Billionaire Wolf's MateDate - Serena Meadows Page 0,27
tonight,” he said, feeling a flare of jealousy rise to the surface at the memory.
“And if I refuse?” Janice asked, sticking her chin up in the air, her voice full of defiance.
“Father will drug you and force you to,” Jacob said. “That’s how he got our mother to marry him.”
Janice’s eyes got big, then she narrowed them. “I don’t believe that. I don’t believe any of this. You’re just trying to scare me,” she said, her voice full of desperation.
“I wish none of it were true, but I’m afraid it is,” Jacob said, approaching Janice slowly. “If I’d known exactly what they had planned, I never would have let you come.”
“But you did, and now I have to marry him,” she said, looking over at Reggie, then turned and ran back into the party.
***Janice***
Head spinning, heart pounding, her lungs feeling constricted, Janice skirted around the edges of the party and escaped without being seen, but she couldn’t miss the guards posted around the house as she made her way up the stairs. When she finally got to her room, she slammed the door and leaned up against it, fighting the tears that burned hot in her eyes.
Turning around, she looked for a lock on the door, her heart sinking when she realized that there wasn’t one. Beginning to panic, she crossed the room, grabbed her purse, and dug out her cell phone, feeling slightly ill when she saw that there were no bars and no internet connection. Throwing the phone down on the table, she walked over to the window, finally letting the tears flow down her cheeks, no longer able to fight them.
Collapsing into the chair, she closed her eyes and let the tears stream down her cheeks as she realized just how stupid she’d been not to listen to Jacob. Lost in a world she had no idea how to navigate, she’d never felt so alone, not even after her mother died, leaving her an orphan at only thirteen. Thinking about her mother reminded her of all the times she’d lectured her about men with power, about the danger of falling under the spell of wealth and prestige.
She hadn’t understood back then, had only been a child as her mother lay dying, her ramblings almost incoherent to her immature ears. But now she understood that her mother had been telling her own story, a warning that Janice hadn’t understood then but saw all too clearly now. Sitting back in her chair, she let herself go back to the last few days of her mother’s life, something she rarely let herself do, and as the memory came to life, so did the grief.
But she pushed through the grief, searching for her mother’s exact words, suddenly finding herself the young girl scared and heartbroken sitting next to her mother’s hospital bed. The nurses and doctors had been in several times to check on her as she slept, her chest rising and falling with her labored breathing, then disappeared back through the door, grim looks on their faces, and she’d known it wouldn’t be long.
Then, to her surprise, her mother had woken, her eyes bright, the pain gone from her face, and asked for food. She’d run to the nurse’s station, sure that her mother was getting better only to be told that it wasn’t uncommon for terminal patients to have a brief recovery before passing on, and with a heavy heart, she’d returned to her mother’s room, knowing this would be the last time they would have together.
“They’re sending up some food right away,” she said, trying to keep her voice light and positive. “I’m sure you’ll feel much better after you eat something.”
Her mother patted the bed next to her, and Janice crossed the room and sat down carefully next to her, thinking about how frail she’d become. Her mother reached up and smoothed her hair back from her face, studied her for a moment, then took a deep breath and smiled at her.
“There’s so much I want to tell you, so many things we haven’t have time to talk about, but I think my time here is about over,” her mother said, smoothing her hair back from her face. “I won’t be here to protect you from the people who will want to use you either for the beauty you will possess one day or for the power that flows through your blood. There are men out there who will seek to control you just because you are