Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 47977 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47977 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Not saying another word, she leaves in a huff, but I know she’s going to do exactly what I demand.
I quickly begin sending texts off and emails to make arrangements to take some time off. It’s no easy task canceling all my upcoming photo shoots, and that alone should tell me something. I was practically burying myself with work when I had a wife at home who truly needed me. I should have been here with her. Had I been, my mother wouldn’t have had the power to play her twisted mind games on her.
Am I pissed at my mother? Yes. But I’m angrier at myself. I fucking know better. I know exactly how my mother operates, and I knew all along that she didn’t care for Ember. Did I really think she would treat her with any compassion or respect?
I can stand here all I want and rage at her, but Louisa Davenport is never going to change her stripes, and I didn’t want to face the truth and deal with it. I should have moved us into our own place right away, but if I’m being honest with myself, I was too busy with… me. And I didn’t want all the responsibility of Ember on my shoulders.
Yeah, I had been a bastard.
No wonder she left me.
The saddest thing of all is she chose that sick killer over me… which truly shows just how much I failed her.
A knock on the door pulls me away from my self-loathing.
“Christopher?” Marissa opens the bedroom door and peeks inside.
“I don’t have time for this,” I snap, seeing straight through this woman too. My guess is that my mother used her to fuck with Ember as well. “Convenient that you come up here right after I tell my mother to basically go fuck herself. Don’t make me do the same to you.”
She takes a step inside and lifts her hands up as if she means no harm. “Yes, Louisa asked me to come up here to try to talk some sense into you.”
“Don’t bother.” I give her a dirty look as I reach for a bag and start throwing clothes into it. “I expected better from you, Marissa. I don’t know why I did, but I did.”
“I didn’t come up here to do her bidding,” she says as she walks fully into the room and closes the door behind herself. “But I do think you should pause and think this through. You’ve always been impulsive—”
“Don’t stand there and act like you know me,” I cut in without even bothering to look up at her. “I tried to be nice to you. I tried to be… sensitive, considering you were an innocent victim in all this too. But I’m not blind. I know you want Ember out of the picture just as much as my mother does.”
“Do you blame me?”
“You act as if you and I were engaged or something. We were dating. It was far more casual than you’re making it seem.”
“You’re just being mean now,” she says as she walks around me so she’s in my line of sight. “And I don’t deserve that.”
“No?” I ask, looking up at her with a raised eyebrow. “Really? You and my mother have been in cahoots from the beginning. Perfect example is right now. Why is it you’re here? Let me guess. My mother called you and told you to rush right on over here to be by my side. To try to console me and also tell me I’m better off without that ‘loon.’ And let me also guess, that when my mother tells you to jump, you always reply with ‘how high’.”
She takes a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling. “Yes. You’re right. But—”
“I don’t want to hear any more,” I say as calmly as I can, but there isn’t much more restraint in me, so I know I sound short and pissed.
And who the fuck cares how I sound?
I am pissed.
“Fine, I get it. You and I are over, and whatever we had is done.” She glances down at her feet. “But I did want to come up here and tell you I had no part in helping bring that Richard man here. I didn’t know your mother was doing that. The first I heard of it is right now when she filled me in on what happened and why she did it.” She takes another deep breath. “I know you’re angry with her, but do know she did all this because she loves you. She only wants the best for you.”
“She doesn’t know what love is, and I’m not going to have this conversation with you. So, if you don’t mind, get out.”
“Christopher, I just don’t want to leave here with you thinking I helped Ember leave. I may have been on your mother’s side, and I did want her…. Well, I didn’t do this.”