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“I love you, too.”
She leaves and the door closes with a click behind her.
I glance at the dress and heels again. Hopefully, I’ll find a suitable guy. Hopefully, he won’t be an asshole, or too demanding, and I won’t have to give up a lot. What if he wants sexual favors? Yeah, I’m not pimping myself out, but I don’t have to look at the first guy who offers me a deal. I can choose from a few men, actually. And if I don’t find anyone? I’m not going to allow myself to be negative. I have a once-in-a-lifetime chance and I’m going to take it.
I get up from my couch and waltz to my small kitchen that barely fits two people. When I open the fridge door, I grab a bottle of water and the jar of peanut butter and sit back on the couch before turning on my TV. My eyes stay glued to the trashy reality TV show until the sun sinks behind the skyscrapers and the city lights brighten the dark sky.
My mother used to monitor what I watched when I was in high school, and this would be one of the things she banished me from watching.Proper girls don’t watch trashy TV shows.Which is why I sneaked and watched them when I knew she wasn’t around. Can’t keep a girl from her fake drama. Take that, Mom, you can’t fully control my life.
After the show is over, I flip through Netflix and settle for a show where the girl speaks back to her mother. I wonder, am I ever going to have a child in the future? Am I going to ever be a mother? I might not be career-oriented, but I do know that I want kids some day and to start my own family, which is why I was so adamant about marrying Link. I thought if he gave me what I wanted, and I gave him what he wanted, then that would solve all our problems. But I couldn’t take the emotional abuse he threw at me. There is no way I’m having a child, let alone raising one, in a dysfunctional environment. So, my dreams will be put on the back burner until I can find someone to love me the way I deserve to be loved.
Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen anytime soon, and I’m okay with that. I want to focus on getting in good graces with my mother.
Jasper
Isit across from my father, Tommy, in the living room of my childhood home. I hate everything about this place: the open windows, the expensive furniture, the way this place feels cozy to a guest, but living here was like living on Elm Street. A nightmare you want to wake up from. This place never felt like my home, it felt like a mansion full of stuff. If the eggshell walls could talk, it would speak about the dark secrets and abuse of this place. Every minute I spend within these walls is a reminder that I never belonged here.
My father’s gray eyes narrow at me, and his face turns the color of tomatoes.He crosses his legs, wrinkling his beige dress pants, and glares at me while grinding his teeth. I fucking hate him with every fiber in my body. His face is full of wrinkles, and his salt-and-pepper brown hair is slicked back. His beige suit is squeezing the life out of him.
He sits across from me on the chestnut brown couch.
We’re here to settle who inherits my uncle James’s business. His lawyer, Eric, leans over and whispers in his ear, and my father shakes his head. My uncle passed away the day I saw Poppy at the bar three days ago. He had terminal brain cancer. Uncle James treated me like I washischild. My father wasn’t the one who played catch with me, nor was he the one who taught me how to drive. He was too busy chasing my stepmother, trying to remove me from his family. He paints a picture to the media that we’re the perfect family, that he cares about me and is the best father figure in the world. The media adores and worships him.
When I graduated from Yale and received the rep that I was a playboy and an alcoholic, he went to social media informing them that he was going to help me get in rehab, that he was concerned for my safety. Yet I didn’t receive a single phone call from him during my stay, and him showing up to pick me up was nothing more than a publicity stunt organized by his PR team.
Fake ass.
I hate him with a passion.
If he were on fire, I wouldn’t piss on him to put the flames out.
“It’s time,” Eric murmurs, his face wiped clean of emotion. He’s been the family’s lawyer since I can remember, but I never hired him for anything because he’s on my father’s payroll and I don’t trust him. Eric twists the ends of his bushy mustache. His pot belly hangs over his belt and the white crisp shirt he wears looks as if it’s going to burst sometime soon. And he reeks of body odor. I also suspect he doesn’t wash his ass. I don’t see how my father can stand the smell of him.
He reads the will slowly and steadily. Apparently, my father’s younger sisters will receive his vacation homes, mansion, and his cars and whatever stock he has left. I don’t care, I want to know who gets his business. I can quit Risqué lingerie as I’ve never been into fashion. The only reason why I worked there was because Atlas needed the help. I’m good at numbers, which is why I was the CFO, but now Atlas has left to start a new company with Lake.
“Jasper, you get Wolfgang Enterprise Bank,” Eric announces, then he glances at my father.
Just as I expected. I smirk and gloat, taking in my victory and the sour look on Tommy’s face. He looks like he wants to rip me in half.
My uncle’s business is worth close to thirty billion dollars, which will make me one of the wealthiest men on the planet.
“I knew my brother always made poor choices, but this one takes the cake.” His words are filled with venom as he rolls his eyes and taps his foot on the ivory marble floor.
I glare at him. He really thinks I care how he feels about me?
Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.
“Watch what you say about him. Unlike you, he treated me like I was his child.”
I’ve been wanting to say those words to him for the longest time. I was hoping to get a reaction out of him, but he doesn’t care. If I were dying, he wouldn’t care. That’s how much he doesn’t like me.
The feeling is mutual.
I don’t know why my father and uncle hated each other, but I don’t care. I’m sure Uncle James had a good reason.
They were like night and day. My uncle was the happy-go-lucky type of guy, and never let shit faze him.
A lump forms in the back of my throat and my heart hammers in my chest. If I had known the last time I saw him would be the last time, I would have said goodbye to him. He truly was a great man. I wish I’d had more time with him.
