mattress, her
face contorted in pain.
Only then, seeing me doubled over and gasping for breath, did Penny make a show of holding him back.
Cole, that’s enough! I told you I didn’t want the condo. Why are you fighting with the children over it? If I had known what happened to Kerry, I wou-
Chapter 2
Id have sold my own house to pay her bills, you know I would have.”
15:08
Her words melted him. He looked at her with pure adoration. “Penny, you’re just too kind. That’s why these two have been able to bully you for ten years.
He said it with such conviction, as if Kerry and I were monstrous criminals. But for the past decade, we were the ones who had been bullied. When he first brought Penelope home, he said he wanted to marry her. We’d been thrilled. We held a private meeting, Kerry and I, promising each other we would treat her like our own mother.
And we tried. But we quickly learned she had two faces. She was sweet to us in person, but manipulative behind our backs. She’d “forget” the date of a parent–teacher conference and then tell Dad I’d given her the wrong information on purpose, forcing me to apologize to all my teachers. She” lost” an important gift Kerry was meant to give to her boss, then told Dad that Kerry had screamed at her in public, humiliating her. Even the hund- red–thousand–dollar scam–she told Dad it was because we made her feel worthless, that she just wanted to prove she could make money like a ” real mother.”
I tried to tell him the truth so many times. But he was under her spell. He never believed me.
Just like now.
He comforted Penny for a moment, then turned back to me. “Olivia. You will apologize to your Aunt Penny. Then you will buy that condo back. And you will withdraw your complaint against your Aunt Helen. You will take responsibility for this drama you and your sister created.”
“No,” I said, my voice shaking. “I won’t.”
What did you say?” His face was a mask of disappointment. He took a step closer. “If you refuse, then I no longer have a daughter named Olivia. If your mother knew what you’ve become, she would regret fighting to bring you into this world.”
His expression was the same one he’d worn as he drowned me in my last life. He’d said the same thing then, that if our mother knew what we were like, the shock would bring her back from the dead.
The injustice of it all flooded my heart. I clenched my fists. “How dare you even speak my mother’s name? What right do you have? And what right do you have to be our father? When your daughter was bleeding to death, you were on a honeymoon with this woman. When she was recovering one floor below you, you couldn’t even be bothered to visit. You are a disgrace.”
