Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“James arranged for a close friend of his to open their doors to me, and I moved from my parents’ house in New Jersey to Manhattan. James taught me how to make small talk. How to walk. He even paid for some lessons to help me speak with a hint of a British accent. He taught me to dance, and we went to dinners that doubled as lessons in social etiquette. It was quite the marathon year of preparation.”
“You spent a year doing all this?”
“A year of meeting in secret, preparing to be introduced to his family.”
Jack has always described his mother as being a complete snob. How is that possible when she’d come from such humble beginnings? She’s a total hypocrite. She must have suspected how Jack and I felt about each other, but it never mattered to her.
I press my lips into a thin line, not wanting to be rude to someone in my father’s house. If this was my house, I would have asked her to leave already.
“We had a cover story for everything. And when we felt we’d covered every base, James arranged for me to meet his parents at a society wedding. Then again at a charity ball. And for a third time after he’d proposed.”
“Did they approve of the marriage?”
She frowns slightly. “They had wanted him to marry someone else, but they accepted his choice.”
“Good of them.”
“It had taken a lot of work to turn me into a woman they would accept.”
I sigh, irritation prickling at the back of my neck. Why is she telling me all of this? Did she miss the part where I told her Jack and I had broken up?
“Did they ever find out that you weren’t who you said you were?” I ask a little provocatively. “That you’re not who you say you are?” She’d just confessed to being a liar.
She shakes her head. “No. As I said, no one knows apart from me and James now that my parents have passed. And now you.”
Jack doesn’t know. “You lied to your own son?”
“To protect him.” She pulls in a breath. “To protect the Alden name, the Alden legacy and Jack’s future.”
“You think anyone would care? Now? You talk as if the Aldens are royalty and you have to maintain some kind of bloodline.”
Her expression remains neutral. Probably something she learned during that year of preparation.
“I love my husband very deeply and this is what he wanted. He wanted us to be married, and he knew his family would never accept who I really was. So we created someone.”
I can’t imagine the kind of pressure that would lead to two people lying to everyone they cared about in order to be together. It must have almost broken them. It’s awful. And I know it’s a pressure Jack also feels.
“But his parents are long dead.” Couldn’t the obsession with the Alden name, the power, and the legacy die with them. It seems to cause such unhappiness.
“But the Alden name is not.”
“Okay,” I say. “I guess that’s your business. I’m not quite sure why you’re here in Star Falls making me the third person alive to know this about you.”
“Jack’s missing,” she says. “I pressed him on his future plans a week ago and… I haven’t seen him since.”
Missing? I rub my hands over my face. “Could you repeat that, please? In English?”
“Jack’s father will never make a full recovery. Jack is now the head of the Alden family trust and overseeing all the investments and charitable endeavors. He is the Alden family. And I told him he needed someone to share the burden with.”
I stay silent, and Mrs. Alden shifts in her seat.
“I told Jack he needed to find a suitable wife,” she says.
The words are like a red-hot poker straight through my heart. She’s not telling me anything I didn’t already know, but hearing it from his mother makes it sound more real. The room tilts as anger rises through my body, threatening to engulf me, but I push it away. This woman is ridiculous. This entire situation is ridiculous.
“Why are you here? I get that I’m unsuitable in your eyes, and you’re desperate to maintain the precious Alden legacy over your own son’s happiness.”
“You might see that as me being hypocritical.”
“That is you being hypocritical.”
She nods. “I understand that. But I was trying to do what I thought was best for my son and the family legacy.”
I roll my eyes. There’s been far too much mention of the word legacy. “And you’re here because?”
“Because after our conversation, Jack left, and I haven’t been able to contact him since. I thought he might have come here.”
I sigh. I wish he had. Even though it would have stung all my fresh wounds, I want him to run to me when he’s hurting.