“If you two would like to get settled after your trip, I’ll have someone grab your bags. Mother is in the solarium resting if you’d like to see her. Melinda and Patrice have been busy preparing afternoon tea and hors d’oeuvres if you’re feeling peckish.”
“Peckish. I am very peckish,” Jillian responds.
“Yes, well, had I known you’d gained so much weight, I would have altered the menu. Really, Jillian, your hips cannot handle the amount of carbs you must take in.”
With that, Claire leaves on a whirl, elegantly gliding out of the entry area. Stetson follows without so much as a goodbye, or hell, a hug hello for his only child. Jillian practically lunges out of my arm, so I pull her tight to my chest, lifting her off her feet.
“Calm down, honey,” I mutter. Once they’re gone, I set her back down. “Good God, your parents are more nightmarish than you’ve ever described.”
“And just think,” Jillian says, exhaling a shaky breath. “I only told you the nicer things.”
Well, hell.
“So. Nana?”
7
Jillian
It’s sometimes unbelievable to me I could grow up in such a gorgeous spectacle of old-world Charleston. Blocks from Battery Park and the ocean, I grew up feeling the saltwater breeze licking my skin and experiencing the most gorgeous of sunrises. Our neighborhood has some of the most colorful homes filled with many of the richest histories in the southern states of my country. Yet despite the glamour and pride I love about my heritage, I feel sick to my stomach as I ascend the staircases I used to get scolded for sliding down.
There is so much ugliness within these walls.
So much pretentiousness the hallway and staircases to the third floor practically reek with it.
I’m still fuming up the staircase, almost taking them double-time due to my mother’s parting remark.
“Carbs,” I practically spit. “Like she knows what I freaking eat or how many carbs I take in, and weight gain. Psssh. I’ve been this weight since I went to college.”
“I’m not quite positive, but talking to yourself might be a symptom of mental collapse.”
“Shut up,” I grumble. Although Klaus might be right.
Spending the weekend here might send me straight to a mental hospital for as crazy as it’s sure to make me.
“You know she only says those things to get a rise out of you, right? I’m betting your mother wants you to want to be like her, so any helpful advice she can give, means it swings in her favor you’ll ask her for help.”
My steps stall halfway up the much less grand staircase to the third floor. “What?”
Klaus shrugs, and I swear he almost blushes. “That’s my theory anyway, when I’m at least attempting to think the best of her, but from everything you’ve said about your mom, I also think I’m right.”
“Of course you think that.”
His confidence isn’t lacking in any area. Ever.
“Do you think I’m wrong?”
I stopped trying years ago to figure out why my mother is so critical of me, but I consider what he’s saying. I threw fits over food, insisted on trousers or jeans unless I was forced into a dress for special occasions. Even then I usually spent so much time climbing the willow trees, they were guaranteed to be ripped or wrinkled by the time photo opportunities came along.
I brought a garter snake to my cotillion in seventh grade so I didn’t have to practice the waltz.
I’ve never been what my mother wanted, even before I realized who she wanted me to be. Had I been more compliant, would her criticism sting so much or would I take it as the helpful advice she might intend it to be?
He might have a point.
“Whatever,” I grumble, and head down the hall toward the solarium. I don’t have the mental bandwidth to spend a lifetime of frustration this weekend.
Klaus falls into step next to me, our hands brushing as our arms sway, we’re so close. His cologne is mild but spicy, and I’m pretty sure the taste of him still lingers on my tongue from that kiss outside.
In front of Roman.
A smirk twists my lips and I bump into him. “Thanks for putting Roman in his place when we first got here. Forgot to thank you for that.”
“You never have to thank me for kissing you. I quite enjoyed it myself.”
My jaw unhinges, straight to the navy blue with white fleur-de-lis carpeted floor runner.
Klaus, like he hasn’t knocked me straight to my ass for at least the third time today, twists the doorknob and opens it, walking straight into the glass-enclosed sunroom. I follow, instantly pelted with the warmth from the summer sun.
“Shh,” he whispers, and I swear there’s a sparkling gleam in his eyes. He likes making me speechless.
Hmm.
I spy Nana immediately.
She’s sitting in a floral chair, wearing her standard bright-color muumuu—this one covered in what looks like hibiscus flowers—almost making her camouflaged with the chair.
Her feet are kicked up on an ottoman, toenails painted a bright, fire-engine red.
“It’s the color of victory, dear child, and all women should paint themselves victorious.”
She’d told me that once when I wore a red Christmas dress and yanked and pulled on the uncomfortable thing all day. That’d shut me up and made me straighten my shoulders.
I could be victorious.
Her graying hair, properly pressed and curled is as silvery as it’s been since that day so many years ago. I swear she hasn’t changed.
“Maybe we should let her sleep,” Klaus whispers, his lips brushing against my ear.
“Don’t be silly.” I don’t bother lowering my voice. I know Nana’s games. “She’s not sleeping. Are you, Nana?”
She rolls her head in our direction and cracks open one eye. “‘Bout time you got here. If I had to sit in this room any longer pretending to be asleep I was worried your mama was gonna have me hauled outta here in a hearse.”
Next to me, Klaus chokes on his laughter, earning her attention.
“And well, hello… who do we have here?”
More spry than any woman should be at seventy-eight, Nana hops to her feet. “Aren’t you just the most handsome man I’ve seen all week long.”
All week. This woman is a trip. She’s sweet as peach pie with a side of sass, straight down into the marrow of her bones and pistol-whip smart. I still have the hardest time believing my own mom grew up with Nana. On the other hand, I always heard my grandpa was a bear of a man. He took off when Mama was too little to remember him, and Nana’s never mentioned his name since without spitting to the ground at her feet.
Maybe my mom takes after him?
Hm. More to ponder when I have a minute. Which isn’t now, because Nana has moved so quickly her wrinkled and age-spotted hands are firmly pressed to Klaus’s cheeks.
“You are just the handsomest man. And you came with our beautiful Jillian?”
As she talks to him, squishing his face up, she shakes his head back and forth. Klaus’s blue eyes are at risk of popping out of his head and he gives me what can only be a HELP! look.
I stand back, rolling my lips together.
“Thank you,” he mutters, but it comes out sounding like, “Shan—uu.”