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Since we were within earshot of some guests, I pointed towards the yellow room. “Why don’t we go in there?”
Once we were alone, I told her about Manon and Crisp.
Looking dismayed, she opened her palms. “I know. It’s disgusting. But I’m powerless in this situation.”
“Shouldn’t you at least talk to her? I mean, she might live to regret it. And he could hurt her.”
“Why this sudden interest? I thought you disliked Manon,” she said.
“I do. But still, he’s creepy.”
She sighed. “I’ll have another word with Reynard. I’ve already tried talking to Manon. Plenty of times.” Her mouth formed a tight line. “The thought of it makes me ill. At least they could have kept it private. I would have preferred not to know.”
“Then tell Reynard to step away. You’re close to him. Surely this unsinkable relationship you share wins you some influence.”
She released an audible breath.
“What’s he got over you, Mother?”
“I can’t say.”
Only after telling us about her hidden pregnancy, did my mother reveal vulnerability, and now, for a fleeting moment, I read defeat in her eyes.
I softened my tone. “Has he got something over you? Is that what it is? You can tell me.”
She switched back to deadpan. “I’ll talk to Manon again.”
There she went again, steering the subject away from Crisp, motivating me to press her, nevertheless. “From what I heard, there’s already been some kind of intimacy between them.”
Her eyebrows collided. “You heard that?”
As I relayed that Manon had him begging, and how she was flaunting herself online, my mother went pale.
“It may not be as salacious as you think. Maybe she’s shown him pictures of herself in bikinis.”
I laughed at how old-fashioned that sounded. “Mum, girls like Manon are posting pictures of their vaginas.”
Looking horrified, my mother might have just seen a rotting corpse. “Please tell me you haven’t done that.” Her eyes narrowed. “Have you?”
Not deliberately.
She wasn’t the only one with secrets. I planned to keep to myself that heart-shattering sex tape Bram sent me, threatening to destroy and humiliate me unless I met up with him.
“No, of course not. But there’s OnlyFans and all kinds of seedy websites where girls like Manon can post pornographic images of themselves for money.”
“But she doesn’t need the money.” A note of anxiety crept into her voice, and guilt sliced through me for upsetting her. “I’ve set up a trust fund for her that she’s aware of. I’ve even told her that if she stops playing with Reynard, I’ll give her what he offers, plus more. But only when she turns twenty-one. In the meantime, I allow her shopping sprees with a generous limit, and she’s earning a good wage at the Pond.”
I opened my palms. “Then maybe she likes Crisp. She wouldn’t be the first nineteen-year-old to marry a man who could be her grandfather.”
“He’s not the marrying kind. He’ll do his deed, give her what she demands, and then move on to the next. That’s Reynard.”
I studied my mother, who looked shaken. After all, it was her granddaughter. “He’s horrible. I don’t get it.”
“Best to stay out of it, darling. Please. Don’t concern yourself.”
“Set her up in her own place away from here. That way, I can forget she exists. She keeps stealing my clothes, for one, and I just don’t trust her. She’s just like her mother.”
A line grew between her brows. “She’s my granddaughter, and she’s an asset at the Pond.”
