Page 26 of A Little Harmless Pleasure

“Are you planning on staying at your grandmother’s?”

“Yes, I am.” She studied her mother and noted the nervousness in her gaze. “Why are you really here?”

“I found out from Janice Hoffmockle that you were moving. I cannot believe you did not inform us. I had to find out from a woman who cleans homes.”

The disdain in her voice aggravated Cynthia. It always had. Her mother had come from money, but Cynthia’s grandfather had earned it through hard work, unlike her father, who had inherited it. Maryanne Myers thought herself better than a woman who held an honest job. Instead of confronting her mother, she ground her teeth.

“When Father told me to leave, and you agreed, I decided that there was no reason for contacting you.”

The frown her mother offered her was another gesture Cynthia was familiar with. “So, you are going to take over the family assets in Hawaii.”

Pain speared her heart. She would never defy her father and reach out to her daughter. “They aren’tfamilyowned. They’re mine.”

“Your father was planning on using those holdings for investments.”

For several moments, Cynthia said nothing. She couldn’t. Parents were supposed to protect their children, wish the best for them. Hers still saw her as a means to an end. She wanted to weep, but she would never show that weakness in front of her mother. Instead, she hardened her expression.

“Funny, because all along you two knew that money was mine. Was this the plan all along, or did you just come up with it on the fly?”

“On the fly? Where on earth did you learn such an expression?”

“Does it really matter, Mother? Just tell me what Father sent you here to say.”

Her mother seemed surprised by Cynthia’s bluntness, her face losing all expression. She recovered fast enough, her eyes snapping with anger, her voice dripping with disdain. “You’ve been spending time with that tramp. Have you no pride? She stole your husband.”

Cynthia almost laughed at the absurdity of her mother’s statement, but she couldn’t find enough humor to even smile. “He wasn’t my husband. He wasn’t even my fiancé at the time. Max would have been a horrible match for me.”

Her mother waved away the argument. “What I want to know is, are you going to help your father out?”

“Help him out?”

“He’s run into a bit of a cash-flow problem.”

“So, he sent you here to beg for my help.”

Her mother’s spine stiffened even more. “I will not beg you for anything. What I came here to do was appeal to your family honor.”

Now Cynthia did laugh, but there was no humor in it. The ache in her chest spread through her, chilling her from the inside out.

“Family honor? What the hell do the Myers know about honor?”

“Cynthia Louisa Myers, your father has sacrificed a lot for you over the years.”

“Not near as much as I have.”

“I have no idea why you think you deserve all that money, that land, but my misguided mother thought it a big joke. And what have you done to deserve it? You couldn’t even keep a man long enough to marry him.”

Anger now replaced the hurt and she used it to lash out. “Touché. But then, I didn’t want to spend my life married to a man I didn’t love, turning a blind eye to his affairs, pretending that everything was fine.”

A flash of something that could have been pain came and went in her mother’s eyes. Shame filled her and she opened her mouth to apologize, but her mother stopped her with a comment.

“And what do you have now? You’ve let yourself go, and for what? You have your independence, but you have no man, no one to lean on.”

“Not that I think you ever had that with Father, but I don’t need a man to support me. If I find one, one I truly love, he will accept me for who I am, and would never cheat on me.”

Her mother shook her head. “You think your father and I don’t know where you spent the night of Max’s wedding? Please.” She sniffed. “I didn’t raise you to go slumming with the first man you could pick up.”

Cynthia refused to defend her actions. She had done nothing wrong. “I want you to leave.”

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