The Ashtons - Cole, Abigail & Megan

with her mother had been few and far between over the years. Though Megan loved her mother, she also knew that Lilah would have been just as happy to never have had children. Not that she didn’t love her kids, but Lilah’s “maternal side” was narrow and not very deep. She’d always been more interested in her clubs and charities than she had in raising kids, leaving Megan, Paige and their brother Trace to be more or less raised by a succession of nannies. “I didn’t see you come in.”
    “Not surprising,” Lilah said, waving one elegant hand toward the open suitcase. “You have other things on your mind, don’t you?”
    Well-aimed thorns of guilt jabbed at her. “Yes, well, I would have told you about it, but you were at the fund-raiser this afternoon and—”
    “Do you realize what sort of position this puts me in?”
    Megan took a deep breath. “I know Father will be upset about my not marrying Willie, but—”
    “Don’t imagine for a moment that I’m concerned with your father’s reaction to this,” Lilah said, cutting her daughter off neatly.
    People interrupted her all the time, Megan thought irritably. Why had she never noticed before? And of course her mother didn’t care about Spencer’s reaction. The two of them had been living separate lives under the same roof for years.
    Taking a deep breath and blowing it out again slowly, Megan said again, “I am sorry, Mother.”
    Actually, she was sorry for a lot of things. Not least among them, the fact that she and her mother had never been close. But that ship had sailed years ago. No point in mourning it now.
    “Please, Megan.” Lilah’s voice was cool. “If you had wanted me to know about your ‘wedding,’ you would have said something. What I want to know is, how long have you been planning it?”
    “Uh…” Damn. She and Simon hadn’t discussed this. Should she tell her family the truth? Admit that she was just his emergency wife? Sure, and then live with their knowing glances for the next year? No, she didn’t think so. Besides, if she were to survive her father’s fury over this, she’d have to convince him at least that this had been in the planning stages for at least a few weeks.
    And to convince Spencer, she’d need Lilah to believe her, too. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew her parents’ marriage had stopped being about anything butconvenience years ago. Growing up in a house, a child learned fast if his or her parents loved each other. And there’d never been that feeling in this house.
    But if her mother believed her, then Lilah would stand up to Spencer, if only because she loved to see the man’s plans thwarted.
    “It was pretty sudden actually,” Megan said and told herself that at least she wasn’t lying. “He pretty much swept me off my feet.”
    One of Lilah’s eyebrows lifted. “I find that hard to believe, Megan. You’ve never been one for spontaneity.” She stood up, smoothed the front of her slacks, then stepped around the edge of the fourposter bed and stopped within a foot of her daughter. Staring at her, she said slowly, “But the damage is done, in any case. Have you given any thought at all to how this situation of yours will make me look to my friends?”
    “What?” Megan watched her mother and noted the color suddenly rushing into her normally milkpale cheeks.
    “It will look as though you didn’t want your own mother at your wedding, Megan,” Lilah explained just in case her daughter had missed the point. “How am I to explain that to my friends?”
    “I didn’t mean to upset you, Mother.” Megan curled her fingers into her palms and felt the impression of each of her nails digging into her skin.
    The fact that she’d married a man her mother hadn’t even met didn’t seem to bother the woman. The real problem was how to stave off embarrassment in front of the ladies of the Napa League. For heaven’s sake. Megan wasn’t even sure why she was disappointed. Or angry.
    She’d learned long ago that Lilah wasn’t exactly the milk-and-cookies type of mother. She’d given birth to three kids and then calmly handed them off to be raised by people she paid to give them attention.
    And yet, there was still a small corner of Megan’s heart that ached to be loved. To be wanted. To have the sort of relationship with her parents that other people took for granted.
    “You didn’t think of me at all, you mean.” Lilah spared her daughter a slight frown—and really, given her