Page 40 of Shattered Crown
We spent the next hour going through the folders she'd brought: allocation breakdowns, vendor contracts, timeline projections for the clinic expansion. The numbers were good. Better than good. If we stayed on track, we'd have three new mobile units operational by fall, reaching communities that had never had access to preventive care.
This was what mattered. This was the work that actually meant something.
Not Sebastian Dubois and his power plays.
Priya set down her empty coffee cup and stretched. "So," she said, a smile creeping across her face. "Are you excited?"
"About the clinic expansion? Obviously. The outreach potential alone…"
"About your date with Sebastian."
I nearly spit out my coffee. "Excited?" I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "Hell no. Absolutely not. Not even a little."
"But you're going, right?"
"Only because I have to." The words tasted bitter. "He paid for the date. The foundation accepted the money. If I back out now, it’s going to look like we don't honor our commitments." I shook my head. "I'm not going to enjoy it. Not even for a second."
Priya was giving methatlook again. The one where someone's trying to be polite but you can practically hear them thinking ‘bullshit’ in their head. I watched her open her mouth, probably to call me out, and felt a weird mix of relief and dread when the front door swung open instead.
Mom.
Of course.
She swept into the living room like she always did—like a thunderstorm, like something you couldn't possibly prepare for even though you knew it was coming. "Darling!"
The caftan was new. Coral and gold, flowing around her like she'd just walked off some Mediterranean yacht. Which, actually, she kind of had. Her hair was down, loose around her shoulders in a way that made her look younger than she had any right to, and her arms were already reaching for me before I'd even processed that she was here.
I managed to shove my laptop aside half a second before impact.
"Mom." The word came out muffled against her shoulder as she squeezed the air from my lungs. I gave her back a weak pat. "I can't breathe."
"I'm sorry, honey." She pulled back, but her hands stayed clamped on my shoulders while her eyes did that thing—that mom x-ray vision thing where they're somehow cataloging every bad decision you've made in the past week. "I just missed you terribly. You look tired. Are you sleeping?"
Here we go.
"I'm fine, Mom. The gala was just last night, so…"
"The gala! Yes!" She released me—finally—and dropped onto the couch, patting the cushion beside her like I was five years old.
I caught Priya gathering her folders in my peripheral vision, that amused smirk on her face that said:you're on your own. She slipped toward the door and I shot her a small wave that was absolutely a plea for help, which she completely ignored.
Traitor.
"Tell me everything," Mom said. "How did it go?"
I sank onto the couch beside her. "It went well. We raised almost eight hundred and fifty thousand."
"That's wonderful, sweetheart." Her whole face lit up, and I felt that little glow of accomplishment despite myself. "Now, let me tell you about the cruise. Your father and I had the mostmarveloustime."
And she was off.
For the next twenty minutes, I half-listened while she painted these elaborate word pictures—the Mediterranean coastline at sunset, wine-dark water catching pinks and golds from the sky. These tiny restaurants tucked into coastal villages where apparently everyone knew each other's names and the house vintage came from vineyards that were practically in the backyard. The night they danced on the deck under the stars, just the two of them.
It sounded nice. It sounded really nice, actually, in that way that made my chest feel a little tight.
"This is why you need to find someone," she said, squeezing my hand. Her rings pressed into my fingers. "So you can experience things like this. Travel, adventure, romance. You can't work all the time, Aria."
And there it was.
