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The text comes in immediately after I hang up.
A sigh gets trapped in my chest.
Great. Looks like I’ve got one hour to prepare for Clarissa’s mom.
Is there any way out of this? Because I’d take a round with my hate group over Liandra Maura any day.
* * *
The airport is buzzingwith activity. The crowd is thick, but I see Liandra right away.
She’s much smaller than Clarissa, barely five feet. Her thinning hair is in braids pulling away from her forehead. Her skin is like dark walnut and there’s not a wrinkle in it. She’s a beautiful woman. Even more beautiful when she smiles.
Which she isn’t doing right now.
And probably will never do in my presence.
Liandra spots me a little after I see her. That dark scowl on her face is like a bat signal screaming into the sky.
I approach carefully, in case she bites.
“Ms. Maura.”
“Cody.” Her voice is as flat as the pancakes I once made for Clarissa in college. “I’d say it’s a pleasure, but that would be a lie.”
I paint a smile on my face that I don’t feel.
If Clarissa is like the soft, sweet, singing Snow White in those animated fairy tales, her mother is like the dwarf that desperately wants to gouge the prince’s eye out. I’d say she’s ‘Grumpy’, but I think she’s more like ‘Murdery’.
“It’s good to see you again, ma’am.”
“Yes.” Her tight frown says the opposite. “My bag.”
I gesture to Vargas who I brought along with me because I need a witness in case my body goes missing.
My assistant scrambles to take Ms. Maura’s bag.
“Not him.” She snaps her fingers and points. “You.”
A muscle in my jaw flexes.
Remember, this is Clarissa’s mom.
I keep my expression calm and pick up her bag without complaint. My strategy is simple. Show her that I can take it and win her over with my sincerity.
She loves her daughter.
I love her daughter.
We have more in common than she thinks.
The driver takes the bag from me as soon as I get outside.
Liandra humphs. “He can’t even take care of simple things himself.”
I turn to her with a nod. “Clarissa said I should take you to her place, but her apartment is a little cramped so I booked you a suite at a hotel—”
“How do you know my daughter’s apartment is cramped?” Liandra steps into me, her tiny frame barely halfway to my chest. “How far have you two gone?”