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“Young lady, you’d do well to remember that I am not yourpeer, nor am I yourfriend. Do not refer to me by my first name again.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “Mrs. Cline. I kept the terms of our agreement.”
“Oh, but youdidn’t,” she hissed. “You just… couldn’t help yourself, could you? Walking in your daddy’s footsteps, thinking you would build a beauty empire, like he did. Your little nail polish company is cute, I guess.”
“It’s not little. And you know what… maybe the beauty industryisin my blood.”
She scoffed. “Did you think you were making him proud?”
“Iknowhe was proud. Even if he didn’t know it was me, he was proud. He said so, when he offered to buy my “little company”, that I built on my own, without using his name.”
“Oh, bravo, you littlebitch,” she said drily, accenting her words with a half-hearted clap. “Good for you… I guess. Finally got the attention of the daddy who never wanted you to be anything but medical waste on a dirty clinic floor.Give yourself a hand.”
I shook my head. “Okay, what thefuckis wrong with you? What is your problem?”
“My problem?” she repeated, and then smiled. “Myproblem is that I told you to make yourself invisible. To go scuttle away, like the cockroach you are, back to yourwhoreof a mother, since I exterminated you. Butno. You just had to make yourself noticed. Well… congratulations, Monica.He noticed. That’s why he wanted to buy your shitty little company. I’ll never forget the day… I have Nubia Perry on the TV, and then… lo and behold, there you are, on her arm. I knew you two were friends. It wasn’t news to me. Buthe… happens to look at the TV. And he looks right at you, and whispers, like the sniveling,weakexcuse for a man that he is…Gloria. My Gloria.”
I took a step back. “Wait a minute… what? He… thought I was my mother?”
“Of course not. But you look just like his main whore – at the time. So of course he immediately knew who you were. Wanted to reach out to you. Wanted to talk, wanted to know you, wanted you to know how proud he was. He thought you were perfect. Hisperfect fucking daughter,from hiswhore.”
“He never said anything to me about that.”
“Because I convinced him not to. And then I set my plan in motion.”
“Plan?”
She smirked. “Oh yes. You see, your whore mother was already dead, so I couldn’t really take it out on her. But you… oh, you, with your implicit trust, and your idyllic views of the people you love. It was soeasyto disrupt your perfect little life. Screw your husband’s boss, and convince him it was you. Make sure heneverworked in finance again. Set up a mistress for him, so you could feel my pain.”
“Asher did that, I interrupted. “You’re a liar.”
Miranda laughed. “Oh, honey… who do you think gave Asher the idea? But you… you were so… stupid. You stayed.”
“So did you!” I reminded her, but she shook her head.
“Not the same.Myhusband left his indiscretions in the past, and we rebuilt, and moved on. You… let the man make a goddamned fool of you. It was so easy to get him on my side, working against you. And then Glen started talking about buying your little company. He was obsessed with you. I couldn’t get him to let it go. So I decided it was time to… ramp things up.”
I took a step back. “You…youkilled Kellen.”
She shrugged. “Oh, not at first. First was trying to sabotage your business… take you down a few pegs. But that wasn’t working, so then I thought I’d scare you… and that didn’t work either. And by that time I was sick of you. Impatient. So… yes, I had Kellen taken care of. He was a pain in more ways than one – so emotional, always ready to confront you about screwing Brad, which of course you would deny. And, Amanda was upset, becauseshewanted Kellen, but the idiot had fallen in love with the mistress, gotten her pregnant. So… he had to go.”
“You are…sick,” I whispered, shaking my head. “All of this… Sheila? And Kim? All because my father wanted to know me?!”
“Because youexistedin the first place. And yes, because he wanted to know you,yesbecause hewantedyou at all. How was I supposed to feel?!Huh?! The child of the woman he came home smelling like, expecting to be able to crawl on top of me after… the verysightof you disgusts me. How dare you get a singlemoleculeof emotion, of admiration, oflovewhen I got rid ofmychild to please him?!”
Those words hit me like a smack in the face. “What?! I have a sibling?!”
An ugly sneer spread across her features. “No child of mine will ever claimanyrelation to you. Glen picked me up… from nothing. Brought me all the way out here. Got me pregnant. Told me to get rid of it. I begged, and pleaded. We were in love. Iwantedmy baby. But he told me we couldn’t be together if I kept her. He didn’t want kids. He gave me an ultimatum, and he left. Didn’t call, didn’t write, didn’t drop in… for a whole year. And when he did come back… I was as childless as he’d left me. And he… he married me. A week later. And a week after that… he started coming home smelling likeher.Likeyou.”
“You’re Amanda’s mother.”
Nothing had ever been as clear to me as that was, and suddenly it all made sense.
Amanda coming to Blakewood. Amanda being my roommate. Amanda being my “bestie”
She wasn’t my friend… she was… keeping an eye on me.
“You killed my baby,” Miranda said, her voice thick with emotion.
