“You’ve just opened another branch in LA, haven’t you?”
“We have.That’s where I met El.She was with friends and we got chatting at the bar.”
Annabel coughed.“That’s very unlike you, El.”
“Could you blame me, Mother?When Ryan’s so handsome?Although, I never expected he’d own the restaurant,” she teased, turning to Ryan with a smile.
“No, why would you?”Annabel said softly, then jolted a little when a knock sounded at the door—just a tap—and Anita entered with a tea tray.
As she set out the coffee and tea pots, Anita murmured, “Mr.Forsythe-Drew will be down momentarily, ma’am.”
“That was very prompt of you, dear,” Annabel replied as she reached forward to play mum.
“I asked her to make sure he knew to come down,” El informed her mother, well aware that ‘dear’ was not a compliment in Annabel’s vocabulary.It meant that Anita had acted without direction, which was never good.
Though she might have looked flighty, her mother ruled the roost with an iron fist.Mixed metaphors, but the truth nonetheless.If a staff member ever got on the wrong side of Annabel, then woe betide that poor, innocent fool.
They never lasted long after that.
“Why did you, dear?”Annabel asked, pinning her with a narrowed gaze.
“Because I knew why Ryan wanted to come here, of course,” she retorted simply.It was relatively easy to lie to her mother.She’d done it so often over the years to save herself hassle that it was second nature now.
It saddened her, of course.The last thing she wanted to do was lie to either of her parents, but they were both so intense and invasive, arrogant too, that if she didn’t, she found that her life belonged to them.
When her father asked if her lawyers had found a loophole for her to delve into one of her trust funds to pay for her brother Michael’s campaign tour, she shook her head sadly and told him the trust was sealed tight.Lie.She hadn’t even asked her lawyers to look into it.
Her father couldn’t seem to understand that his father, her grandfather, had locked them all up with so many loopholes, it made a helter skelter look like a regular slide.
Her grandfather, whether he was looking down from above or up from below, was probably having a hell of a laugh at their expense.
Annabel murmured to Anita, “Okay, Anita.Be sure to chivvy Mr.Forsythe-Drew along, won’t you?You know how long he can take getting ready.”She shot Ryan a smile that had El wanting to puke.“He takes longer than I do.”
Ryan just cleared his throat, and was, for a moment, lost for words at the definitely flirtatious cast to the glance her mother shot his way, as well as the tone.
Anita, catching El’s attention, rolled her eyes, then with a commiserative smile, headed back out of the room.
This was yet another reason why she’d never brought anyone around.Why would she?
Did she have masochist scrawled on her forehead?
Annabel, in an attempt to hide from the fact she was no longer El’s age, seemed to flirt with everything that moved.El had always known her mother would target any guy she brought around, and considering how rich she was, had no doubt that she’d manage to persuade a ‘friend’ of El’s into sleeping with her.
Sad thing was, El had learned a long time ago that everyone had a price.
Her father had been exactly the same with her brothers’ girlfriends.It was why El had always avoided the ‘let’s introduce you to my parents’ phase of any relationship.
Of course, with Ryan, she knew she was safe.
And didn’t that just make her feel warm and cozy inside.He was hers.Nothing her mother could do, no amount of money she offered or influence she promised to share, would ever sway him to Annabel’s side.
El settled back into the armchair when she knew her mother preferred her to sit straight-backed.With Ryan at her side, she’d admit to feeling untouchable, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.
Though, to her parents, El had been in a position of power since her grandfather had locked her into the trust fund situation, she’d never seen it that way.They hated that she held the purse strings, but El had as little control as they did on the situation.
Of course, that didn’t alter the quarterly returns she received from the fund.Returns that were ten times the amounts her parents received and coveted.
“So, tell me more about Feral,” Annabel prompted with a wide smile.
