Irreplaceable (Underneath it All Series: Book Three) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page B

a garage sale, and the thing was indestructible. Both me and Rose had stood on it, jumped off of it, hit knees, elbows, and shins. It didn’t suffer a dent through our childhood and when I came home as an adult, I would marvel at the fact that while everything in our house seemed to be falling apart, the table was still standing.
    My stomach twisted when my mother let out a snort. I knew that sound; knew the cadence and rhythm of it. It was usually filled with disgust. Not today. Today, it sounded like she was choking on blood.
    She cradled her chin, like she was trying to hold her face together. “I know you always hated that table. Now you don’t have to worry about it.”
    I thought it was impossible for my mother to surprise me anymore, but she’d outdone herself. “Are you making jokes right now, Mom?”
    She let go of her jaw and looked at me with the same shock that seized me, and then some. “What did you just call me?”
    “What? I...” Realizing what I’d done, I bit my lip. I wanted to yell at her. Like countless times growing up, I wanted to run away.
    I’d called her ‘Mom’. Twice in less than five minutes.
    My heart had the audacity to swell in my chest that she’d noticed. I shut that shit down immediately.
    I refused to believe that she cared. I refused to believe that calling her that was anything other than an involuntary twitch. The stress, the hurt, the fear. It was like laughing when you got bad news. An uncomfortable, inappropriate response to being upset.
    I refused to give her the pleasure of winning.
    “That’s what you have to say to me?” I stalked to the chair that was the furthest from her bed. I dropped onto it with a scoff and flipped my hair over one shoulder. I yanked at the red strands with disgust. I was disgusted with myself for being so weak. Furious at her because even in the hospital, after someone tried to literally beat her skull in, she still missed the point.
    “How about we not talk about my slip and you tell me what happened to you?” I clenched my teeth and cleared my face of emotion as best I could.
    “The last time you called me ‘Mom’ was before the fire,” she said softly, ignoring me. Her eye was glued to me, telling me lies, like usual. Tricking me by glossing over with tears. “Do you remember? You asked me if I was free to go to some school thing.”
    I struggled to ignore the fact that she remembered the day I closed my heart to her, gripping onto something irrelevant. See? It was just ‘some school thing’. She doesn’t care about you.
    If she could lie and manipulate, I could too. Of course I remembered that day. I’d skipped into her bedroom, inhaling the cinnamon incense she loved to burn. I let the warm scent wash over me. Embolden me. Deep down, I knew the answer would be no, just like it always was, but there was something about that incense and Mick Jagger’s wail that gave me hope. She only listened to music when she was in a good mood.
    I’d won the Scholastic contest and they were framing my essay and giving me my own bookcase filled with fifty books of my choice. I’d barely opened my mouth before she dismissed me completely.
    “Mom, there’s this thing at school-”
    “Didn’t I tell you to knock before you come into my room?” She’d growled, not even looking up from what she was doing. She was focused on her toes, painting them a sparkly, glossy red. The gleam of it reminded me of the essay I’d written about The Wizard of Oz . I’d titled the essay, ‘Home’. I’d lied, writing that my mother read the story to me when I was younger, pulling the book off the shelf whenever I was afraid. I wrote that the words, and her embrace, had reminded me that no matter how scary the world got, you could always go home.
    When she’d shooed me out of her room before I could even share my news, I promised myself that when I finally got away, I’d make a real home for myself someday. A place where my children were always