Page 44 of The Mountain Echoes
“Papa, he cheated on me.”
“Stop whining and get on with it.”
“Get on with what? Being friendly with them?” I can’t believe the words coming out of my own father’s mouth.
“She’s pregnant. She’s gonna have a baby,” he bellows.
“Papa, you can’t expect me to be?—"
“If you can’t be civil to your sister and her futurehusband, then you need to get the fuck outta here,” he yells.
“And what the hell does being civil mean?” I demand.
“You’ll talk to them. Help plan the wedding. Be a good sister.”
“Fuck that,” I cry out.
“Then you can pack up and leave.”
Celine drinks green tea that Vera serves, along with an egg-white omelet. She cuts into the fluffy omelet. “How long are you plannin’ on stayin’?”
“I don’t know.”
She looks at me, an eyebrow arched. “Don’t you have a job to run off to?”
“I took a leave of absence.”
She frowns. “And they don’t mind?”
“No.”They’re my friends. They take care of me like my family never has.
“You can’t stay here. This isourhouse.”
I pull off my sunglasses because the hell with the throbbing pain, I need to straighten this woman out. “No, it’s not. It’s half my house unless Papa changed his will, which I have under good authority he didn’t.”
I have no idea if he did or didn’t, but from how Nadine, Amos, and even Mac are behaving, I am hopeful that Papa split the estate equally between Celine and me.
“But you can’t live here.” She’s incredulous that I’d dare to be here. “Papa didn’t want you to.”
“As you know, Papa isn’t here anymore.” I drain my coffee cup. “I’ll see youwhen Mac gets here.”
“Aria—”
I raise a hand to silence her. “That’s all the conversation with you that I can stand. But don’t you ever think you can kick me out of what is as much mine as it is yours.”
I climb up the stairs, holding back whimpers.
I take some more pills, set the alarm for an hour before Mac is to arrive for the will reading, and fall asleep.
CHAPTER 10
maverick
“There’s something off about her that’s icky,” Joy says when I hang up after speaking with Celine.
“Icky?” I muse.
“It’s a gut feeling, Mav, and I can see why you like her. Celine’s gorgeous, sure,butshe has an unpleasant undercurrent.”
