They were desperate.And that’s what Maria wanted to hear.“Make it seventy-five and you have a deal.”
Suzanne gasped.“Trash.You’re nothing but trash.”
It was all Maria could do to keep from yanking the woman’s hair out, but instead she smiled at her.The woman was going to lose some of her precious gold and Maria would use it to help her daughter get through school.
“And you’re going to be so lucky that our trashy daughter is not going to be in your family.”
Nicole had received a full scholarship, but this would cover everything and then some.
“We’ll send messages, one from each family.Make them both believe the other had second thoughts.”
Maria stared at the floor.“And they’ll never know?”
“No,” Suzanne said.“It’ll be like it never happened.”
Maria closed her eyes.
“I want the money agreed to in writing.A contract.”
“You’ll have it by the morning.”
Was she being mean?Yes, but in the long run, it would help Nicole.She was doing this for her daughter.Now her education would be paid for.And she had saved her from this horrible family.
“I’ll get the contract drawn up and the annulment started,” George said.“We’ll be leaving for Europe tomorrow.By the time we get back, the kids will be in separate schools and have new friends.”
With a sigh, Tripp’s parents walked to the door.
Thank goodness, they were leaving, never to darken their door again.
“Let’s hope this is the last time we have to meet over our children,” Suzanne said.
“Don’t ever come back here,” Maria said.“We don’t want your family here.”
Tripp’s parents walked out.Maria closed the door.
Francisco sighed.“What have we done?”
“Saved our daughter from that family,” Maria said.
She stood in the room long after they’d gone, staring out into the moonlight, clutching her robe, wondering where her daughter was.She thought about her husband Francisco.Their own start had been rocky and yet, she loved him with her heart and soul.Had she just robbed her daughter of that kind of love?
“We just sold our daughter’s heart,” she whispered, guilt ripping through her.
What if her own parents had done this to her and Francisco?How would she have felt?
Chapter2
Twenty Years Later
Nicole Reyes was going to bury this bastard.
Derrick Reddick.
The man accused of gunning down his pregnant girlfriend, Bianca Laurent, in cold blood.A girl with whom Nicole resonated, as the young woman had just received her admittance letter to law school.The young woman who loved a man from a very wealthy family – a family who wanted him to marry someone with a pedigree like his.Not a young woman whose family was middle-class.
There was so much about this case that left her cringing inside with the realization this could have been her.Only Tripp wasn’t a murderer.
Nicole had built her entire case piece by piece, with meticulous precision.She had the motive.She had the means.And she had enough circumstantial and forensic evidence to put Derrick behind bars for the rest of his miserable life.
