiled despite myself. “Talk to you later, Mom.”
* * *
Friday morning, I felt ready to put the past behind me. I had a new shoot going, and was heading over to have a hopefully relaxing weekend afterwards. If anything, even if I couldn’t stand either my mother or her husband, the Prescott mansion was more than capable of giving a girl a great place to relax. In addition to four-poster beds and mattresses that were made for a queen, there was a half-Olympic-sized pool and a full-sized Jacuzzi for relaxing. I had to admit, the few years I lived at the Prescott home before I turned eighteen were surreal. Since moving out on my own, supposedly because of the business of my modeling career, I’d come to miss it.
Walking into the studio where the shoot was supposed to take place, my heart froze when I saw the camera equipment that had been set up. Every photographer has a certain way they like to set things up, a tendency to favor certain types of equipment. Looking at the setup, I knew, even before he walked out of the back room, that Sydney was shooting the series.