Billionaire Protector - Alexa Hart Page 0,80
to make it as an actress, though she got pregnant with me before she even got a call-back for a single role. In the photo, she has the shiny blonde hair and blue eyes that mesmerized so many men and the body that won her all those beauty competitions – thin, but curvy with long lean legs. This was all before alcohol, depression and a child she didn’t want dulled her bright eyes. After that she’d let herself turn into a caricature of beauty, dyed blonde hair and fake tan… fake everything. She was from Texas after all, where things were meant to be larger than life.
She was never a fit for a place where the rich preferred to be understated, and that's clearer than ever right now as her glitzy photo stands out like a misplaced tag sale item against the somber elegance my grandmother likely orchestrated for today.
And God, my mother hated lilies.
She’d be happy to see me here though. I look just like her (apart from my brunette hair) - blue-eyes, and svelte build. My mother and grandmother, while they never agreed on much, both agreed I needed to learn how to fit in with the Connecticut crowd. Boarding schools and ballet classes, horseback riding lessons, and weekends at the country club became a regular and painful routine. While other girls earned merit badges in arts and crafts, I was taught poise and elocution. And the lessons paid off, even if they made me miserable. I radiate the coolness of this place, subtle, expensive make-up, expensive clothes, perfect posture. My mother longed to be considered classy, and even though she could never quite hit the mark, she made damn sure that I was right on target.
As I walk in and feel the approving looks from those around me, and even the second glances from the men in the room, I know my mother got what she wanted for me. The problem is, I just never wanted it myself.
Soon people start to recognize me and I am quickly surrounded by acquaintances I know a little from the various charity functions and school booster events my mother donated to. When she was snubbed for her brash ways, she loved to throw money at the groups that had blackballed her to force them to take her in. And here they all are, paying their pittance of a last respect. They balance plates of honey-mint lamb skewers and baked brie pinwheels in their hands as they offer me their sincere condolences, the sincerity never reaching their eyes. They didn’t like my mother, not a single one of them. Her Texas accent was too thick, her fake tan too obvious. She was new money and no matter how she tried, they made her life hell. Having a baby out of wedlock at nineteen hadn’t made it easier.
I grab a glass of wine from a passing caterer and continue to nod and frown and tell them how much their words mean, all while the familiar knots of guilt and pain twist in my stomach, but never show on my face.
When my stepfather, Jonathan Bradley III, sees me from across the room, he merely nods at me, barely breaking from his conversation. But his mother, my grandmother, who had been standing next to him, makes a great show of her affections as she spots me, clutching her hands to her heart.
I feel my stomach recoil.
My grandmother swiftly sets down her own glass of what is most likely celebratory champagne and hurries over, bundling me in her arms for all of New Canaan to see. The dutiful grandmother who loves me like her own. I feel bile rising from my stomach and try to wiggle out of her faux embrace. Her nails dig slightly into my back as I try to pull away, a warning not to embarrass her.
This woman, all ice and pretense, who made my mother’s life a living hell, kisses me on the cheek and then dabs a silk handkerchief to her eye, showing the entire audience how much she cared for such a useless woman and her bastard of a daughter.
She should have been the one to move to L.A. with dreams of becoming an actress, her faҫade of care is top-notch.
“Harper,” my grandmother looks me over. “I am so sorry. Such a tragedy. What...what are we going to do without her?”
My grandmother squeezes my hand in another show of shared grief, and I feel dizzy. If I don’t get out