Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 142976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 477(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 477(@300wpm)
He paled and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Tell me what happened,” he invited gently.
“Maybe later?” She offered, not really wanting to revisit those memories, not certain if they would serve any meaningful purpose right now. “We have other more important things to discuss.”
“This is important too.”
“How? Why?”
“Because it matters to you, Fern. That makes it important.”
His words gave her pause and she stared at him in confusion.
“Tell me what happened, please?” His voice had lowered and the please emerged on an imploring whisper. It undid her, that please. It unraveled her completely and she found herself quite unable to resist it.
“I went with her. Moved in with her parents. They lived in a small two-bedroom townhouse in Clapham. They still thought I was from a family just like theirs, but with a strict, unkind stepfather. They were so welcoming. I shared Margot’s room, they’d sold her bed, bought bunk beds to accommodate me. Mr. Newsome, Margot’s father, owned a butcher shop and I started working for him while Margot was at nursing school during the day. It was a way for me to earn a salary while I was trying to figure out what to do next.
“It was the happiest I’d been since my mother died. I didn’t tell Granger where I was going. I was free of him. Free to finally live my own life. At that time my trust didn’t matter, it was still years out of my reach and it didn’t affect my life in any significant way…”
“You should have been receiving a generous disbursement off it every month,” Cade interrupted grimly and she nodded.
“I didn’t know that at the time. I wasn’t receiving any money and when I questioned Granger about it, years later, he claimed that the allowance went toward my monthly care packages. Anyway, it just wasn’t a factor at that point, so walking away from the Abernathys to figure out my own life made perfect sense to me. I was eighteen, vaguely ambitious… foolish.
“It didn’t take him long to track me down. A month maybe. One month, that’s how long they helped me. And for that month they paid the steep price of losing their business and their home… Margot had to leave nursing school. Granger made sure that their lives were completely destroyed. And he used my name to do it. Used Lambert Holdings to buy out their home and business mortgages, then foreclosed without warning and evicted them with only the minimum required noticed. He boarded up the shop and refused to rent or sell the property to anyone else. And tore down their house and left an empty lot in its place. That was the price they paid for showing any kindness toward me.”
“Jesus,” Cade whispered shakily, the word sounding like the horrified prayer it was. “That fucking cocksucker.”
“The last thing Margot ever said to me,” Fern whispered, silent tears now streaming down her face, “was that she hated me and wished she’d never met me.”
“Oh God,” Cade’s voice was strangled as he rounded the kitchen counter without warning and folded her into his strong arms. “I’m so sorry, Fern. I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you.”
“Only it didn’t happen to me,” she corrected in a voice made tiny and shrill by the tears she was trying so hard to suppress. She buried her face in his hard, warm chest, allowing herself the small comfort of being held by him. “It happened to them. And I hate myself as much as Margot hates me for putting them in that position. And now… now I’m scared that you’ll hate me too. That you already hate me because of the way things always spiral out of control when I’m involved.”
“It’s not your fault.” His arms tightened around her to the point of pain, but she wasn’t about to protest. She needed his touch too much right now. “None of it was your fault, Fern.”
It was the first time she’d ever spoken of this to someone else, the first time she’d really had anyone she could confide in at all. She’d had few friends in the past, Margot being her closest. And after everything that had happened, it had been hard for Fern to let anyone close. Not that many people had even tried to get to know her. After the incident with Margot, Granger had sent her back to school, this time to work.
She remembered his mocking words clearly, if you’re so desperate for a job, you can assist the teachers at your school.
He’d personally escorted her back to the school, which had been only too happy to take her back because it meant his generous donations would continue. And so, she’d spent the next ten years stagnating in an insular world where the surly staff had merely tolerated her and the students disdained her. She’d had no peers, no outside interests, no life.