Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
I could feel him coming, and I knew he intentionally denied me satisfaction, and more angry tears burned behind my eyes.
When he stepped away from me, I stood and turned. He grabbed me and kissed me hard. I thought maybe he was going to do something else. He was going to give me some satisfaction.
Instead, he reached around me and took his phone, putting it in his pocket.
“Where are you going?” I asked, feeling vulnerable, a little hurt, and very frustrated.
“I told you this was a punishment.” He shrugged. “Be at the church tomorrow. Maybe then, if you are good, you will be rewarded.”
“And if I’m not?”
“Then I will just have to come back, and I am sure your mommy will start asking questions.”
CHAPTER 17
ROSE
Raul was dead, but was I obligated to mourn him when he was trying to scam me? Knowing that he had slept with my mother, was I obligated to feel guilty about the things that I had done?
Those thoughts kept me up late into the night, and the next morning in the shower. Over and over they spun in my head, and I simply didn’t know.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Not at Raul, or even at Father Manwarring. But at my mother, and her hypocrisy.
That rage brought more questions. Did I have to listen to her hypocritical bullshit, knowing that she paid an underage boy to fuck her? It wasn’t a secret that she had already been unfaithful to my father. Harrison made it very public knowledge that he was a bastard. Did my father know she was still unfaithful? How many other men have there been?
Was I or Amelia illegitimate?
How many opportunities to live my life had I passed up because she wouldn’t have approved of what I was doing, while all along she was fucking the son of the help in secret, and she started when he was a teenager?
The more I thought about my mother and her hypocrisy, the more anger and hatred swirled in my gut and I would not take it anymore. I couldn’t take it.
When I got dressed, made myself presentable, I went downstairs to find my mother. I knew she had a full schedule for the next few days, and there was another gala later in the week that she and my father were attending. So, I knew she’d be home preparing for that before the church board meeting this afternoon.
Sure enough, she was in the parlor with racks of dresses, all from this season, pulled for her to browse while her personal stylist fluttered about the room, picking things to accessorize them and find her perfect look for the event.
“Mother, may I talk to you for a moment please,” I said, keeping my anger in check.
I was going to give her a chance. An opportunity to listen to me, to hear what I wanted, and let me make at least one choice about how I spent my time.
“If you must.” She sighed as one of her assistants held an emerald dress up to her. The neckline was far too low for someone of her age. She wouldn’t wear anything like it to the event, but I knew she liked to indulge in trying them on so she could pretend she was half her age. The entire activity was just an exercise in narcissism.
“Can we have the room?” I asked.
Nobody moved. Instead, they all looked toward my mother. “Now,” I said, putting some force behind my words.
My mother rolled her eyes and waved everyone off, muttering something about dramatic girls.
When the door closed behind them, she turned to me, looking me up and down with a sneer on her lips.
“What is so important?”
“I came to inform you I will not be helping the church with the Christmas bazaar. There are other things that require my attention.”
“No, you will do as you are told. You will help with the bazaar, you will help with anything that the priest asks of you, and you will show the world that not all the Astrid children are spoiled, ungrateful disappointments.”
“Amelia has a successful art school and married into one of the richest families in the city.”
“Her husband will ruin that entire family,” she scoffed. “He is too strong-willed and the second Lucian Manwarring steps down, their entire empire will fall.”
“Harrison is the DA,” I argued. “Surely you are proud of him.”
“Your brother is an ungrateful son who married a common gold-digging whore. He has brought shame on this family by exposing things that were nobody’s concern.”
The anger that had been building up finally spilled over.
“That’s rich coming from a woman who baby-trapped Dad with another man’s child. Tell me, Mother, was Harrison’s biological father at least of age, or do you only fuck the teenage help?” My words dripped with condescension and disgust. I couldn’t believe I had actually said that out loud, not only the accusation, but the word fuck in front of my mother.