Page 67 of Unexpected Prejudice

“Lev.”

My heart stopped to the familiar sound of her voice, and I looked up to see my mother standing by the door. She looked the same as I remembered with sandy blonde hair that sat on her shoulders, big blue eyes, pale skin, and a slim body emphasized by her tight dress. My mother, Yelena, was a beautiful woman. She was so beautiful that men always looked at her, which I hated.

Since I’d been ignoring her texts and calls, I wasn’t at all prepared to see her standing right here where I lived and worked. And I definitely wasn’t ready to talk to her.

“What are you doing here?” I asked in Russian. It was weird speaking it after so long. Andrei was also Russian, though we never spoke it between ourselves. His language needed improvement. I’d been born in Moscow and had moved here, whereas Andrei had been born and raised in the U.S., so his vocabulary was shameful.

“Lapochka.” Sweetie. “Look how grown up you are,” she said back in Russian.

As she took a step toward me, I got up from my chair to get as far away as possible until my back hit the wall.

“What are you doing here?” I nervously repeated my question. What if one of the guys saw her? Fuck. Jessie was about to come back home. What if he’d seen her?

“I came to see you, of course.” She stopped in her tracks and rested a hand on her waist. “You kept ignoring my calls and messages. What other choice did I have? You’re my child.”

Her child? You gave up on me, remember?

“I missed you, sweetie.” She said it so kindly, as if she genuinely meant her lies.

“We haven’t spoken in two years, and all of a sudden you’re hit with longing?”

She sighed heavily and shook her head. “You have every right to be mad at me, Lev. I know I wasn’t the best mother.”

Lev. My given name. I hated it, not that my mother had any way of knowing that, considering how she wasn’t a part of my life. I hated it because it made it obvious I wasn’t from here. That I was different. From the beginning, Jessie only called me Levi, and after getting out of Juvie, I’d legally changed it.

“Very far from it, I’d say.”

“But I am still your mother,” she said louder, cutting into my snarky comment. “The only mother you ever had, and I came here because I needed to apologize.”

As if apologizing after years of neglect would change anything.

“I know what you’re thinking. That apologizing after so many years won’t change anything, but it could, Lapochka. Trust me on that.” She made another step toward me and since I had nowhere to go, I stayed still and turned my head the other way.

“So, why now? What changed?” As angry as it made me, and as much as I wished to ignore her, I couldn’t help but ask.

“Robert and I are splitting.”

She’s divorcing her rich, fancy husband? Why?

“We’ve been fighting so much lately, and I couldn’t do it anymore. The truth is, we haven’t been in love for a very long time.”

“Don’t mistake money for love,” I muttered.

By now, she was close enough for me to smell her fragrance. It was an unfamiliar smell.

“I loved Robert the same way I loved your father.”

How dare she mention my dad? “So, I guess you didn’t love him very much.”

“Lev…”

“Besides, why should I care? It’s not like I even knew your Robert. He was just a name.”

“Lev, I know you’re also mad because of what happened between me and your father.” She rested her palm on my cheek, but I quickly brushed it away.

“Don’t touch me.”

She sighed and took a step back. “Fine, you don’t have to forgive me now, but believe me when I say I loved Maxim very much.”