She dragged her hands through her hair and shook her head. “Owen, be serious. I need a solution before I have to go back.”
“Okay, fine. We could just ignore her request.”
Her eyes bulged. “What the hell do you mean ignore her?”
I shrugged. “She clearly wants a response from me. And if I don’t give her one, she’ll be forced to do something else.”
“You’re missing the point. You think she wants a response from you. I know for a fact she just wants me gone. I don’t think this is about controlling you or whatever. She clearly wants to bend me to her will, and I think I have to comply.”
“Bullshit. You’re stronger than that. You don’t have to do what she wants.”
“She was very clear when she told me I needed to break up with you. That you weren’t someone I could have. Hell, she even suggested I pick another boy, offering to set me up with Phineas. Phineas. Your friend. All so I would do exactly what she wants. This isn’t a test. If it is a game, it’s one she’s playing for keeps.”
I sprang out of bed then, my feet making a soft thud on the rug beneath my bed. “What the fuck?”
“Yeah, that’s why I know she has zero intention for us ever being together. She’s going to personally see to it. By any means necessary. To her, I’m beneath you.”
Fuck. Bugger. Fuck.
My mother had gone too far now. Fucking Phineas? As if I would allow that. If she wanted to play like that, then it was war.
I forced myself to take a calming breath and sit back on the bed. When I pulled her into me, I cradled her and tucked my chin on her head. “Bullshit. You are a goddess, or hadn’t you heard? You deserve to have everything you want. I know this is hard. I will take care of this. I’ll make it all okay.”
“I don’t know if you can, Owen.” She sighed. “And I don’t know if I want you to. It’s my work—my future—I need to be the one to decide what to do next.”
“I finally have you in my life. I’m not walking away. Trust me. I’ll sort it. She won’t control us.”
Chapter 19
Owen
There were times in my life when I truly loathed my mother. Oh, I loved her in that sort of obligatory way that we love our parents, but there were times I actually loathed her.
How dare she butt into my life? As of this past August, I was a bloody adult. This was a long-standing habit of hers, deciding who I could be friends with, deciding who I could date, deciding what was best. I lived for summers when I returned to London, met my friends from around the world, had a taste of freedom I could only ever dream about.
But back in New York, ever since she’d established Preston Media here in the city, God, it was like I was being choked. And not in that fun, dirty kind of way.
I would deal with her.
The devastated look on Tanith’s face hadn’t gone away since we’d returned to Pembroke. Nothing I said to assure her was working. She thought she had to choose the internship or me, and she would have to make her gut-wrenching final decision in a week.
You twat. This was all my fuckup. She was hurting because of me.
All Sunday had been like that. Then Monday, she somehow managed to avoid me. There was no way I was letting that stand, though. She was mine and I was going to fix this for her.
Luckily on Tuesday, I only had one class in the morning, which gave me a chance to get into the city before the end of the workday. My mother thought she was the only game in town when it came to publishing. Preston Media was the extra fluffy cream on top of the cream of the crop. The thing was, for every industry event I’d been forced to attend with her, for every party where I’d been forced to smile, I’d made my own contacts. And if she was willing to dick with me, I was going to dick with her back.
Once I’d set my appointment, had my meeting, and pulled a few strings, I returned to campus late that night via car. I found Tanith downstairs in the study after hunting for her for over an hour.
She lifted her gaze to meet mine and I was struck by how exhausted she looked. “Oh, hi. Where’ve you been? I’d been looking everywhere for you.”
“I had something to do in the city.”
Her eyes flared. “Oh my God, your mother? She made you go all the way into the city on a Tuesday? Did she give you a . . . talk too?”
I knew what “talk” meant and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I was letting Tanith go. I clamped my jaw shut so I wouldn’t curse; that was what I wanted to do every time I thought about my mother. About what she’d done. What she’d tried to do.
Sorry, Mum, but you don’t get to do this, this time.
“No, not my mum. Something else, actually.”
Her body sagged. “Oh.”
“No, it’s good. I’ve figured it out.”
“What did you figure out? Did you talk to your father or something? I thought Preston was run by your mother?”
“It is. And Dad, as much as he would try to help, doesn’t run the show. When Mum sets her mind about things like the running of Preston, she won’t budge. He has no say, so that’s the wrong tactic to take.”
“Okay, then, what were you doing all day?”
I grinned at her. “Well, I sorted it because I won’t give you up.”
The corner of her lip twitched. I reached out
