Page 85 of Not the Billionaire

Her mom nodded. “I saw an article about him and his siblings once. That day you brought him here, he looked familiar, and before you left, I told him I knew.”

“Mom!” Genevieve stood from the chair and stared down at her. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I could see he meant something to you, and I wanted to see how things were going to play out.”

“Play out? This is my life, Mother, not some game.”

“I know.”

“Everybody around me seems to be playing games these days.” She was fuming now. “But you’re my mom! You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“I am on your side.”

“Then please put yourself in my shoes for a minute. You meet a really nice guy at your new job. He seems wonderful and sweet and charming, and you fall hard for him. Only he isn’t who he says he is. He’s lying to you. And worse, everybody around you knows. Your coworkers, your friends … even your own mother. How would that make you feel?”

“Angry,” Mom replied.

“Darn right, I’m angry.”

“He told me he had a good reason, that he’d had some bad past relationships, and that he wanted more time to tell you himself.”

Genevieve shook her head. “And that’s all it took for you to keep something like this from me? Why would you go along with it?”

“I could tell he was in love with you, and I felt he could be trusted.”

“What if you’d been wrong? What if he was a crazed lunatic or something?”

“He’s not, is he?” she asked with eyebrow raised.

Genevieve didn’t reply.

“When I realized who he was, I was relieved,” Ida told her.

“Relieved? About what?”

“That you’d finally found someone, and that you’d have a man who could afford to take care of you. Someone who could give you a happy, comfortable life.”

“Pfft! I don’t need a rich man to have a happy life.”

“I’m not saying you do, but it will sure make a lot of things easier for you.”

She couldn’t believe what her mom was saying. “You know what, Mom … I don’t need a man at all to be happy. I’ve never been one who’s out searching for a husband and you know it. Even though, all my life you’ve been trying to make me look how you thought I needed to look to get one. Finding a man is not God’s sole purpose for my life. If I meet someone …” She thought she already had. “I would be happy to spend my life with a loving and honest man, but that is not Sebastian Schultz.”

“I’m sorry, Genny. I really thought he would have told you sooner.”

“Well, he didn’t.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared across the farmyard.

“He was here, you know.”

She looked at her mom again. “Here? When?”

“He stopped by to talk to me a few days ago.”

Her eyebrows narrowed in confusion. “What did he want?”

“To apologize for lying about who he was.”

Her heart stuttered in her chest. “He apologized to you?”

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