The news shouldn’t take me by surprise. Given my mother’s long history of drug and alcohol abuse, I should have been prepared for this phone call.
I’m not. My throat closes and grief overtakes me. Angie Morland was a horrible mother, but she was the only mother I had.
“Madison?” she repeats. “Are you there?”
“Yeah.” I find the words with difficulty. “Sorry.” My mind races. I’ll have to arrange a funeral and figure out how to pay for it. My mom had driven away most of her friends with her substance abuse problem, but people will still need to be notified.
I can’t do all of that from Calgary. I’m going to have to go back to Ontario. The province I haven’t set foot in for nine long years.
Ms. Kirkland kindly gives me the names of some inexpensive funeral homes, and I scribble them down on a roll of receipt tape, still in a daze. It’ll take me two long days to drive back to Toronto. Misti might not want to go to the funeral, but I’ll have to tell her. My dad might want to know, but even if I wanted to talk to him, I don’t know how to reach him. The last I heard, he’d been arrested again.
I have to call Jenna. Ask for a week off. I chew on my knuckle absently as I contemplate if my bank balance will survive the strain. Misti’s going to need money for textbooks in the fall, and I was counting on a good summer of tips to be able to pay for them.
My mother’s dead.
The world seems to slow down. I blink my tears away. I can’t cry, not now. There’s too many things that need to be done before I go back home.
Home. Toronto.
I remember the day I’d left far too well. It was a beautiful sunny day, but I’d seen none of it. I’d just left Cameron, slipping away without saying goodbye. Knowing that there was nothing to be said. Nothing that needed to be said. I’d been in tears as I went back to my mother’s apartment. She was passed out on the couch, an empty bottle of rye on the floor next to her. Sitting in a corner was Misti, struggling to ignore the desolation in front of her so she could finish her homework.
I’d known then that I had to take her away. It was too late for me; I was always going to be branded as the girl whose mother was a junkie and whose father was in jail. But Misti’s life could be different. She could go to college, make something of herself.
I left my mother a note explaining what I was going to do, and we drove away. There were jobs in Calgary, so we headed west.
Two days later, my mother called me, angry and bitter, telling me she never wanted to see either of us again.
Now she’s dead.
I should call Misti, but I need to build up my courage for that. With shaking hands, I dial Jenna. When she picks up, I quickly explain the situation. “Of course you can take time off,” she says at once. “Maddie, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m leaving you in the lurch.” Jenna has saved money for years to be able to start her own business. I feel terrible about abandoning her.
“Of course not,” she scoffs. “It’s summer. Peter doesn’t have any classes, so he’s been begging me for more hours. We’ll be fine, Maddie. Don’t worry about us. Take all the time you need.”
Jenna knows the circumstances of my departure from Toronto, my estrangement from my family. Her voice softens in sympathy. “How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know.” Words are difficult. “It hasn’t sunk in yet.”
“Is there anything I can do? Do you need money?”
That’s Jenna for you. She’d give you the shirt off her back with a smile on her face. A lump rises in my throat. “I’ll manage.” I don’t know how--funerals aren’t cheap-- but I’ll figure it out.
Once I hang up, I stare blankly at the counter. I have to tell Misti.
It’s the last week of college. Misti’s done with her finals. She’s probably partying with her friends right now. I should let her enjoy herself.
You can’t put this moment off, Maddie.
I take a deep breath and call her. Her phone rings once, twice. On the third ring, she picks up. The loud music in the background tells me I was right; she’s at a party. “Maddie,” she yells, screaming to be heard over the noise. “I’m so sorry, I totally forgot to call you.”
I should find a gentle way of breaking the news, but the words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Mom’s dead.”
“Oh.” She pauses. “Did she overdose?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Yeah. She did, sweetie.”
There’s a false hardness in my baby sister’s voice. “She had it coming,” she says.
I know Misti. She’s hurting, but she won’t show it. She’s tough. You had to be tough to survive growing up in our house. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning to drive to Toronto.” I gulp. “I have to make the funeral arrangements.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“You will?” I didn’t expect this.
“Yeah,” she replies. “It’s a long drive. You shouldn’t have to do it alone.” She swallows. “I won’t let you do it alone.”
We’re not talking about the drive anymore; we both know it. We’re talking about saying goodbye to a woman who rarely loved us, who made us cry so much more than she made us smile.
My throat feels sore, scratchy. “Thanks, baby,” I tell her softly. “I’ll pick you up at seven, okay?”
On a normal day, Misti would have whined about our early start, but this isn’t a normal day. “Okay, Maddie,” she says. “See you then.”
3
Cameron
Six days later, I’m no closer to finding a woman to be my fake fiancée.
It’s Thursday evening. The sun is low in the sky when I leave work. I make my way to my car, a cherry-red 1973 Porsche Carrera that I bought at auction last year for an absolutely obscene sum of money. Worth every penny, I think as I turn the key in the ignition and the motor revs to life with a muted roar. I love this car.
Traffic is lighter than usual, people leaving the city ahead of the long weekend, hoping to avoid the traffic on the 400. I drive home, my thoughts all over the place. I shouldn’t have told my grandfather I was bringing someone to the cottage. The news has made its rounds in my family. My father left a message for me over the weekend, demanding to know who the woman is, which is a bit rich of him given that we barely tolerate each other.
A familiar tune fills the air. Come As You Are, the acoustic version. As Kurt Cobain sings the first note, I’m pulled into the past.
“I’m nervous about this week, Cam.” Maddie turns to me, her hazel eyes filled with worry. “What if everyone hates me?”
Even when she’s frowning, Maddie’s gorgeous. “It is impossible to hate you, Madison Morland,” I tell her, my hand closing around her fingers. “You have nothing to worry about.”
She gnaws on her lower lip. “Your dad doesn’t like me,” she mutters.
“Fuck him. He’s just being a snob.”
“Damn it, Cam.” She exhales in exasperation, pulling her hand away from mine. “Will you take me seriously?”
I look into her face and feel like a heel. Her eyes are swimming with tears. “Maddie,” I say helplessly. My smart, sweet, kind girlfriend doesn’t believe she belongs in my world, and I don’t know how to tell her that she is my world. There’s nothing in my life that matters to me as much as she does. The moment I laid eyes on her, laughing with her teammates at a swim meet, I knew we belonged together. “Listen to me. I love you. I promise I won’t leave your side all week, okay?”
“Really?” Her tone is hopeful.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” I tell her solemnly. “Now, open the glove box. I got you a present.”
Her smile lights up the car. “A present? You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.” I watch as she unwraps the Nirvana Unplugged CD. It’s her favorite band, but she doesn’t own a single album of theirs.
“Oh Cam, it’s perfect.” She sounds so happy. “Can we play it now?”
I was crazy about her. I thought I was the
luckiest guy in the world. I knew, deep in my heart, that she was the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
I’d been wrong. Four days after that conversation, she’d taken the fifty thousand dollars my dad gave her to leave me alone, and she’d left my life forever.
After dinner, I sit outside in my backyard, reading the local paper. There’s a festival this weekend in my neighborhood, and I want to know what streets will be closed as a result. I’m flipping through the sheets, trying to find the information I want, when a photo catches my eye. It’s Angie Morland, Maddie’s mother.
The article is brief. Angela Morland was found in her apartment, passed out from a heroin overdose. She was given two doses of Narcan at the scene and rushed to St. Michael’s, but didn’t survive.
My hand reaches for my phone before my mind catches up. I dial Roman Barrett, the detective I use when I need information, fast. “I need the funeral details for an Angela Morland,” I tell him when he answers. “She died at St. Michael’s earlier this week.”
“Give me fifteen minutes,” he replies. I hear the sound of music and laughter in the background, signs that Barrett isn’t in his Yorkville office. Still, the man is never without his laptop.
Ten minutes later, he calls me back with an answer. “There was a cremation this afternoon,” he says, “and a memorial tonight.” He gives me an address in the west end of the city. “It started twenty minutes ago. If you want to attend, you better drive quickly.”
There are only a handful of cars in the parking lot. I screech to a halt and rush in. The sign at the front informs me that the Angela Morland memorial is upstairs, in Room 2B.
My heart beats in my chest as I climb the stairs. I can’t deny that I’m hoping to see Maddie.
It’s been nine years, Cameron. She might be married. She might even have children.
I stop cold as that realization sweeps over me, then I force myself to continue to put one foot in front of another.
Room 2B is almost empty. Standing in the small hallway, I look inside. There’s only three people there. Maddie, another woman who looks to be in her early twenties, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, and a man with a frown on his face.
I barely notice the other people. I’m too busy drinking in the sight of Maddie. Then the conversation continues, and I stop to pay attention, because something is wrong.
“Ms. Morland,” the man is saying to Maddie. “I know how difficult this is, and I apologize for the timing. Unfortunately, your credit card was declined.”
I stand to one side and listen in, my brain struggling to process the scene. The funeral home is shabby. There are no tables of food and drink, just a small plate of cookies. Maddie’s drawn the guy aside, away from the other woman, and is offering him another credit card, her face shrouded with anxiety.
She’s in trouble.
“Cameron?” The woman wearing jeans speaks my name loudly, an expression of surprise on her face. “Is that you?”
“Misti.” Maddie’s baby sister. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize her. I walk into the room and the young woman envelops me in a hug. “You’re all grown up now.”
Maddie looks up sharply. When her eyes meet mine, she turns pale. “Cameron,” she whispers.
“Hello Maddie.” I’m proud of how even my voice is. “Long time no see.”
She sways on her feet and slumps into a chair. I lurch toward her in concern, instinctively, automatically, the nine years melting away in an instant, and then I realize what I’m doing and stop myself.
Her hair’s different, longer. She used to wear it short-- it’s too hard to bundle up under a swim cap, Cam, she would say with a laugh when I suggested she grow it. It tumbles in shiny waves over her shoulders. It suits her. She’s even more beautiful now, if such a thing is possible. Her full lips shimmer with some kind of gloss that makes me want to press my mouth against her and taste… Her curves make me think of sin, even in this place of mourning.
The man edges away. Maddie watches him leave, then gives me an unreadable look. “What are you doing here?” she asks, direct as ever.
“I came to see an old friend. We were friends once, weren’t we?”
“Were we?” Her voice is cool. “I don’t remember it that way.”
I’m taken aback by her hostility. I can’t understand it. She left me. I’m the one who should be furious.
I’m about to open my mouth to say something cold and cutting before I pivot on my heels and walk away, out of her life, forever. Then I stop myself, because Maddie’s shredding a napkin in her hands, bits of paper falling in tiny pieces on her lap.
A tell I remember from the past.
Maddie isn’t as unaffected by our encounter as she appears to be. She’s trying to push me away. Why?
Misti’s watching the two of us with a fascinated expression on her face. “I should give you guys some space,” she says awkwardly. “I’ll be waiting in the car, Maddie.”
“There’s no need,” Maddie replies, glaring at me. “Thanks Misti,” I say at the same time. I win the battle of wills, because Misti backs away, practically running down the stairs to escape the tension between us.
“What did you do that for?” she asks me crossly, a familiar fire in her eyes. This is the Madison Morland I fell in love with. “We have nothing to talk about.”
Why did you leave me, Maddie? I would have given you everything I owned; you only had to ask.
“What was that guy saying?” I demand. “Your credit card was declined?”
Maddie needs money. I need to convince my family I’m serious about a woman. My subconscious has been working on a solution to my problem and she’s standing in front of me, with an icy look on her face and a shredded napkin mess at her feet.
“You’re stooping to eavesdropping now, Cam? Our conversation is none of your business. I can handle myself.”
I need to get Maddie on board with my idea. “Have a drink with me.” She starts to protest, and I hold up my hand. “One drink, Maddie. For old times’ sake.”
She gives me a long look, then she nods. “We’re staying in a motel on Lakeshore tonight,” she says. “There’s a bar next to it.”
“Okay.”
This is madness, my brain tells me. She broke your heart once. Stay away from her.
I don’t listen to that voice of caution. Instead, I follow Maddie downstairs.
4
Maddie
Cameron Drake is here.
There are so many things I want to scream at him. Why didn’t you call me that night? Why did you never try to find me? And most importantly, why, after all these years, are you here now?
He looks grown-up. His dark hair is cut shorter now. He’s traded the torn jeans and faded t-shirts for a suit. He looks like the successful billionaire he is.
His eyes haven’t changed. They’re as blue as the lake on a clear summer afternoon, and when they meet mine, the years between us fall away.
He broke my heart nine years ago; I can’t let it happen again.
We walk downstairs without a word. I feel his gaze burning a hole in my back. The silence lengthens and I have to break it. “The hotel is on Lakeshore,” I say, babbling with nerves. “I’ll drive there. You can follow me, okay?”
“Sure thing, Maddie.”
I pass the funeral home office. Phil Earlscourt, the guy in charge, was upstairs earlier saying something about my credit card being declined. I’d handed him a different card, but I don’t know what’s going on. There should have been enough room on my credit for the cremation. It should have gone through. First thing tomorrow morning, I have to sort that out.
God, I’m tired. The thirty-six hour drive from Calgary, seeing my mother’s wasted body--I’m completely drained. I’m not ready to deal with Cameron. My defenses are down.
Things used to be so good between us.
There’s a bright red Porsche in the parking lot. Even in the dusk, I can see the gleam of the paint on the classic car. �
�Yours, I assume? I’m surprised you left it unattended in this neighborhood.”
“I was preoccupied with other things,” he replies blandly. He walks me to my car and opens the driver’s side door for me, his eyes resting on the empty coffee cups in the back seat. “Long drive?”
“I live in Calgary now,” I reply shortly, answering the unasked question.
“You drove from Calgary?” he demands. “In this piece of shit? When did you get in?”
“Earlier this afternoon,” I say through my teeth, bristling at his cutting dismissal of my car. “What’s with the questions, Cam?”
“You must be exhausted.” His gaze is sharp. “You shouldn’t be driving.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I snap. Who died and made him my keeper?
“Yes, it does,” he says grimly. “I’m not letting you get behind the wheel.”
Warmth that he cares about me wars with my ire about being told what to do. Misti watches from the passenger seat, avidly curious. I groan inwardly. The last thing I want is an audience, even if it’s just my sister. “Fine,” I sigh. “Let’s do it your way.”
Cam’s on his phone. “Drake here,” he says. “I need a car and a spare driver.” He rattles off the address and hangs up. “I’d drive the two of you myself, but the car’s a two-seater.”
“Of course,” I say snidely. “Gorgeous and impractical. Just like its owner.”
His lips curl into a slow grin. “You think I’m gorgeous, Maddie?” His voice lowers an octave. “I’m flattered, babe.”
That voice. Sexy as sin, tempting me, teasing me. It shouldn’t affect me, not after all these years, but it does. It’s not fair that my blood hums with need and longing for what used to be, and he’s standing in front of me, calm and collected.
While we wait for the car service to show up, Cam and Misti make small talk. It doesn’t take long before a black Bentley pulls into the parking lot. Two men jump out and greet Cameron deferentially. “Sorry about the delay, Mr. Drake,” one of them apologizes. “Traffic was murder.”
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