Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 70322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Yeah, right, I think to myself. My mother would've never called us here if she didn’t want something out of us. Perhaps she wants a piece of my company as well? No, it can’t be that; she’s Lady Decency through and through (or at least that’s what she wants everyone to think), and she’d never go near something as racy as my company. Her loss, really. I think that if she bought a few of my toys she’d stop being so uptight. Ugh, I can’t believe I’m saying this about my own mother.
“So?” Drake asks from the other end of the table, he has his elbows there, and his fingers are laced in a patient posture; still, everything in him tells me that he’d rather be anywhere but here with his ex-wife. “Out with it, Linda.”
I look from him to my mother, and I swear I can almost see the hint of a grin creeping up on her lips. Instead, she just flashes him a humble smile and looks around the table, her gaze going from Drake to Sloane, and then from Sloane to me. I can tell she’s taking her time, allowing the tension to rise before she finally makes her dramatic revelation. She always had a flair for drama.
“I’m going to run for mayor,” she finally says, the words hanging in the air like grey clouds.
“Mayor? But Michael Anders has been your friend for --”
“This isn’t about Mayor Anders or about me. This is about New York and what’s best for the city,” she cuts me off, her explanation so cold I can almost feel the temperature in the room dropping.
Michael Anders has been the mayor for as long as I remember, and my mother always loved to brag about her friendship with the ‘humble and devoted mayor’, as she liked to call him whenever we had guests at our house. I guess that friendship’s over then.
“Yeah, and what the fuck does that have to do with me?” Sloane suddenly chimes in, reaching for the glass of whisky in front of him and downing the whole thing at once. “Did you just call us here to wish you good luck?”
“No, not at all,” my mom replies, and this time there’s a smile on her face. She looks almost ten years younger now, and I have a glimpse of what she looked like when she was my age. Blonde and fair-skinned, she was part of the New York elite, dazzling the whole city with how beautiful she was.
She still looks good for her age, but there are a few wrinkles showing up on her face now. The lines are barely perceptible, though, but I can tell that not one of them is the result of excessive smiling. To my mother, a smile and a laugh were merely tools to get whatever she wanted. And, oh boy, did she know how to laugh and smile; I guess she just never did it enough for it to show on her face.
“I called you here,” she starts after one of her dramatic silences, “because I need you all to put forth your best behavior.” Her gaze turns to me, and I feel a knot in my stomach. I don’t like where this is going, not one bit.
“It’s not like we’re savages, mom,” I tell her, but she just waves my comment away, her smart eyes locked on mine.
“I need you to sell your company, Natalie,” she finally tells me, the words hitting me at full force. I look back at her, completely stunned. Does she realize what she’s asking? She wants me to give up my business? To throw away all my ambitions, dreams, and success? And all this because she wants to be mayor. That’s rich.
“No,” I reply flatly, pursing my lips and staring her down. No way I’m going to get rid of Dirty ‘Lil Angels; that company’s my life. And besides, I’m working on a new prototype that’s going to turn my company into a veritable contender in the business arena. All I need is to roll my profits into development and secure the right investment, and now that both Drake and Sloane are vying for my attention, that seems more and more like a sure thing.
“She’s right, you know?” Drake cuts in, leaning back in his chair and looking at my mother with one arched eyebrow. “You can’t pop out of nowhere and ask us to change our lives just because you want to play politics.”
“Do you think this is a game, Sloane?” she asks him, turning to him so fast it almost seems supernatural. “I’m begging you, all of you… I can’t afford to have my family involved in any kind of scandal,” she continues, but I know she isn’t begging; she’s ordering us to play nice. Or else.