AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When she didn't answer, I took her face in my hands and she finally had to look me in the eyes.
"Tell me," I said firmly. "What did the bitch say to upset you?"
She glanced away. "It's just that I realized how different our upbringings were, seeing the house where you grew up. Everything was marble and expensive wood and gilded fixtures in the bathroom. Your family is so rich, and I grew up with my parents often raiding the piggy bank when it got close to payday."
"Alexa..." I said, shaking my head. "The money means nothing to me. It's just a means to an end. You should know that by now."
I stroked her hair and lifted her chin.
"It doesn't mean I'm better than anyone or worse than anyone. That's all money has ever been to me. A means to an end. Besides, despite all her pretensions, my mother did nothing -- nothing -- to earn any of the money she has. She married well. That's all. She thinks it's because she deserves to be rich, but no one deserves to be born rich or poor. It's all accidental. It's what you do with your circumstances that matters. She was beautiful and caught my father's eye. He had money from his father. So, neither of them actually did anything to be so wealthy other than invest wisely."
"He built the company with your father," Alexa said. "That counts for something."
"He was the money man. It was my father who took the idea and built up the company. And it was my biological mother's inheritance that helped fund things. These people had money and used it to make more money. There's nothing wrong with that -- it's the way of capitalism. But it doesn't make them any better than your father and mother and you. It doesn't."
"Still, our lives growing up were so different..."
"They were similar enough so that we both went to grad school at Columbia. That makes us even, in my view. Besides, I never wanted to just inherit money and be rich by birth. I wanted to make my own. I respected my biological father because he built a company from scratch, repaying the money he borrowed and building the company up until it was a Fortune 500 company. I wanted my own money and not to rely on either of the Marshalls. I'm my own man now. Every ounce of debt I went into to create Chatter has been paid off and I now have my nest egg so I can build even more. Through my own hard work. That's what matters to me. Every person of modest means who gets scholarships or student loans and goes to college? They're self-made people, too. That's what I respect. I'm not like my adopted mother."
She smiled. "What if you were disinherited from the Marshall family fortune?"
I frowned. "Why would you ask that?"
She didn't say anything, so I lifted her chin once more and stared into her eyes.
"What did she say to you?"
She shrugged, avoiding my eyes. "She said if we married, you'd be disinherited."
"What?" A shock went through me at that. That fucking bitch... "She said that to you? What did you do?"
Alexa nodded, and finally met my eyes again. "I thanked her for the lovely lunch and left."
I sat there and fumed for about thirty seconds, feeling like the top of my head would blow. Finally, I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.
"It doesn't matter. I don't care. I don't need their money. They can give it all to Dana. They can donate it to their favorite charity. I have all the money I'll ever need."
She cupped my cheek with her hand and made me look in her eyes. "Do you really feel that way? She said you would regret losing out on the inheritance one day when you wanted to build your rocket to Mars..."
"She's full of shit," I said a little too harshly. "I never expected to see any of their money anyway. I just never factored it in to any of my plans and from now on, I won't even consider it."
"Are you sure about that? It's a lot of money, Luke. It would buy a lot of rockets."
"Fuck her," I said, trying hard to get my anger under control. "She'
s not going to manipulate us and break us up using threats of disinheriting me. It won't work and all it will do is drive me farther apart from her."
"I don't want to be the cause of your family feud."
"Look, my love," I said finally, getting control over my emotions. “The only person I truly consider family is Dana and her children. Not my adoptive mother or my adoptive father. Not Eric. John is more my family than either of my parents. Hell, John's parents are like the family I wish had adopted me."
"How is Mrs. Andrews?" Alexa asked. "Her chemo was successful, from what he said."
"She's good. She has to be checked every three months, but so far, so good."
"I hope everything works out for the best. John is a sweet man."
"He's the best," I said and nodded. "She's all he's got now. I know he's worried about her. So am I, but luckily, she has the best care money can buy."
