A Billionaire's Redemption - By Cindy Dees Page 0,67
said with saccharine viciousness. “She’s already perusing Merris Oil’s financials. Calculating how much you can take your father’s company for while you’re bankrupting me?”
Willa was vaguely aware of all the women but one staring fixedly at various paintings and floor tiles as they tried not to witness this family’s dirty laundry.
But Roseanne Ward was paying avid attention to the exchange. She piped up now. “I told you she’d come after you, too, Minnie. She turned on my James and now she’s doing the same to you. You’ve been harboring a viper to your breast, you poor thing.”
Willa stared at the woman in sudden comprehension. So, Roseanne was the source of the poison in Minnie’s fuddled mind.
And the woman wasn’t done spewing venom, yet. “Why, she’s driven my poor boy nearly to distraction. He can’t sleep or eat, he’s having terrible headaches and anxiety attacks. And there she stands, as cool as a cucumber, not giving so much as a never mind about the suffering she’s causing him. Not to mention the grief and pain she’s causing her own mother.”
“Let me guess,” Willa said pleasantly. “Tonight’s little outing was your idea.”
Roseanne’s back went rigid. “Indeed, it was. You’re far too busy running around like some cheap whore with your father’s enemies to pay any attention to your poor grieving mother. Some daughter you are.”
The barb hurt. Particularly because Willa had to admit there might be a little truth to it. She’d been so overwhelmed since her father’s death that she probably hadn’t been spending enough time with Minnie. But after days and days of sitting beside her mother’s bed while the woman slept off her tranquilizers and antidepressants, there hadn’t seemed to be much point. And then the avalanche of details involved in planning a funeral, dealing with her father’s will, answering the hundreds of sympathy notes...and then Gabe...
She turned to Minnie. “Roseanne’s absolutely right. I haven’t been spending enough time with you. I’m so sorry. Tomorrow—”
“No more lies!” Minnie screeched. “Get out of my house! This is my house. Not yours!”
The outburst brought Louise hurrying out of the kitchen in alarm. A pair of the bodyguards peered over the housekeeper’s shoulder, also alarmed.
Willa stared at her mother in dismay. Minnie was kicking her out? Really?
“Go!” Minnie screamed.
Everyone froze. The other ladies, Louise and the two bodyguards stared back and forth between Minnie and Willa in appalled shock.
It took every ounce of the training John Merris had pounded into her never to show weakness and never to give in to emotion to say calmly, “If that’s what you want, Mother. Of course I’ll return to my own home. Right away.”
She walked across the foyer, her back feeling like an icicle, rigid, heavy and on the verge of shattering. She vaguely heard the bodyguards politely shoving through the crowd of buzzing women behind her. Without stopping to wait for them, she made her way to her little car parked at the edge of the driveway, grateful that it wasn’t blocked in by the big Cadillacs her mother’s posse had been driving.
Willa started the car, her fingers so numb they didn’t even feel the keys, and headed down the driveway. There was some sort of commotion behind her—shouting and lots of movement. The bodyguards were waving their arms frantically in her direction, but she ignored them. The tears were starting to come now, and she really didn’t need a couple of guys hovering over her while she cried them out. It looked like the guards’ SUVs were blocked in by the line of Cadillacs. All the better. She needed to be alone. To lick her wounds and try to figure out what she’d done to make her mother hate her so much.
In that moment, she felt more alone than she had in her entire life. Apparently, when John Merris was shot, she’d lost not only her father, but also her mother. A sob escaped her. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks now and she dashed at them trying to see the road.
Darkness had fallen, and lightning flickered faintly on the horizon. She judged that it would be a few hours before the storms came, and frankly, she didn’t want to go home right now. Her bodyguards would head there first in search of her. Lover’s Point was the peak of a giant bluff west of town that kids parked on and made out in their cars. It looked over the western part of the county, and she’d always found it a peaceful place.