Page 93 of Hired Help

“And you don’t need to.” She also gets to her feet, taking small, cautious steps nearer to me. “I’m sorry it all came out wrong. The idea was dumb, but it seemed so much better than starting an argument I wouldn’t win.”

I watch her approach. I let her take my hands. I let my heart fill with every remembered kindness, every sweet word, every protective gesture. The one adult I thought cared for me. Not because she was paid to but because she liked me.

“Please don’t act in anger,” she whispers, squeezing her fingers around mine. “You can yell at me all you like but don’t marry someone just to spite me.”

“And that’s the bit that worries you, isn’t it?”

Her lips press into a flat line, the pressure on my hands strengthening into discomfort.

“I couldn’t work out why at first. I didn’t understand at all why me getting married would affect you. Then I realised.”

“It doesn’t affect me. This is all for your welfare, Brooke.” She moves another tiny step closer, so far into my personal space my chest wants to heave. “Please don’t make me have to call your father.”

“Go ahead. I want you to.”

Her eyelids flutter, then settle. “You don’t mean that.”

“Better still, call his accountant.” I jerk my hands free of hers, reaching for my phone. “I’ve got him in my contacts. Or was he the one you fucked to get access to my trust fund in the first place?”

She stares at me for a long time, sadness in her gaze. “You have control of your trust fund, Brooke. No one else.”

“Half of it,” I correct. “But what about the half that’ll be mine when I turn thirty?” Her face shutters. “Or get married. Whichever comes first.”

She retreats a step, hands on her hips, studying me like she’s trying to find an angle.

“I’m guessing there’s not a lot of that portion left.”

“It’s…” Alicia stops and licks her lips, bouncing on the balls of her feet like she’s about to cut and run. “It’ll all be back in there by the time you’re thirty. I promise. It’s just… I neededsomething.”

“You have something.” I wave around me. “The free use of this house and staff for a start.”

“It was just sitting there,” she says, ignoring me. “All that money just sitting there. Doing no one any good.”

An immediate argument springs to my lips but I bite it back. I don’t care about winning an argument. All I wanted to achieve by coming here was to verify my suspicions and that’s done.

Anything else is pointless.

I turn on my heel, walking for the front door and make it halfway before she gives chase, wrenching my arm, making my feet skid. “Don’t go. Just… if you listen, you’ll understand.”

“I don’t need to understand, Alicia. Once I leave here, it’s all in Dad’s hands. Talk to him and let him decide what is and isn’t relevant.”

“No. You can’t tell him.”

I shake her off, starting for the entranceway again, my eyes strangely dry, filled with grit, like reverse tears.

And as I have the door half open, she reaches me again, tugging at my arm. “Don’t leave. We still need to discuss things, then you’ll see. It’s not as bad as you think.”

“Not as bad…” I jerk my arm away and face her. “I thought you cared about me, but you only cared about the money.”

Her expression hardens like quick-pour cement. “You’re the one who’s made it about the money. You could stay here, have a conversation, human to human, but instead you’re rushing away because you’re so desperate to save those zeroes in your bank account.”

“I thought we were family.”

Her face pulls in a thousand different directions all at once. “We are.”

“You put me and Harrison through torture to hide your fraud. Which part of that counts?” I shake my head, stumbling through the door, the late afternoon sunlight blinding me as it reflects off the white stone steps.

“He’s the one who didn’t trust you,” she screams after me, giving up on self-preservation to inflict more pain. “I barely had to do a thing, and he ran.”

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