Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

bus here, but I’m filled with a sudden desire to protect her at all costs.
I simply remain silent, knowing there’s nothing my mother will do to
hold me accountable.
A smirk curls Mimi’s mouth as she lifts her glass to her lips and locks
eyes with my mother again. “I never would’ve guessed one child would be
harder than four,” she taunts.
My mother’s jaw flexes, she and her three siblings far less trouble than
one little ol’ me, and I can feel every muscle in her body tighten from here.
Reaching my hand under the table, I slide it under my skirt and wrap my
fist around the bandana, exhaling.
Three hours and fourteen minutes later, I grab my phone off the tray in
the dining room and pull my saddle shoes back on as I hop out the front door.
My shoelaces drag on the ground, and I open up the Uber app to escape here
while they think I’m off getting something from my mom’s car. The dinner
lasted a full hour more with the dessert and the practice interview questions
for Omega Chi. Then we tried on dresses, and I just let my mother—through
the approval of Mimi, of course—choose the strapless, A-line charmeuse
with the chiffon draping. Actually, quite pretty, but I still felt like a moron in
it.
Spotting Mimi’s rose bushes, I quickly bend a stem back and forth,
breaking it off as I avoid the thorns.
“Young man?” I hear Peggy call out.
I lift my head, realizing the cook is on the balcony over top of me. I slink
back so she can’t see and look out into the driveway where Trace Jaeger
loads up a rusty Ford truck. He’s in jeans and covered in sweat, even though
the sun set an hour ago.
“Put your shirt on!” she scolds him.
“Aw, baby,” he whines, and my eyes go wide.
“Now, I said!”
“But you’re so hot, it’s making me hot.” He holds out his hands, looking
like Romeo serenading Juliet. “Look at this, I’m drenched!”
I cover my mouth to quiet my laugh. The butler’s wife not only cooks,
but she practically raised my mom, aunts, and uncles. She also served as a
nurse in the Navy for five years. She isn’t about the bullshit.
“You rascal!” she chides.
“Sugar plum,” he coos, feigning a condescending tone but smiling as he
does it.