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Her father’s expression changed. Sharpened almost to the point of glinting.
‘You won’t—be assured of that,’ he retorted. ‘And if you wish to please me do as I tell you. Turn around!’
Tautly, Rosalie did what he bade. As she came full circle he was nodding, his expression less sharp.
‘That’s better,’ he informed her. His gimlet eyes rested on her face assessingly, his hands still steepled. ‘You have my eyes—good. The rest must come from your mother. I remember very little about her.’
‘She remembered you!’ Rosalie cried out before she could stop herself. ‘She told me everything she could—’
Her father’s expression changed again. There was a cynical light in his eyes now. ‘I made sure there wasn’t much to know. And I kept it that way.’
A frown furrowed Rosalie’s brow. She could feel her emotions tightening within her, still feel that pain inside—because this wasn’t right... This wasn’t right at all. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be...
‘So...so how did you find out about me? My mother told me that she tried to get in touch when she learnt she was pregnant, by writing to the construction company, but you must have left the country already because she never heard back. Her letter must never have reached you—’
‘Of course it reached me!’
A gasp broke from Rosalie and she stared at the man across the desk from her.
An impatient look crossed his face. ‘I’ve always known of your existence.’
Rosalie stared on. Inside her, a stone seemed to be occupying her entire lung capacity.
‘You’ve always known?’ The words forced themselves past the stone that was choking her.
‘Of course!’
‘You’ve known and never got in touch?’
‘Why should I have?’
‘Why? Because I am your daughter!’
A sneer had formed on his face—Rosalie could see it. Was appalled by it. Appalled by everything that was happening...
‘What was that to me?’ he retorted. ‘Nothing! What possible interest could I have had in you, or your fool of a mother?’ His face tightened, an expression of angry displeasure forming. ‘You have been of no use to me until now. Which is why I sent for you.’
Emotion was storming in Rosalie, hard and angry and desperately painful.
‘You knew about me and did nothing? Nothing to help? Did you know how ill my mother was?’
The grey-green eyes so hideously like her own flashed again.
‘She was a fool, like I said! A clinging, feeble-minded fool! As for you—the state looked after you as a child... Your mother got child support, a flat to live in. Why would I waste my money on you?’
The harsh, cruel words about her hapless mother struck her like blows and she flinched to hear them. Protest rose in her, and she sent an arm flying out to encompass the opulence of the room she stood in, the grandeur of this mansion her father lived in.
‘You’re rich! We were so poor—grindingly poor! Mum was so ill she couldn’t work, and I couldn’t either because I had to look after her—’
A hand slammed down on the desk’s tooled surface with heavy force. ‘Be silent! Don’t come crying to me! My money is mine—do you understand? Mine to do with exactly as I like!’ His face hardened. ‘And if you want to enjoy a single cent of it you’ll change your attitude, my girl!’
Rosalie’s face froze. She’d heard the last of his outburst—‘my girl!’—and it was as if the words were acid on her skin.
But I’m not his girl—I’m no more his daughter than a block of wood! He knew... He knew about me and never
cared at all...
The words tumbled through her stricken brain like spiked wheels, each one inflicting stab after stab of pain.
