Page 253 of The Billion Heirs Boxed Set

“I don’t know where you put it.” Mom shakes her head with a smile. “To be young again.”

Our server comes by, and Grady orders his cake.

“Anything for you ladies?” He aims his grin squarely on me.

“A cup of coffee,” I say. “Black.”

“Same.” Mom smiles. Once he’s gone, she says to me, “He was checking you out, Avery.”

I roll my eyes. “He’s got to be ten years younger than I am.”

“I’m not telling you to go out with him. I’m just remarking that he finds you attractive.”

“Gross,” Grady says with an eye roll.

“Your mother is a beautiful woman, Grady.” Mom straightens the silverware on her empty plate.

“She’s a mom.” Grady downs the rest of his soda. As if moms can’t be pretty. Or dateable.

The server comes back with the cake, which Grady inhales. I take a few sips of the mediocre coffee. I nod to Mom. “You ready?”

I want to get home and get mom to tell me the rest of what she was going to say before Grady interrupted us. I know it’s important and a secret she’s kept for years.

She twists her lips. “Yes. Let’s go.”

Grady barrels inside and heads to his room to play video games. I sit down on the couch, slouching so my feet can rest on the coffee table.

“Avery…” Mom begins, standing behind a matching chair and holding the back.

“Yes. I know. Let’s talk.”

She looks around. “Not here.”

I frown. “Why not? Grady’s in his room. He won’t hear us.”

Most houses in Phoenix are one story because of the heat. The cost is too great to keep a second story cool. Ours is like that. Still, Grady’s room is down a long hallway at the back of the house. If he’s playing video games as he planned, he’s got a headset on and ’wouldn’t know if a bomb went off three feet behind him.

She sighs and takes a seat on the couch next to me. Very close. “Okay. You’re probably right.”

I turn my head and study her closely as if she’s a suspect I’m interrogating. I know her tells better than any criminal’s. Or do I?

“Level with me. There was no aunt who left you money, was there?”

She sinks her head into her hands.

Yeah, I figured it out. In fact, now that I know, it all seems so clear. I just didn’t notice at the time because I was heartbroken over Chance, and then hormonal with the pregnancy. Nearly losing my life delivering Grady put things in a new perspective for me. Chance was gone, but Grady was here, and he needed me. He became my life, and I buried the past.

Mom finally lifts her head. Her eyes are bleak. “I’m sorry.”

“Did Jonathan Bridger come to you? Or did you go to him?”

She purses her lips and swallows hard. “It’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is. Who made the first step?”

“He did,” she says. “But the first time he came to me I told him to go fuck himself.”

I jerk forward, drop my feet to the floor. “Wait a minute. This wasn’t a one-time thing?”