Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33104 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33104 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
Our apartment was nice. We lived in the Upper East Side. It was nothing like Devlynn’s place, but we were doing okay. My father was a corporate lawyer, and my mother was a stay-at-home mom who spent her time taking care of my sister and me. We had a pretty comfortable life, and for the most part, we were happy, my mom especially. She was the kind of mother my friends growing up wished they’d had. She was present, loving, and completely stable. So seeing her like this, falling apart and looking so sad, was more disturbing than it would have been for most.
“What are we going to do?” She hung her head and shook it slowly from side to side.
“Mom, please look at me.” I grabbed her hands, forcing her to shift her body to face me. I couldn’t help noticing how tired and worn she was, and her usual sunny disposition was now covered in defeat.
“He’s gone,” she whispered so softly I almost didn’t hear her.
“Who’s gone?”
“Your father. He’s gone. When the police called, I didn’t believe it.”
“What are you talking about?” Sarena asked, getting up from the table, her eyes rounded in shock and her bottom lip quivering as if trying to keep her tears at bay. “Where is Daddy?”
My mother wiped the tears from her face, straightened her back, and grabbed our hands, walking us back to the table. “I need you two to sit down.”
My sister and I took our seats, not protesting. We were frightened and confused about the whole situation. Sarena was only twelve and much closer to my dad than I was. I didn’t want to panic, but my fear was starting to take over, and the sensations were nearly crippling.
My mother fidgeted with a manilla envelope on the table. Her fingers worked the edges nervously as she looked everywhere but at us.
“Mom, you’re scaring Sarena. Just spit it out. This waiting is making everything so much worse,” I finally said, pounding my fist on the table so forcefully that it visibly shook.
My mother’s gaze shot to me, and the pain was replaced with anger for a moment before it returned to a mournful look. “Your father had an affair with Mrs. Price, and her husband found out. He got him ostracized Throughout the city—the entire Eastern Seaboard. It all started two months ago—your father has been unemployed for two months! I had no idea. He never told me…” Her voice trailed off, her eyes on Sarena, her hand on my fist, wrapping around it as if she was trying to offer warmth and comfort. “I can’t believe I’m saying this…but your father is dead. He took his own life this morning. I went in and identified the body.”
I stood in shock while Sarena cried so hard that she began hyperventilating.
My father and I had always had a tumultuous relationship. I couldn’t remember one decent memory with the man. Most of my memories were of him drinking a Scotch and working, barely saying a word to my mother or me. Yet the knowledge that he was gone hit me with such force that I couldn’t breathe.
And then the anger hummed in my veins when the rest of my mother’s words finally set in. My father was having sex with another woman who wasn’t my mom. My father was having an affair with Devlynn’s mom.
“He was fucking Devlynn’s mom,” I blurted, not thinking about how callous and insensitive my words were.
I was a selfish, self-absorbed teen. Yes, I missed my father, but the world I had constructed so perfectly was tumbling down, block after block, on top of my head.
“Daddy is dead, and all you can think of is your rich girlfriend? Her whore mother is the reason our father is dead!” my sister hollered, her ice blue eyes filled with pure venom and lasered in on me.
“No, Sarena. Dad is the reason he’s dead. He killed himself.” My voice was level and emotionless, yet I felt the pain.
My father wanted to be part of that world more than he wanted us, his children. My rage and hatred for the upper crust set in at that moment, and my whole world changed.
My father had died because he valued money and prestige more than his own flesh and blood.
Chapter 8
Devlynn
“Hello again, Princess,” his familiar voice hissed in my ear.
Even after all these years, that voice still made my entire body tingle with need and want. I despised myself for it. I should hate Elis. But I didn’t. That made my anger and confusion mix together like an overdone stew.
I turned, my face almost touching his and my heart vibrating even more than it was a moment ago.
Elis’s lips curled into a smile. He looked so smug and sure of himself, something I hated and found immensely attractive. I backed my chair away from him, needing space, needing to breathe. I’d come to this coffee shop down the street from my apartment for some peace, and his smiling face was the furthest from it.