Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
It wasn’t good enough. One look at Sissy told her it would have to be.
“Fine. Will you brush Sassy tonight for me?”
Sissy nodded. “If she’ll let me, you know how she gets.”
“She’s just old.”
“She follows me around all day to bark, for no reason. She doesn’t do that to other people. Only me. On my busiest days. That isn’t old behavior, it’s pettiness. Because do you know when she does it the most?”
Frankie pressed her lips together, suppressing the truth. “No.”
“You do. She does it every time the vet puts her back on a diet and I buy the food she doesn’t like. You stop giving her extra treats, the food minder changes the food, and who do you think she blames?”
“Dogs don’t understand pettiness. Only love.”
Cats, on the other hand...
Sissy laughed, her usual signal of giving up. “Fine, Taylor Swift, whatever you say. Someday you’ll write and sing odes to your animals the way she does for boys.”
“Ew, no thank you.”
She knew fame through the lens of her stepmother, and it would never be her world.
“Hmm, not Taylor Swift, then. Maybe Snow White? The animals loved her, too. And she was on movie screens.”
Frankie shook her head. “No Taylor. No Snow White. Just Francesca.”
“Francesca Dove,” came a new, but familiar, voice in the doorway. “The award goes to Francesca Dove! That does have a ring to it, you know.”
Sissy glanced over her shoulder while Frankie grabbed her hand as if it would keep her rooted beside the bed.
“Imagine gracing a stage and all you hear is a crowd chanting your name. The screaming people. You can’t even see through the lights and flashes. It’s an experience.”
Carina Russo-Gallo stepped into the ICU room, draped in clothing that she wore, not the other way around. High-waisted slacks and a silk long-sleeve button up shirt tucked into her pants showed off her hourglass shape, and a peek at her chest with how many buttons had been left undone down the neckline. Her standard Birkin, with glossy, black alligator leather, always open, hung at her elbow. Approaching forty, she didn’t look like her thirties had yet to say hello.
Frankie wouldn’t keep Sissy at her side for long. Not with Carina nearby.
“The car is waiting for you,” Carina told Sissy. “I got here just in time to be told visiting hours are non-existent at this point, and the crew is leaving.”
Sissy nodded once and turned back to give Frankie a quick kiss on the top of her head. She said goodbye and promised to be waiting at home the following day. Carina didn’t close the door behind Sissy, but she checked the hallway before returning her attention to what she undoubtedly saw as a problem if her next words were any indication.
“The surgeon did a good job, sweetheart, but if you take a ball to the face over the next few weeks, it’s going to be tragic come picture time,” she warned, her open-toed stilettos clicking on the hospital floor as she crossed the room. Frankie didn’t have time to think before her face found Carina’s soft hand. She scowled up at her while Carina surveyed the damage. “You know, the same surgeon who did this work fixed a cut on my lip once. Gave me a lip lift just to hide it, and I shot for Vogue three months later.”
“How’d you get the cut?”
“Someone punched me in the mouth with a nasty ring on.”
Curiosity ate at her.
Carina’s arched eyebrow told her not to ask. “Sorry, the look of it probably isn’t as important as how you’re feeling, is it?”
“It counts that you asked, I guess. And I can’t feel a thing after the needle they gave me.”
A laugh burst from Carina. She pulled a chair from the wall, closer to the hospital bed, and sat down with her bag resting at the side after she crossed her legs.
“You’re staying?” Frankie asked, trying not to sound too bitter.
“Not for long.”
“Oh.”
Carina sighed, cocking her head to the side as she looked Frankie over once more. “I bet I’m the last person you wanted to see here tonight, but here I am. I know better than to go see your father, so I’ll settle for you.”
She cleared her throat, uncomfortable with the feeling settling on her chest. “You worried?”
“Believe it or not, but life would look a lot different for me if you and your father weren’t around. Even if it is a messy one when we’re together. That can’t be helped.”
Couldn’t it? “You never liked me.”
“You wanted a mother,” Carina returned, unabashed, “which was fair because you were the sort of child who should have had one who loved you more than life. For a short time, you did until life changed as it usually does.”
“Did you know her, my mother?”
“Not well,” Carina returned softly. “Besides her, you had what he wouldn’t—couldn’t—give me. There I was, mid-twenties, height of my fucking career, and it felt like my whole life had ended on the spot. But I did what I was told to do, and I married the widower more than a decade older than me with the child, knowing good and well he could make my life hell every day if he wanted to.”