She hit the end button on her phone and stared down at the screen, waiting for Vin to ask how the conversation had gone. It was something her ex had always done. Anytime she got on a phone, whether it was a telemarketer or the housekeeper or someone for him, Mark had had to know everything.

Except Vin didn’t ask and didn’t seem to be expecting her to fill him in. And the space was…nice. She liked how it gave her the power to choose, and it spoke volumes about respect and trust and all those things she hadn’t gotten the first time around.

Thank you, she wanted to say. Instead, she murmured, “He wanted ice cream. Guess I’m a horrible mother, huh. Probably going to spoil his dinner. He eats early. At five.”

Vin’s hand covered hers. “You are not a horrible mother. I can assure you.”

As they went by a bus stop, she looked out of her window. The people standing in the Plexiglas box all stared at the M6 while Vin drove by, and when another group of pedestrians glanced over at the car a little later, she had a sense that everywhere Vin went, he drew eyes of envy and awe…and greed.

“Mark liked nice cars, too,” she said for no particular reason. “He was a Bentley man.”

God, she could remember riding in those cars of his. He’d gotten a new one every year as soon as the fresh models came out, and in the beginning, she had sat in the passenger seat beside him with her chin up and her hands stroking the leather. Back then, when people had stared, her chest had swelled with pride that the man who owned the car was hers, that she was a part of some exclusive club of luxury that barred everyone else, that she was a queen with her king.

Not anymore. Now she saw the ogling faces as nothing more than people caught up in a fantasy. Just because you could drive or sit in a fancy BMW didn’t mean you had the winning lottery ticket in the life sweepstakes. Turned out she had been far, far happier when she’d been on the hard sidewalk rather than the soft bucket seat.

Far better off, too, considering where she’d ended up.

“But I am a bad mother,” she murmured. “I lied to him. I had to.”

“You did what you needed to in order to survive.”

“I’m going to have to keep lying to him. I don’t want him ever to know.”

“And there’s no reason for him to.” Vin shook his head. “I think a parent’s job is to protect their kids. Maybe it’s old-school, but that’s the way I feel. There’s no reason he has to go through what you’ve been suffering with. That you’ve had to deal with it is plenty.”