Bullied Cinderella - Hollie Hutchins Page 0,60
wide eyes and her mouth gaping. She was glued still like that for a long time until finally, I could see her eye start to twitch.
“Lucia Chavez,” she repeated under her breath. But by the second and third time she said her name, she shouted it loud. “Lucia Chavez!?”
She hurled up onto her feet and marched over to me. I had never seen such a hateful, enraged look on her before, and it was soon backed up by a swift smack across my cheek.
“You have shamed us horribly and irreparably,” she seethed. “How could you!? She’ll tell everyone about this! I’ll never be able to show my face around our friends and the other landowners again!”
“What’s going on in here!?” Don German’s voice boomed as his new caregiver rolled him into the room.
Mother kept her eyes pinned to me as she answered with heavy shame. “Your grandson had disgraced our family. He’s been fornicating with that Lucia Chavez girl, and now she will surely use it to destroy us. She’s been tempting Dario and Jorge, too.” Her words trailed off into sobs as she imagined the fate before our family.
“The girl who poisoned me!?” he asked.
Dario, Jorge, and I all shot each other a terrifying glare. For all the time we had managed to keep that secret from my mother, it just had to come out in that moment. I had no choice but to correct him and face her wrath. Otherwise, she’d use the threat of criminal charges against Lucia as a way to mitigate the damages of our scandal.
“She wasn’t the one who poisoned you,” I told him. “It was the cook. That’s why we fired her, remember? Dario found proof. We know it wasn’t Lucia.”
“Someone better tell me what you’re talking about...right now,” mother said sternly.
The playing field was leveled at least a little by Dario and Jorge’s own guilt in our lie to her about what happened while she was out of town. It calmed them down enough to sit down with me and Mother to explain everything. I couldn’t help but notice how pleased she looked as we told her how I treated Lucia when we thought she was to blame, even though I cringed to relive it all again. It only made my tenderness for her grow as I recalled it. No wonder she hated me so viciously, and to know she had given herself over to me even after all of that...It made my heart and my head feel that much clearer about what I wanted. She deserved to be protected and treated well, and for once I finally accepted that I was the only one who could do that.
“I have failed all of you,” Mother decided after we had come clean. “I knew turning a blind eye to all of your flings and drinking and wildness would come back to haunt me. I just never thought you could shame me so greatly.”
“It’s all Lucia’s fault,” Jorge argued. “I’ll go back to the auction. I’ll threaten to sue them for unleashing that devil of a woman onto this house.”
“You didn’t seem to think she was so devilish when you were trying to force yourself on her,” I growled.
Mother let out a dramatic wail and started sobbing again. I didn’t know if I wanted to taunt her for being so ridiculous or continue dragging Jorge and Dario down for starting this whole mess. My mind cleared and focused back on what I knew what was most important...What I knew I needed to do.
I scooted my chair over to my mother and took her hands in mine. It was a good sign that she didn’t immediately jerk them away, or maybe she was just too hysterical to bother.
“I have fallen in love with Lucia,” I explained gently, ignoring the way Jorge and Dario winced. “We treated her terribly and she carried a grudge against us. Rightly so. But somewhere in the middle of all of that...I grew very real feelings for her. And I want to make an honest woman out of her.”
“Over my dead body!” she fired back. “I have never approved of that wench! Even before all this came to light today. Honestly, how could you ever dream of marrying anyone who had made such promises to your cousin, Dario? And who tempted Jorge the way she did!”
“The fence,” Don German nodded in agreement. “She was trying to pull one over on us by stealing away our land, even if only by a