“I only hate the money hungry ones.” I try to keep my tone light, make it sound like I’m joking, but he’s not buying it.
“They’re not all like that. I love Zara to pieces,” he tells me. “She is the best thing to happen to me.” He looks around as he thinks of more examples. “What about Cal and Evie?” he asks. “Do you think Evie is after Cal’s money?”
I cross my arms as I actually give it a thought. “No. Her family has money.”
“What about Ray and Hayden?”
I smirk at him. “Same.”
Kyle is actually amused by that. “How the fuck Ray ended up with a woman richer than him is a mystery,” he agrees, but it’s all in good nature on his end. He doesn’t care about who’s got how much money.
I’m glad that he is distracted by that so that we don’t have to talk about me anymore. My relief is very short lived, though.
“So what’s your problem with Mona? No money?”
I stare at him, knowing that my silence says it all. I don’t trust her because she’s got no money. Is it fair to her? Absolutely not. But I have this mental block that I am trying really hard to get over.
“The question stands. What the fuck happened with your parents?”
I let out a laugh that is full of sarcasm. “So many things happened. It’s too long of a story, and I don’t want to take your time.”
Kyle, in his always goofy way, makes a production out of getting more comfortable in his chair. He pops his feet on my desk and rests his hands on his stomach.
“I got nowhere to be,” he tells me.
It is on the tip of my tongue to remind him that only minutes ago he was dying to run home and tell Zara that I got onHolidates. But my chest becomes heavy with all the secrets I’ve been keeping for way too many years.
“My father was born into money.” The words taste bitter in my mouth. “He fell in love with a woman who didn’t have any. She got pregnant on purpose, and he felt obligated to marry her.”
“Why?” Kyle asks in a bewildered voice.
“So that the family name wouldn’t be tarnished by a baby being born out of wedlock.”
“I see,” he mumbles, but he clearly doesn’t see anything.
“They got married. No prenup. As soon as she gave birth, she filed for divorce and relinquished all her parental rights to the baby.”
Kyle looks like his eyeballs are about to fall out of his head. “You?”
“Obviously me. If not, what would the point of this story be?” I shake my head at him. Thedumbasspart is implied.
“So she wanted nothing?”
I let out a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, she wanted a lot of things. They all had a big ass dollar sign on them.”
“So she took your father to the cleaners then?”
“More than,” I confirm.
He stares at me without saying anything else, but I don’t have anything else to add either. The story of my life is pathetic and sad, and now he knows.
“So you hate all the women because of what your mother did to your father?”
I let out a long sigh. “From the time I could form words, I was told that all women are the same, and that I should never trust anyone who can’t match my wealth.”
Kyle shakes his head at me. “That’s some stupid shit. And there’s gotta be more to this story between them. Did you ever look her up?”
I glance away as I remember the summer I turned twelve. I’d been crying to my father, my nanny and to my grandparents about wanting to meet my mother. He finally gave in and hired a private investigator to find her for me. He had quite the report to give us.
