The Good Mom Read Free Page A

“I can see why. He really needs it.”
    â€œDid she say anything else?” Ashley prodded.
    Kylie scratched her head. “Well, Ilana walked over and looked in the appointment app and said, ‘Ashley is free.’ Then she told me to go get you and tell you that you had a walk-in. And I did.” Kylie looked up at Ashley with liquid brown eyes.
    Ashley smiled reassuringly at her. “You did well.” Honestly, if she owned a salon—her dream business—she would never terrorize her employees. She would be pleasant to them all the time.
    Sighing, she ran over her conversation with Aidan again in her mind. “Kylie, he asked if I’d noticed a change in his grandmother. Do you know what he meant by that?”
    â€œUm...” With a bewildered look, Kylie turned to the computer screen that showed their bookings. Ashley gazed over her shoulder.
    â€œVivian Sharpe!” Ashley exclaimed, reading the entry in the computer. “Aidan’s grandmother is Vivian Sharpe?”
    â€œWho’s that?” Kylie asked.
    Only one of the richest and most influential people in Boston. Ashley groaned. In her more naive days, she’d once attempted to meet Vivian through Brandon and her sister—but the elderly woman had gone to great lengths to keep to her private entourage.
    Vivian Sharpe—and her grandson Aidan—were on a whole other rarified level from Ashley. Vivian sat on the board of directors at Wellness Hospital. She had a particular interest in running the Sunshine Club, the cancer charity that Brandon volunteered for. Even worse, she owned the New England Captains, the professional baseball team where Ashley’s brother-in-law used to play, until he was traded to San Francisco. Brandon was over the moon about the Captains.
    â€œDo you know this lady?” Kylie asked.
    Ashley sighed. “Not really. I know of her, but that’s about it.”
    Ashley communicated with the Sunshine Club office only through intermediaries—usually Susan Vanderbilt, a public relations manager at the hospital. Ashley hadn’t understood the etiquette at first, and she’d actually dared to approach Vivian once early on, at a fancy hospital Christmas party that Brandon had been invited to attend. Vivian had barely deigned to speak to her. Ashley’s sister had told her not to feel bad—that the elderly philanthropist kept herself aloof from most people, but Ashley had sensed there was more to it than that.
    It had seemed personal to her.
    Truth was the woman seemed not to approve of her, and that had hit Ashley in her most vulnerable spot—the worry and shame that she was in over her head with Brandon, that she wasn’t doing a good enough job at being his mom.
    Just great. She felt like weeping, but now wasn’t the time or place. Her job and maybe Brandon’s place in his new world were at stake. She wished she could call her sister—ask her if she knew a Dr. Aidan from her time working at Wellness Hospital. Was there anything about him—any commonalities that she might use to appeal to him?
    Ashley took out her phone. But her sister didn’t live in Boston anymore. She was three time zones away, in San Francisco, and anyway, she was likely in surgery, administering anesthesia.
    She could do this. She’d made it this far, hadn’t she?
    On a whim, Ashley opened up the web browser and typed in an internet search for Doctor’s Aid, Boston and Aidan. She found her answer on the first hit.
    Dr. Aidan Lowe, that was his name. There was a photo of him—his hair neater, his skin less tanned—posed beside a regal, beautiful, confident-looking woman. Dr. Fleur Sanborne. In the caption she was described not as his wife, not as a fiancée, but as his partner .
    Life partner, judging by the body language. He obviously adored her.
    Ashley clicked on the article. “Friendly Fire Destroys Doctor’s Aid Clinic—Hub