Risking It All: London Calling Book Three Read Online Free PDF

called her.
    She blinked, snapping her mind shut on the recollection. Her mother was looking at her, a puzzled smile curving her lips.  
    “Nat, are you okay?” Her mother’s hand fluttered then fell back at her side.
    Natalie cleared her throat. “Yes, Mum. Sorry, I was a million miles away for a second.” The electric teapot was furiously boiling on the countertop. “Let me make the tea.”
    With the ease of practice and familiar surroundings, she reached for the jar containing her mother’s favorite blend. She scooped out several teaspoons into a steel mesh filter before pouring the boiling water over it into an earthenware teapot. She picked up the rounded egg timer that sat beside the Aga stove and twisted it to the desired time.
    Four minutes. How could they have reached the point where waiting four minutes seemed like a lifetime? Natalie searched her brain for something to say.  
    Something like pity flashed in her mother’s expression. Walking over to the small breakfast nook, she gestured for Natalie to follow. “Natalie, please sit down.”  
    Natalie swallowed. Her mother rarely addressed her by her full name. Always it had been darling , honey , or simply Nat. By distancing herself, she cut herself off from her mother’s natural warmth. The damage was done, but she missed their bond. As Natalie was growing up, they’d forged a strong connection living on their own. Just the two of them, they were a team.
    And that was the heart of her problem.
    Years ago, after she moved to London and made a respectable place for herself, she looked up her father. He never lived with them, but she remembered the regular frequency of his visits. Since her parents never wedded, she carried her mother’s surname. Years passed and his visits became shorter and less often. All the while, Natalie tried harder and harder to convince him to stay. She dressed prettily, practiced her manners, and doted on his every word. All in the hope she could convince him to make them a proper family.
    The kind of family where parents married and shared a home.  
    By the time he left them, never to return, Natalie blamed her mother. Her mother was weak, unable to thrive without her lover’s influence or assistance. She settled for the crumbs he tossed to her, financially and emotionally. After his desertion, he spitefully stopped paying for their home. Within a year, they moved to a soulless, subsidized block of housing units on the outskirts of London.  
    And when Natalie found him, eager to re-establish a family connection, he laughed at her without an ounce of humor.  
    “I have a family.” Turns out, he married another woman weeks after leaving. By the time Natalie showed up again, he had three sons.  
    As she stood before him on that long ago day, he’d looked her up and down.  
    “You have the look of your mother. As far as I can see, there’s nothing of me in you.” He’d turned his back, walking away before they had a chance to be seated at the outdoor café she’d picked for the meeting.  
    Stunned, she’d accepted a seat for herself. It began raining and she’d huddled beneath the table’s umbrella, unbelieving her father could dismiss her so totally. She could recall the astringent gin cocktail the waiter brought and how she’d thought it tasted exactly like medicine.
    She supposed that’s what it was—an oral inoculation to protect her against the carelessness of unworthy men.
    Ever since that day, she interrupted when her mother spoke of him. The words, the love-steeped tone, the latent adulation of such a critically flawed man made Natalie’s stomach twist. She vowed to never, ever be like her mother and care for someone so weak and undeserving.
    She would be better than that.
    “Nat? Natalie?”
    Her mother interrupted her reverie, holding out a cup of tea. Shaking off the past, she forced a smile. “Thanks, Mum.”
    “You werea million miles away.”  
    “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”