It’s not that they took away money that I didn’t earn.
It’s that they did it in a way that left me completely vulnerable to the world because of whotheywere too. There were people who would have hurt me because of my name, and they no longer cared thattheywere part of the reason that I wasn’t safe.
And then they didn’t call. They didn’t check in. They showed me, in no uncertain terms, that they didn’t care.
I was a problem, the daughter who failed to live up to expectations, the daughter who would never add to the bottom line of the family coffers, and since I was useless, I was no longer their problem.
Margot calls. Margot visits. Margot offers to help me.
But she still works for the family company.
She still has dinner with them sometimes.
She’s still in that world. Intheirworld. As their good daughter.
When she started talking about taking Oliver back, now that his life would be returning to normal, it was one more thing thatmade me feel like she was returning to who she was before I was disinherited.
The idea made me terrified that I’ll lose her too. That eventually, she’ll quit straddling this line where everyone knows she sees both of us, and she’ll pick them over me.
And that—that wouldn’t just hurt.
That would wreck the tenderest part of my heart. The part that even Bea, in all of her amazing wisdom and freely given love, couldn’t fix for me.
Dammit.
Dammit.
The panic attack is coming.
Even if she wants him, he’s not getting back with her, I tell myself.She’s not going to abandon you.
It’s not enough.
But you know what I have?
I have a guy in this room who can tell me that for himself.
And it’s not like I don’t mind annoying him.
Far better that than letting him know I’m asking because of how much it matters to my entire life.
“Oliver?”
“What?”
“Why did you break up with Margot?”
Great.
Now I can’t hear him breathing at all.
My question has murdered him, and this is where they’ll find his body, with my Lava Cheese Puff fingerprints all over the crime scene.
“Don’t give me that bullshit answer that you didn’t want to drag her down because of what your father did either,” I add. It’s what she told me he told her, and neither one of us believed it. Not completely. “I want the truth.”
After what feels like seven eternities, he starts breathing again.
I think that’ll be my answer—him breathing—when his voice drifts through the semi-dark, too-chilly room.
