“Oh, lord. I let her walk away.” She pushed her hands through her hair roughly as she began to pace again. “She said it couldn’t work, and I bloody well agreed with her. I thanked her. I said goodbye. I bought a movie on my own. I don’t know a thing about movies. I could lose her and everything else.”

“Darling,” her mother cut in, the corners of her mouth turned up in something akin to genuine emotion for the first time in ages. “She’s not in Siberia. She’s across the street.”

She stared at her mother as if seeing her for the first time. Cool, practical, detached, and yet ever pragmatic.

“Take her a present,” her father offered good-naturedly.

“And comb your hair,” her mother added. “You’ve mussed it all up. For the love of god, Victoria, if this is the path you’ve chosen, please do it well.”

“And think about what you want to say to her,” her father piped in.

“Yes,” her mother agreed, “you tend to run on when you’re improvising speeches.”

“But, be yourself.” Her dad grinned.

“Indeed.” Her mother’s tone softened. “Because, apparently, she loves you very much.”

Vic opened her mouth to…do what? To argue? To question? She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter, because the only sound she could produce was a sob.

Grief, joy, confusion, fear, relief. She couldn’t sort any of them as a lifetime of prestigious pressure crumbled around her. When the shards and shrapnel of the life she’d worked so hard to reconcile settled to dust at her feet, one thought, one impulse rose to the forefront of her mind with a clarity she’d only craved— until now.

She had to get Sophia back.

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Sophia lay on her hotel bed staring up at the exposed beams of the ceiling and listening to the rhythmic buzz of her cell phone on the table. Someone had been calling for at least ten minutes, but she didn’t recognise the number, and she didn’t want to speak to anyone anyway.

Rolling onto her side, she let out a heavy sigh and allowed her vision to focus on her suitcase in the corner. She visually traced the outline of her luggage tags, examining any tangible detail she could to keep her mind from replaying a million conversations she didn’t want to relive.