Page 85 of What Is Love
Her words put me on edge.
We sat in silence until Prue arrived with a tea set on a tray. I didn’t like tea, so my cup was prefilled with hot water and a slice of lemon.
Sharon picked up a teacup and saucer, took a tiny sip, then set her cup back down and added two cubes of sugar. She eyed my untouched teacup as she picked up one of the tiny spoons on the tray and started stirring her tea. “You don’t drink tea?”
“I don’t care for the taste.”
“I’m sure you can find one to learn to like,” she commented before taking another sip from her cup. Seeming pleased with the taste now, she set the cup back on the saucer and held it in her lap. “My Brandon tells me you haven’t been paying much attention to him.”
I didn’t bother giving her an excuse, not that she waited to hear one.
“He also said that you yelled and hit him for no reason at all.”
“He didn’t respect my request to take things slow physically,” I said.
She took another sip of her tea and sighed. Not out of delight for a good-tasting tea, but because she was annoyed. “You need to understand that as women, we must make certain sacrifices. Men have needs. My Brandon has needs, and as the woman who will one day be his wife, you need to give him what he needs.”
“And if I don’t?” my rebel side asked before I could stop her.
Sharon looked around the room at all the art. “Your mother has expensive taste for someone who’s running out of money.”
What?
“I would hate to have to tell her that the twenty million she’s expecting from this union won’t be coming because of her defiant daughter.”
My ears rang over and over with her words. “You’re paying my mother twenty million for me to marry your son?”
She just smiled. “How upset do you think she’d be if she knew you cost her that much money?”
I knew exactly how upset she’d be. What I wanted to know was how Sharon knew how Mother would react.
Her smile turned cunning and downright evil before she took another sip of her tea. “Brandon is having a party tonight after his game.” She set her cup and saucer down on the tray before standing. “I expect you to be there to celebrate with him, and of course, make sure he has a wonderful time.” She smoothed away the nonexistent wrinkles in her dress. “If you’re not there…well, I guess I’ll need to make a phone call. I’ll show myself out.”
The clack of her heels on the tile floor echoed through the house until the front door shut behind her.
I couldn’t move even after she left. I felt like if I did, I’d crumble into a million pieces. Probably twenty million pieces.
Prue came in and collected the tray. She spared me one glance before leaving to take it back to the kitchen.
Get up.
Get up and start getting ready.
I couldn’t convince myself. I just couldn’t.
I was in hell and there wasn’t a way out.
Prue came into the room again and sat on the coffee table in front of me. She took my hand in hers. “You have options.”
That got me moving. I pulled my hand away. “Even if I found my biological father, there is no guarantee he’d want me or want to help me. If I run to him, Mother will find me and have Clay drag me back.”
“Then you call the police,” she said.
I started rubbing my temples. “Do you not remember when Tommy, our last gardener, called the police because he saw her through the window choking me with her bathrobe sash? The police came, saw the marks on my neck, and did nothing. She paid them off and Tommy moved out of the state.”
“You were fourteen then. You’re an adult now.”
“Fourteen or eighteen, it doesn’t matter. I’m her property and she’s selling me for twenty million dollars. The only way I can escape any of this is if I’m dead.” My anger gave me the strength to get up from the couch.
