My excitement soon turned to dread.
Kathryn stumbled forward, grossly inebriated if the glaze in her eyes was anything to go by. “Well, hello, Molly. We meet again.”
I shifted to the end of the centre table, creating some distance between us. “What do you think you’re doing?” I looked first to Kathryn and then to Shelly, who lingered nervously in the background.
“You got the note, I see?”
My stomach sank. They’d set me up and I’d fallen for it like a mouse in a trap.
“Shelly here told me about you and Rome and your sickening, cutesy notes—she’s been watching you—and I knew that’d get you from the protection of your friends.”
We circled around the table like fighters circling the ring.
“I’ve been doing some digging on you, Miss Shakespeare from Durham, England.”
She read the alarm in my expression and laughed wickedly. “Mmm… yes, it made for very interesting reading.”
I jutted out my chin, trying to show I was unfazed.
I was anything but.
“Let’s see…” She put her finger to her mouth as she pretended to think. “Poverty, working class, living in what can be described as nothing more than a hovel. Momma dies in labour and leaves you in the care of an alcoholic miner of a father, who, when you were only a little girl,” she whined in a girly voice, baring her overly white teeth, “decided you weren’t worth sticking ‘round for and slit his wrists in the tub.” She slapped her hands on the wooden table. “Am I close, Molly? Is it hitting you yet? That you don’t belong anywhere near my family?”
Tears spilled from my eyes, but I stood firm, unmoving. I glanced at Shelly, who was skittishly guarding the door. She seemed shocked. Was it possible that she didn’t know that the little intimidation chat would develop into the shredding of my life?
Kathryn stood only feet away; she’d taken advantage of my stalling. “Fast-forward eight years and Grandma gets advanced stage-four lung cancer from smoking too much, and little, lonely Molly has to care for her all by herself, until—oops! She dies too, leaving little Molly all alone and thrown into foster care.”
My hand rubbed at my chest as I struggled to breathe, lungs smothered with the grief her words conjured. My legs grew weak, too weak to move as she approached, her putrid whiskey-laced breath almost making me retch.
“But that’s not the end, is it? Molly becomes plagued with sinking anxiety and depression, so bad she needs help, therapy… lots of therapy. But it doesn’t work. So she thinks of a plan—marry rich! She’s smart and manipulative, so she flees to Oxford to try and catch a wealthy idiot who’d fall for her charms. Isn’t that right, darlin’?”
I shook my head back and forth. “I would never do that! Stop making things up!”
Anger engulfed her face. “Makin’ it up? Does the name Oliver Bartholomew sound familiar? You dated him, didn’t you? An earl’s son? Then when that didn’t work out, you came over here and sank your nails into Rome as soon as you could, you gold-digging whore! You knew he was rich and you convinced him to be with you, didn’t you? He was meant to be with her!” She pointed at Shelly, who was now pacing in the doorway, playing with her hands, seeming increasingly distressed.
“Oliver and I were friends. We dated briefly, but I didn’t want anything more. He was a teaching assistant too, we worked together, but that was it. He was a good friend and a sweet guy. Don’t make out that what we had was sordid or calculated, because it wasn’t. The fact that he was rich didn’t mean a bloody thing!”
She gripped my chin and jerked my head to her face. “Just like it doesn’t matter that Rome is rich too? Give me a break! He shouldn’t be with you, whore! You need to leave him alone so he can do his duty to this family and stop being such a f**kin’ failure for once in his pathetic life! Or else you’ll be sorry!”
My anxiety faded as the urge to defend Romeo powered through. I smacked away her hand. “Sorry how? He has dreams, you know. He wants to play football… will play football professionally, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Do you even know how talented he is? How he’s regarded as the best player in all college football? He loves me and I love him, and nothing you do will tear us apart!” I leaned in and said in a low voice so only we could hear, “I know everything. He told me everything about you, Mr. Prince, his childhood, the beatings… everything. And I mean everything. You have no power over him anymore and never will again. Do you even know what you’ve done to him? How he struggles to contain his anger through years of hearing he was unwanted, useless?”