Surrender (Bound Hearts #1)

Moving In

Her mother was waiting on her when she came down the stairs, her suitcase in hand. Ella Delacourte was a small, spare woman, with dark brown hair and sharp hazel eyes. There were few things she missed, and even less than she was tolerant of.

"So you're still going," she snapped out as she eyed the suitcase Tess set by the front door. "I thought you would have more pride than that, Tess."

Tess pressed her lips together as she fought to keep her sarcastic reply in check.

"This has nothing to do with pride, Mother," she told her quietly. "He's still my father."

"The same father who destroyed your family. Who ensured you lost the home you were raised in," Ella reminded her bitterly. "The same father that married the whore who meant more to him than you did."

Tess's chest clenched with pain, and with anger. She wasn't a child anymore, and there were times when she could clearly see why her father had been unable to get along with her mother. Ella saw only one view, and that was hers.

"He took care of us, Mother," she pointed out. "Even after the divorce."

"As though he had a choice." Ella crossed her arms over her breasts as she stared at Tess in anger.

"Yes, Mother, he had a choice after I reached eighteen," Tess reminded her bleakly. "But I believe he still sends you money and provides whatever you need, just as he does me. He doesn't have to do this."

"Conscience money," Ella spat out, her pretty face twisting into lines of anger and bitter fury. "He knows he did us wrong, Tess. He threw us out—"

"No, you elected to leave, if I remember correctly." Tess wanted to scream in frustration.

The argument never ended. It was never over. She felt as though she continually paid for her father's choices because her mother had no way of making him pay.

"He's depraved. As though you need to spend a week at his house." Ella was shaking now with fury, contempt lacing each word out of her mouth. "Those parties he throws are excuses for orgies, and that wife of his—"

"I don't want to hear it, Mother—"

"You think your father and his new family are so respectable and kind," she sneered. "You think I don't know how you watched that brother of hers. That I didn't know about the flowers he sent you last year. They're monsters, Tess." She pointed a thin, accusing finger at Tess. "Depraved and conscienceless. He'll turn you into a tramp."

Tess felt her face flame. She had fought for years to hide her attraction to Cole. She had heard all the rumors, knew his sexual exploits were often gossiped about. He had more or less admitted them to her on several occasions.

"No one can turn me into a tramp, Mother," she bit out. "Just as there's no way you can change the fact that I have a father. I can't ignore him or pretend he doesn't exist, and I don't want to."