Second Chance

PROLOGUE

Here’s the thing.

Clare Connors, like many former nerds, didn’t look back on her high school years with much fondness. The best she could say was, well, whatever...they were okay. She’d survived, and without many scars. She hadn’t yet felt any need to go to therapy. But neither were they happy times, exactly. Of course, she’d been the typical loner, the kid who people tolerated but didn’t bother with much more than that. She had friends, kind of. She had interests. She didn’t go home dreading the next day. She just...coasted.

Now, people like Mary Kade—they could look back and smile. The Mary Kades of the world made high school their kingdoms. The cheerleader straight out of every Hollywood movie about high school, with her Abercrombie looks, the twinkle in her grin, the promising beginnings of a professional modeling career, and a different jock begging for a date every weekend.

The Mary Kades of high school would never give the Clare Connors' a second look.

And come graduation, that particular Clare Connors didn’t think she would ever see that specific Mary Kade ever again. They hadn’t once interacted during school, and then their lives went in entirely different directions. Mary went on to become the cover girl everyone knew she would, and Clare—well. Clare didn’t go anywhere.

But she did produce a son, and she considered that a pretty awesome achievement.

Said son was the catalyst to the unexpected Clare-and-Mary reunion, although Clare couldn’t hold it against the kid. Not now she could look back and—unlike with high school—feel nothing but happiness and love.

Love.

Mary Kade and love.

Was it love? Clare didn’t know, not yet. But maybe it was something like it. Maybe...maybe she’d have her own Hollywood ending, riding off into the sunset with the girl of her dreams.

Okay, not the sunset. That’s illogical, what with her kid and her job and everything. But the happy-ending part...

Yeah. Yeah, maybe.

CHAPTER ONE

Sammy’s made a new friend. His name’s Wade, Sammy says, giving his mom about twelve percent of his attention. The other eighty-eight he’s spending on whatever he’s trying to kill on the Xbox. Can I go to his house on Saturday?

I don’t know, kid, can you? Clare flicks a peanut in Sammy’s direction. It bounces off his head, unnoticed. Did you get an invitation?

Sammy looks at her long enough to give a withering stare, looking like an old man who has no patience for stupidity. Coming from a ten-year-old, it’s pretty unsettling.

All right, says Clare, mildly chastised. But you know the drill, kiddo. I have to drive you there and meet the boy’s parents.

Don’t say ‘the boy’.

Saturday is usually one of the days Sammy spends with his dad— his pops—but Lucas (the pops in question) has gone on a three-week work trip. Although if Clare knows her husband as well as she thinks she does, she can say with some certainty that the work trip involves far more naked women and bottles of sauvignon blanc than it does actual work.

She married Lucas because he was wild and exciting, and then he left her five years later for the same reason. Also, you know, minor detail: Lucas cheated on her for the entire marriage because—well, he’s a catastrophic asshole, mostly. And also because he has an addiction apparently. But whatever. Now Clare just gets to stand back and admire the man’s insatiable desire for the fast-lane life, without having to deal with any of the mess.

So on Saturday, instead of lounging about watching Game of Thrones and eating last night’s leftover pizza as she usually would, Clare finds herself heaved up and off the couch and herded into the car by her impatient child.

It’s just his mom, Sammy informs her on the drive over to his new friend Wade’s house. Don’t be weird.

Why would I be weird?

I dunno. Just don’t ask if his dad’s dead.

I’ll try to control myself, says Clare. She turns onto Wade’s street and promptly gets stuck behind a Prius going about six miles an hour. "Is he dead?"

I dunno, I didn’t ask.

Right, says Clare. She chances a dodgy overtake of the Prius and slides into a parking spot farther up. Because you’re not weird.

The street is nice. Which—understatement. This is one of the streets she never comes to, because number one, she doesn’t know anyone this rich, and number two, mansions freak her out. If you were in the east wing, how would you even know there was a murderer casually breaking into the west wing?

What happens when you misplace your keys? You’d lose weeks of your life searching for them.

What if you lose your child?

These aren’t really those kinds of mansions, she notes with some relief. These are mini mansions. Pocket mansions. Only enough space for nine cars on the driveways. God knows how these deprived people cope.

Oh yeah, says Sammy as they get out of the car in front of a white pocket mansion with a Range Rover in the drive. The mom’s kinda famous.

Famous? What a time to spring this on her. She didn’t even bother to swap out her glasses for contacts before she left the house.

Yeah, I dunno, says Sammy. They reach the massive carved oak front doors and stand staring at them. The doorstep’s bigger than Clare’s entire bathroom. There’s a metal chain hanging to the right of the doors, with a handle shaped like an arrowhead.

Do we pull it? Clare asks. She kind of wishes there was a better adult around. She isn’t suited to rich neighborhoods.

I guess?

Clare pulls it. It costs her more effort than she cares to admit. It triggers a series of loud bells throughout the house, the pattern random and immensely annoying. Bit excessive, she says.

The doors open, and the butler Clare half expected to see doesn’t materialize. Instead, she finds herself face-to-face with Mary Kade.

No warning or anything. One moment Clare didn’t have High School Queen Mary Kade in her life, and the next moment, there she is. Standing there. For real, in person.

Clare’s first thought is, You named your kid Wade Kade.

Her second thought is the much less mocking, Oh shit.

Mary Kade’s eyes go wide. Clare Connors. And Clare promptly forgets how to think for a moment, because Mary Kade knows her. Mary Kade remembers her.

Yeah, she says.

She has approximately one tenth of a second to catalogue the sight of this throwback to her youth, and she makes the most of it, taking in all the details of Mary Kade before her nerves turn her into a gibbering wreck—which, let’s face it, is inevitable. Clare has, like, zero chill.

Mary Kade is tall, obviously. And in good shape, which—duh. Model. She used to sport a bleached hairstyle that likely required an entire bucket of hair gel each morning, but it was the nineties, so Clare doesn’t hold it against her. Now Mary Kade has loose waves, light brown in colour, and hazel eyes sparkling with surprise and recognition.

And then Clare says, Wow, which is really the only appropriate thing to say. Mary Kade is an honest-to-got legit star.

You’re about the last person I expected to see, says Mary Kade.

Clare nods, gives an awkward sort of laugh. Me too. Then she says Wow again, because apparently she hasn’t embarrassed her son enough yet.

"Mom."

Right, sorry. This is Sammy, Clare says, putting a hand on the kid’s shoulder and shoving him forward, like he’s some kind of sacrificial offering. He’s here to hang out with your Wade. Wade Kade.

Yeah, says Mary Kade. Right. Then she seems to take a hold of herself and steps back. Come in.

Her grin is still full of that dazzling twinkle.

The inside is all gleaming marble and metal accents, with massive mirrors lining the walls and weird, abstract art pieces taller than the whole front of Clare’s one-story house. She almost wants to shiver.

Mary Kade leads them through the huge hall and into a living room completely indistinguishable from the hall, aside from the cream couch that could clearly sit about twenty-nine people, and the flat screen big enough to suit a movie theatre. Then into another hall-type place and then along a corridor, through a second room Clare would describe as another living room.

Farther still they walk,