Cassandra sends me an ugly glower. I clench my teeth, breaking eye contact with her first.
Georgie’s gaze travels between her mother and I. “What’s going on?” She looks at me again. The truth is dawning on her. She’s asked me twice what I was doing at her house the night we met. I’ve never answered her. “You’re here for Sloane?” she says in a trembling voice. “That’s why he was there that night.”
It isn’t a question but rather a soul-crushing conclusion. Anguish twists her face and the eyes that I love so much fill with tears, liquid pools of amethysts. Her lips tremble and a sob escapes her. Just as I knew it would, the idea of me with her mother is tearing her apart. I vow, then and there, to smooth this over and never allow Georgie to discover my wretchedness.
I reach for her. Sneering at me, Cassandra mimics my actions.
“Georgie,” she coos, squeezing her daughter’s arm, her tone flat with condescension.
Gritting my teeth so I won’t slam Cassandra away, I keep my hands at my sides, ignoring my need to hold Georgiana and comfort her. “Let me explain,” I tell her.
She hiccups and shakes her head. “Explain?” she breathes in broken torment. “Explain you fucked my mother…” Her voice trails off and her eyes round. I wonder if her life has been sordid enough to where she’s figured out her father’s role. “Dad, too?” she whispers.
Cassandra bristles and draws herself up. “As if I’d fuck him,” she says in a level voice, sparing me a single nod but not one glance. “I could if I wanted to, since I have experience to offer him and you have nothing.” She drops her fingers from Georgie and offers her a grim smile. “Mature women are underrated for our sexual experience. He could learn a thing or two from me that the groupies he fucks at every concert can’t offer him in a thousand years.”
Kiln sniggers and I thrust my fingers through my hair in frustration. Cassandra really doesn’t give a fuck her words are crushing her daughter. She’s doing it out of jealousy and revenge for my spurning her. She believes I’ve taken Georgie to my bed, and has just trampled over whatever I might’ve told her to serve her purpose. Concern that her husband might discover our fucking drives her denial, otherwise, she’d willingly and gladly fill Georgie in on the gory details of the two times she and I fucked.
Chin trembling, Georgie focuses on me. Her gaze begs me for an explanation, anything that she can latch onto to make her conclusions not be real. I’m searching, too. Georgie is so fragile. She tries to be tough and not give a fuck, but she does. She cares that her parents, her entire family, couldn’t give less of a fuck about her.
She breathes in a deep breath and shudders. “Mom’s perfume was all over you that night.”
Pain laces her barely audible voice. I feel lower than I ever have. It makes an explanation hard to manufacture.
Once again, Cassandra rises to the occasion. Not for me or Georgie, though. She’s adding to her incorruptibility. “I hugged him when he agreed to spend time with you.”
For once I’m glad Cassandra is so cavalier with Georgie. It lets me off the hook of her discovering I stuck my dick in her mother. Extreme relief flows through me and I shake my head in silent affirmation of Cassandra’s lie.
Georgie blinks, doubt breaching the certainty of her idea. She glances at me. Her shoulders sag slightly when I concur with her mother’s explanation. Licking her lips, she gazes at her mom. “What…what do you mean?” she asks in a small voice. “Agreed to spend time with me?”
Waving a hand in dismissal, Cassandra continues. “We wanted to surprise you.”
Her mother’s words are credible to Georgie because she wants to believe them. It’s better than the alternative, but her indecision makes her as vulnerable as her previous anger.
Regret mutes my relief. I consider confessing the truth then and there. She’d believe me, too. She trusts me. It was my agreement with her mother’s words that decided her. With every explanation Cassandra offered, Georgie looked to me for confirmation.
Her trust in me is built on a house of lies. I don’t give a fuck. She believes in me and that’s what matters the most.
“You don’t think he’s spending time with you because you’re so interesting?” she mocks in a hard voice. “He’s doing it as a favor.”
Georgie’s relief, my relief, disintegrates. Her hands fly to her mouth and she whimpers. All over again, we’re thrust back into dangerous territory.
“That’s bullshit, Georgiana,” I bark out.
Cassandra lifts a smug brow. “As opposed to you and I fucking?”
Georgie’s been infatuated with me for years—this from her own admission—and her mother knows. “As opposed to Georgie feeling as if she isn’t good enough for me to spend time with her because of her, and instead of your fucking bullshit.”