Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 46501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
The apartment was a four bedroom penthouse suite and more than enough for her. She can rule the roost there and do as she please. Hopefully she can find some happiness for once in her life. I’m sure she could come up with an appropriate reason for the move. Something to save face amongst her friends. Right now I didn’t give a fuck.
If I’d been too late this morning that young beautiful girl would’ve signed her life away because of her selfishness. What kind of monster would do such a thing to one so young? Is this what money and power does to people?
I never understood dad’s will until this very moment. The fact that he left me everything with the stipulation that I could only pass that wealth on to my own wife and children, while leaving her nothing but a yearly stipend, now made perfect sense. If he’d left her even a fraction of his wealth she would’ve used it to keep her heel in other people’s necks, just as he’d predicted.
The estate had been in the family for generations, but he’d accrued other properties throughout his lifetime, all of which he’d left to me. The penthouse was also mine, but I couldn’t see me putting my own mother out on the street no matter what she’s done.
Her allowance was more than enough to keep her happy, though it wasn’t the same as her being here in this mansion that held so much history and made a powerful statement with the whole town. Where I take care of all her needs while she did who knows what with her money. But she has no one to blame for this turn of events but herself.
Had she gone to Lucia herself with her threats I just might have been able to forgive her, not so much for the threats, but because I would’ve seen it as a mother doing what she thought was best for her son. But she’d chosen to send her lackey. I knew very well what that move on her part meant.
I wasn’t even mad any longer, just disappointed that even now she couldn’t see how wrong she was. To think of putting a family out on the streets after making them pick up stakes and move all the way out here from everyone and everything they knew, just because I’d fallen in love with their daughter. Not to mention the fact that I knew the service Thomas Clifton had done for his country.
Of course my mother wouldn’t think of such things. She thinks wars are fought by robots or some shit. She has no idea that it’s men like him, men she believes beneath her, are the ones on the front lines fighting, risking their lives, so that people like her could live in a free society.
“I will not be cast aside so that you can bring that filthy little trollop into my home. Have you taken leave of your senses? The Sullivan name has survived without scandal these last forty years because of my doing….”
“There’s no point arguing. We both know you have no rights other than that you’re my mother. You’re the one who brought this about. You have to have known how I would react to your having me spied on. That’s unforgivable. And to send that idiot to threaten Lucia was the last straw. You went too far; enough is enough.”
I stood from the chair and left the room because the anger that I had thought contained was back in full force. If I stayed much longer I may say something I’d regret. But as much as I resent her actions, I do not mean to hurt her. After all she’s still my mother, misguided as she is.
I had no hopes that she’d do as I asked so I sent the maids to take care of her things and also to let them know that they will be following her to her new home. I had no doubt that they were loyal to her for whatever reasons, and I’d be a damn fool to leave them here to do her dirty work where my wife is concerned.
After giving them their orders I went into the family vault in the cellar to retrieve the ring that I hadn’t seen in years. The damn thing was about eight hundred years old and had belonged to one of my ancestors. I’d always liked this particular ring because of the design.
It’s a monstrosity of a thing made with rubies and diamonds. The center is a five-carat oval fiery red ruby surrounded by diamonds that even after all these centuries still shine like the sun. I guess what they say is true, diamonds really are forever.
There was a necklace and bracelet to match with teardrop earrings that I could already imagine dangling at her ears. They suited her, all that fire and ice. And I knew from past conversations that she’d get a kick out of all the history behind it.