Page 158 of Be With Me
My stepmother stood at the end of the hallway. Her cane rested in one hand, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders.
“You can’t do this,” I snarled.
She began her slow journey toward me. The doctor slipped out of the apartment, leaving me alone with her and the guards, one of whom still had his arms locked around my shoulders.
I twisted in his hold. “Tell him to get off me. I’m leaving.”
She stopped in front of me, her lips pressed into a thin, unforgiving line. “How could you do this to your father?”
“Do what, exactly?” My voice trembled. “How have I harmed him? What exactly did I do that justifies you holding me here?”
She scoffed, her eyes narrowing. “You’re lucky no one found out. You know very well what would happen if your relationship leaked to the media. You and Gino Ferraro’s son…” Her lip curled. “He and his family will rot in prison—or at least the ones still alive.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “Who died in the explosion?”
She knew, I was sure of it. But her expression didn’t give anything away.
“Aris. Tell me.Please.”
She shifted her weight, her heavy silver earrings jingling. “Helping your father with the campaign was a privilege. And yet you were always so ungrateful. Always complaining about how busy you were.”
“A privilege?” I shot back, my voice raw. “It was an obligation forced onto me.”
She took a step closer. “I would’ve done anything to take your place.”
“And I wish you had! I never wanted it!”
“So you tried to sabotage your father’s dream in some kind of childish tantrum? Now he knows I was right about you, Mia.”
I stared at her. “What?”
“I told him from the beginning—you were bad luck. I felt it the moment I met you. I never liked you, never wanted you around. Even as a kid, the sweet and innocent exterior you put on was all fake, wasn’t it? When Carlos sent you away, it was bliss. But then you had to come back.”
A tear carved a path down my cheek. There it was, all out in the open. I didn’t have to wonder anymore. Her words confirmed all the fears I’d carried deep inside my heart.
She didn’t love me.
She never had.
I wasn’t her daughter in any way that mattered.
To her, I was an inconvenient burden, nothing more.
“Dad asked me to come back,” I whispered. “Heaskedme to come back and take care of you. What kind of a bad intent could you have possibly seen in that?”
“You liked parading yourself around here, reminding me of everything I couldn’t give him,” she spat. “You’ve caused me so much pain.”
A bitter taste flooded my mouth. How was it possible for her thinking to be so twisted?
“I tried to tell Carlos I didn’t want you here, but he wouldn’t listen. He’ll listen now. Now that he sees you for what you really are.”
Dark thoughts pressed in. Her words tore through old wounds, digging into places I’d never managed to heal.
She loathed me this whole time. What kind of person looks at an eleven-year-old girl and decides she’s bad luck? Who spends years trying to push her only remaining parent away?
My stomach twisted.
This was whose approval I’d spent years chasing?
