Stalker - Clarissa Wild Page 0,41
Sometimes business gets in the way of fun.”
“What business?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” she says, chuckling a little.
“But I promised Miles that I’d come and see him today,” I say.
Her face suddenly turns rigid. “Miles? You mean that boy?”
“Yes. I like him.”
“Well, I don’t,” she snaps, zipping me up so quickly that I have to suck in a breath.
I put my arms at my side. “You said he couldn’t come to my party. I hated not having him there. I wish you’d allowed him inside the house.”
“Oh, no,” she says. “That filthy boy? Never.”
“Filthy? He’s not filthy,” I say, making a face.
“Honey, he spends half his time on the streets.”
“That’s because he hates his foster parents.” He hates them so much, he never even allowed me to meet them. That’s how ashamed he was.
“And he behaves like a wild animal,” my mother adds, as she pats her own hair and admires herself in the mirror.
“That’s because they bully him, so he fights back.”
“I don’t care why he does it. I don’t want him in my house.”
“Well, you promised me that I could go out and do what I wanted after what happened at the party.”
“No, I said you could go out and have some fun but only with nice, well-educated children.”
“I’m not a child anymore, Mother, and I don’t like this at all. I want to see Miles. I don’t want to meet your ‘important people.’” I make quotation marks with my fingers.
“I don’t care what you want, darling. You will not go out and see him. Not today.”
“Not any day if it were up to you,” I sneer.
“Exactly,” she says, turning toward me. “Don’t act like I don’t have your best interests at heart. You know that I want what’s best for you, and Miles is not it.”
I wince. “No, you have your best interests at heart.”
She sighs. “Honey, we don’t have time for this. We’ll have this discussion another day.” She grabs my hand. “Our guests are waiting.”
“No! I don’t want to.” I jerk my arm, but she’s not letting me go.
“You’re going to see them whether you want to or not,” she hisses, turning her head toward me like a snake who’s about to bite off my head.
“No, let go of me,” I yell.
“Sometimes you just have to do what you don’t want to because it’s the best in the long run. You can’t have what you desire, but you’ll get so much more in return,” she mutters as she drags me toward the door.
“Let me go!” I yell.
Right as she opens the door, the housekeeper is knocking, and her hand stops midair, her eyes zooming in on us. “Is everything okay, ma’am?”
“Yes.” My mother immediately directs her attention toward me. “Now you’re going to behave,” she whispers. “You’re going to be nice to our guests. You’re going to be cordial, sweet, charming, and everything that makes a woman desirable. You will talk to them like the good girl you are, or I will make sure you never set foot outside this house again. Is that understood?”
I swallow, frowning in silent protest. I keep my lips slammed together, refusing to answer.
“You will do as I say, or I will have that boy … Miles …”
“Don’t you dare touch him,” I say.
She squints. “Hmm … you think your mother is capable of harming a human being?”
“I know you’d let others do the hurting. As long as you get what you want,” I say.
I’ve seen her do it plenty of times. With my aunt, for example. Her little boy was only eight when a truck ‘accidentally’ hit him. He died shortly after due to a brain hemorrhage. Of course, it was no accident; that truck bore the logo of one of the funders for my father’s campaign. My aunt had threatened to expose my father’s shady practices for acquiring money. In the end, he still won, so I guess my aunt learned her lesson.
Never cross my parents. My mother is the worst of them; she’s usually the one behind all the drama. My father knows only ten percent of the things she does. I know because I asked him one time, and he acted like he didn’t know a thing about it. Of course, I do watch the news, and I know how to spot my father’s sponsors. I’ve met them many times, and I know their logos. It’s just so sad that they think they can hide their evil acts from me. It’s like they’re still trying to