“So how long are you staying?” Kelsey asks.
“I don’t know yet.” Crystal reaches back to tighten the band around her ponytail, the movement arching her back just enough to press her breasts forward. “I just wanted to see Liv. My mother passed away recently, so I was thinking I should go to Phoenix and see about her house and belongings at some point. Sooner rather than later, I suppose, since Liv won’t let me stay with her.”
A hundred curses race through my head and heat my blood. Somehow I manage to keep the anger from my voice as I say, “You know how small our apartment is. There isn’t room.”
“I wasn’t complaining, Liv,” she replies. “I’m saying that if I don’t find a place to stay, I’ll have to leave. And I’d hate to do that so soon considering I just got here.”
“I told you I’d help you pay for a hotel.”
“I don’t want to take your money. That’s not why I came to visit you.” She looks at me with something resembling disappointment. “But never mind. I’ll figure something out.”
She shrugs as if to say there’s no help for it. A tense silence descends. I slide my gaze to Max Lyons. He’s looking at my mother.
Of course he is. I know exactly what happens next. He’ll come to her rescue, pained by the thought of her having to leave Mirror Lake after she just arrived to visit her daughter.
He’ll offer her a place to stay, and she’ll be ever so grateful as she agrees to go home with him. She’ll go into his house, into his bedroom, and in exchange she’ll let him into her body, and she’ll stay with him until she gets antsy or bored or just needs a change, and then she’ll leave and find someone else.
If it were any other man, I wouldn’t care.
But even though I don’t know him well, Max Lyons is attached to my circle of friends, my life here in Mirror Lake, my new business, even my husband.
I still shouldn’t care. He’s an adult who can do whatever he wants. I have no right to be angry if he hooks up with my mother.
He begins speaking to her in a low voice. She nods, keeping a slight distance between them. She’s never been explicitly sexy, never needed low-cut blouses or tight skirts. She’s secure in her own skin, knows that she’s beautiful, knows how much men desire her. She knows how to get what she wants by giving them what they want.
My throat aches suddenly. I see Kelsey watching Max and Crystal too. Her eyes are ice-blue behind her glasses. She turns and walks to the door.
“Hey, Liv, get those orders in to Marianne soon, okay?” Kelsey calls over her shoulder, letting the front door slam shut behind her.
“Crystal, we should get going,” I say, interrupting her and Max’s cozy chat. “I thought you might want to look around town for a while.”
“Oh, sure.” She glances down at her clothes. “Can we stop at the apartment so I can change?”
“Okay.” I grab my satchel, tightening my hand on the strap as Crystal approaches me. Tension grips my shoulders. The scent of lavender fills my nose.
“I was just thinking it over,” I tell her. “Maybe you can stay with me for a couple of days after all.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dean
April 2
beat up the heavy bag at a downtown gym this morning, but I’m still mad. I don’t like Crystal Winter and never will. Not only did she fuck up Liv’s childhood, she failed in the worst possible way to protect her own daughter.
Every time I think about it, rage heats my blood. Every time I think about the fact that she’s here, that she could potentially hurt Liv again, I want to hit something. It’s all the worse because I can’t do anything about it. Because Liv doesn’t want me to.
I force the thought aside. Try to redirect my anger. Everything seemed almost manageable when I was working on the dig and thinking of ways to court my wife again, but now I don’t know what the hell to do.
I’ve been banned from setting foot on the King’s University campus. I’m not even allowed to go to my office or the library. Ben Stafford, director of the university’s Office of Judicial Affairs, set up this “phase one mediation meeting” in a private room in the basement of a downtown bank.
Feels like a goddamn prison. No windows. Fluorescent lights. Stale coffee.
Maggie Hamilton is sitting across from me, next to her father. Edward Hamilton is a big, gray-haired man who looks like he wants to leap across the table and rip me a new one.
Part of me wishes he’d try it so I’d have an excuse to fight back. My fists clench. Frances Hunter shoots me a warning look.
She told me I didn’t need a lawyer yet, and Stafford advised not having one present at this stage of mediation. Though I agreed, I’ve contacted a man whose firm specializes in sexual harassment cases. Edward Hamilton is a lawyer, and he’ll know exactly how to fuck with me. I need all the defense I can get.
After introductions and a summary of the charges, Ben Stafford starts in with questions.