Nothing was said until they were back in the car and moving, both pressed against their respective doors.

‘What did you think of my mother?’ Christian asked, amusement and bitterness both vying for control in his voice.

Alessandra was unable to do anything but raise her shoulders and blow air out of her mouth.

That had to be the most surreal experience of her life, like stepping into some parallel universe where poison ivy grew instead of roses.

‘Do you understand now why I don’t want her at our wedding?’

‘I think so.’ She shook her head some more. She could still taste the acrid atmosphere, overwhelming even the cloying bleach. ‘What did she say to you?’

‘The usual. That I’m a useless son for leaving it so long between visits; that her house isn’t good enough for her; that the house is too big for her, that it’s too small, that her car is getting old. The usual.’

the house for

other two didn’t match her needs. I buy her a new car every year. I give her a large allowance. It’s never enough. I could give her my entire fortune and it wouldn’t be enough. If she came to the wedding, she’d spend the day complaining. Nothing would be good enough for her, and when she isn’t complaining she’ll be telling all our guests about my no-good bastard

shattered her. Whatever love had once resided in his mother’s bones had been destroyed, leaving nothing but the toxic shell of the woman she must have once been. Christian understood it, could see how she had become like that. Stratos Markos hadn’t just walked away from her, he had walked away from the child they had created

like this?’

what she was saying to you when we left, that you’re a fool to be marrying me and

shock was palpable. ‘She said that about her

am my father’s son, something she never lets me forget. In my mother’s world, all men are liars

sympathy. ‘You’re not to

know that.’ But right then he didn’t want to hear any platitudes. A coldness

same after he visited his mother. Regardless of the heat outside, inside all he

fair for her to label all men as bastards because

he said roughly. ‘That all men are

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