Embrace My Heart completed

RIVALRY: SLAY ONE

ONE

“You really screwed this one up, Celia. Hudson is officially out of reach. You let him slip away, and now everything you dreamed of is over.”

I rolled my eyes, even though my mother couldn’t see my face through the phone. I was tired of this speech. I’d heard a variation of it at least three times a week since my childhood friend had gotten married over two years ago.

As for my dreams being over...well, it had been a long time since I’d imagined myself ending up with Hudson Pierce. That was my mother’s aspiration, not mine. Not anymore.

There wasn’t any use in arguing with her. She found some sort of comfort in lamenting over her daughter’s failures, and this particular lament was one of her favorites.

“From what Sophia says, he’s even more devoted now to this marriage than he ever was, and I’m not at all surprised. A man will leave a wife easily enough, but when she gets pregnant, forget it. He’s sticking around.”

I leaned my head against the window of my Lyft car and sighed. “How is Sophia these days?” It was a manipulative redirection on my part. It disgusted me that she pretended otherwise, but Hudson’s mother wasn’t exactly on friendly terms with Madge Werner like she once was.

Pity.

That was also my fault. Hudson’s fault too, not that either of our mothers would ever concede that fact.

I knew my tactic worked when my mother huffed loudly in my ear.

Just as I’d thought. My mother hadn’t directly spoken to Hudson’s mother about any of this. Likely, she’d picked it up through the grapevine. A friend of a friend or overheard it at a charity luncheon. What else did the rich bitches do these days to keep themselves entertained?

My own methods of amusement certainly weren’t of the popular variety. But they were definitely more fun.

Or they once were, anyway. Even The Game had lost its spark in recent years.

“I don’t even know why I bother talking to you about this,” my mother droned on. “It’s your own fault you’re not with Hudson.”

There was his name again. Hudson. There had been a time when it hurt to hear it. A time when immense agony had wracked through my body at the two simple syllables. That was a lifetime ago now. The bruise he’d left was permanent and yellowed with age, and I pressed at it sometimes, saying his name, recalling everything that had transpired between us, just to see if I could provoke any of those emotions again.