Page 24

Twenty-Four

Willow

I have two palms full of bread dough a couple of days later when my phone rings.

“Dammit,” I whisper.

I have dough to knead and food to finish prepping, a nice meal to put together for Hudson and Frankie, since we’re on babysitting duty for a few hours tonight. And I want to have it all ready before he gets back with his niece in tow.

We’re having fancy food—at Frankie’s request.

So, I’ve upped my YouTube recipe watching, spent lots of time practicing, and tonight we’re having homemade bread (loaded with garlic and cheddar cheese), marinated chicken breasts (they’re currently soaking in a delicious brine in the fridge), veggies that are cut prettily and spices (though not too much because she’s four and I don’t want to overwhelm her tastebuds), and scalloped potatoes (the slender slices carefully arranged in a pan, topped with cream and cheese and ready to be baked next to me).

Is it overkill for a meal, even a fancy one that a preschooler requested? Yes. But am I slowly going insane not having anything to do around Hudson’s house?

I’ve tried cleaning and organizing—but he has a housekeeper, so that didn’t take long.

Even the baseboards were free of dust.

And he’s not the kind of man to hoard junk that needs to be tossed or donated.

I’ve read until my eyes hurt, swam laps in his pool, used the gym on the ground floor. And while I might be stronger than I’ve been in years—even stronger than when I played a gun-slinging cowgirl a few films back—I’m slowly going insane.

Hudson has work, and while I know he would do it here—would be here—if I asked, he has a life and a business and clients to look after.

And I have…

Well, my safety. Time to get my head together, to let Hudson and Atlas and Madeline and Kate work their magic on my behalf, and while I’m beyond grateful, while I know how lucky I am to have it…

I’m slowly going insane.

I don’t have a script to memorize. I don’t have reshoots. I don’t have meetings to discuss future projects.

I’ve worked since I was a child.

Yes, I’ve taken breaks, but those breaks were always punctuated with what I would be doing next.

Even in my darkest days, there was always the next party, the next drama, the next high.

This peaceful existence—no matter how wonderfully safe—is beginning to make my skin itch.

I need to do something.

Today, that’s make a fancy three-course meal for a four-year-old and my boyfriend.

(And the third course is positively decadent—a four-layer chocolate cake filled with hazelnut mousse, salted caramel, and covered with a whipped ganache frosting.)

Tomorrow…

Well, I’ll figure it out.

Because if there’s anything I’ve learned about myself, that I’ve learned to trust over these last weeks, it’s that I will figure it out.

Maybe not alone.

But that’s okay too.

My phone rings again and I set the dough onto the floured board, reach over and swipe a dirty finger across the screen.

Unfortunately, I do this without looking at the caller ID because I’m focused on the bread. It needs its final rise before cooking can fully commence and the call has interrupted the transfer of my carefully formed loafto the pan where it can complete that rise.

“Hello?” I say as I scoop the dough back up and gingerly settle it in the pan.

There’s silence.

Long enough for my annoyance to grow and my scowl to deepen. If I’ve lost the air bubbles I’ve laboriously…well, labored to keep and my bread is heavy, there will be hell to pay.

“Hello?” I repeat as I cover the loaf with a towel, reach for my phone to disconnect what is obviously a spam call?—

But my finger doesn’t make it.

Because I freeze when the voice comes through the phone.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Thank God, the dough is safe.

Thank God, I don’t have a knife in my hand.

Thank God, I’m not the woman I was mere weeks before.

“Mother,” I say coldly, dumping the floured board into the sink and reaching for the vegetables I’ve already prewashed.

Fuck it, I’m employing my knife skills.

“I repeat,” she snaps. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Why don’t you start by telling me what it is you think I’m doing?”

“Dylan says?—”

“I’m not using again,” I growl, lining up green beans and efficiently trimming their ends.

Thank God, I played a chef once on a short-lived TV series.

Even with my blood pressure soaring and new rage filling me—my mother is calling me now? After everything?—I’m fairly confident that I’ll keep all my fingers.

Even when she scoffs and says, “Once an addict, always an addict.”

Same shit, different day.

I exhale, reach for my patience, but I don’t manage to grasp it, my tone sharp when I ask, “How’d you get this number?”

“You know there’s any number of ways to open up all sorts of doors.”

In other words, she bribed someone to get it—or Dylan did.

Ugh.

“What do you need, Mom?” I say on a sigh, making a mental note to pass this information along to Hudson. “More money?”

There’s a long moment of tense silence. “You have a lot of nerve, girl.”

“ I have a lot of nerve?” I ask, and it’s like now that I’ve begun, I can’t stop.

All of the little injustices are flashing through my mind, one after another like a fucked-up slideshow.

“Have I misremembered and you’re the one who paid for your house?

And that last cruise you took? And the new car you got last year? ”

My mom has her problems, but I’ve always supported her.

And I never was resentful of it.

Or was never aware of that resentment.

Because it’s sure as fuck blaring to the forefront of my consciousness right here and now.

“That’s beside the point,” she says. “We need to talk about poor Dylan about what you’re doing to him.”

“Poor Dylan?” I grit out, my anger reaching volcanic proportions. “ Poor Dylan?”

I set the knife down.

And look at that, I’ve rage-finished the green beans in record time.

“Yes, poor Dylan, ” she snaps.

I reach for the peeler, dump the tiny organic carrots I’ve left the stems on onto the cutting board, and start sheering off their tough exteriors. “Tell me how the man who has financially and physically abused me over the last years deserves any amount of sympathy.”

There’s the barest moment of silence, as though I’ve taken her by surprise.

But just as quickly, she pulls the wool back over her own eyes and gets lost in her delusions. “Well, I’m sure that whatever measures Dylan needed to take were necessary.”

“It was necessary to hit me?” I ask. “To sexually assault me? To”—I close my eyes, peeler pause—“to rape me? To punch me so hard that I ended up in a coma?”

Another pause. “You need to get clean, baby girl.”

My eyes fly open and I know it’s pointless to continue this conversation. She won’t believe me—not today, not ever. And I don’t know if it’s because she’s getting paid by my estate or she just believes that the sun shines out of Dylan’s ass, but…

She’s never going to believe me.

“Why did you do it?” I ask quietly.

There’s a long blip of quiet.

“You need to go home,” she goes on. “You need to go home to Dylan so he can help you with all of that.”

“Why did you sign everything over to Dylan?” I press. “Why did you take away all of my power, tie up my money and assets? I did the work. I was taking care of you and myself?—”

I got clean.

I’d lined up jobs.

“He was good for you. Stabilizing and he looked after you.”

Maybe if she’d done it when I didn’t need it so much, I would understand, would buy that.

But I’d been doing better.

And then she took away my freedom, just signed it right over to the devil.

“You know that’s not true.”

She scoffs. “He’s the only reason you have the career you have today, the only reason you can live as though you do?—”

And I get it then.

Because eventually the Bank of Willow would have closed.

My mother was protecting herself .

And just like that…

I’m done.

“I’m done,” I repeat aloud.

“What—?”

“I’m done with this conversation, done with you, done with it all.” I exhale. “Don’t call me again. Not today. Not next year. Not ever.”

“Willow—”

I reach out and hit the button to end the call.

And then reject the next one when she immediately calls back.

And then I block her, and maybe I should be sad but for the first time in a decade the persistent heaviness in my heart is gone. Because…

“I’m not her anymore,” I whisper.

Not just a child star. Not just a victim of the industry. Not just a teenager with too much access and too few boundaries. Not just a woman who faced and survived unspeakable horrors.

I’m strong and capable and successful.

I’m kind and respectful and talented.

I’m Willow Fucking St. Claire.

That’s enough.

I smile and hold that close.

And then I make some fancy fucking princess food for a little girl who’s all of that and more.