Bullied Cinderella - Hollie Hutchins Page 0,40

reach out to her again, she shoved me away again...harder each time.

“Are you okay?” I asked finally.

Cleaning her up was like undoing Jorge’s mess, but I couldn’t erase the memory from her mind any more than I could stop myself from trying to imagine what went down before I arrived. She had been screaming for him to stop, and it took everything in me not to shoot him in the head the moment I burst into the door. It broke my heart for her to think what we experienced in the woods, even how it started, was anything like what Jorge did.

“I’m fine,” she answered sternly. “I don’t need your help.”

She shook it off and sat up tall. No matter what I had seen her go through, she would always straighten her spine and hold her chin up high. She was a very proud woman, even when it seemed she had no right to be.

I submitted to driving her home - the only thing left to do. It was silent as we went. Even my thoughts had quieted down. There was nothing more to think about or figure out. I accepted the feelings I had for her, and I also accepted that she did not feel the same way in return. I meant what I said to her. I could see plain as day that she was trying to use sex to take advantage of us. Jorge and Dario were idiots, but I was not going to let whatever I felt turn me into a blubbering idiot that she could use in whatever way she wanted.

Still, I couldn’t deny how good it felt to be next to her. Feeling the heat emanating from her body next to me was comforting in a way. She was drunk, but still making every move so carefully. She made sure to keep her breathing even and slow, so I wouldn’t catch onto how upset she really was. As we pulled up to the end of her driveway, I had another chance to look over and once again take in the sight of just how beautiful she was. Every reminder of that hurt more than the last.

There were a million things I wanted to say, but only one thing that I could let myself actually put to words.

“We need to talk about the fence.”

She tensed up with anger all over again and looked over to me with her eyes flaming hot. “Of course you only care about that stupid fence. You just can’t bear to have anybody do anything that you haven’t approved of. That’s what tonight was really all about, wasn’t it? You didn’t care what Jorge and I did, really. You only care that everyone obeys you...Follows your rules. Perhaps we should have asked for your permission first and the whole thing would have been different.”

I took a deep breath and forced myself to carry on, not feeding into her trying to start an argument just so she could toy with my emotions even more and use them against me. I continued, keeping my voice as calm and steady as possible.

“The fact is...since there has never been a fence there before, we can’t be sure how accurate the property lines are. You can do whatever you want as a symbol of how much you hate me and my family. Erect a whole monument in dedication to that very thing for all I care. But I’m not going to give up a single inch of land that rightfully belongs to me. That’s not against you. That’s just good business. Not that I’d expect you to understand…”

“Don’t talk down to me!” she sneered. “I understand plenty. But the construction on the fence has already begun. I’m not going to have the whole thing taken down and started over again now.”

“You will if not doing so means you have divided the properties incorrectly and the lawsuit that followed meant you and your family would lose every penny of the inheritance you have.”

She glared at me again, this time with the kind of anger that comes from embarrassment. I may not have been able to touch her in the way that I wanted, but the least I could do was remind her of her place.

“I feel bad for you,” I explained. “I realize, and perhaps you do now too, that in your haste to prove a point you didn’t act carefully or intelligently...and now you’ve put your family’s financial and social status in jeopardy. Don’t be too