Page 25 of Bittersweet Revenge

“I miss you too.” My heart constricted, but not for the same reasons it had before. This life had changed me, but a part of me was still longing for what I had back then. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but wasn’t more than six months... Six months. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. How could such a brief period change someone so intrinsically? I wasn’t completely certain it was him I missed so much or what he represented. A simpler time, a simpler life, when the worries were, in retrospect, so mundane… There’d been no murder, no betrayal, no lies, nor hidden agendas.

Ben and I talked a bit longer about everything and anything. It was good to feel like I was back in Missouri.

The rest of the day was quite uneventful, but as the day progressed, so did my stress level at the thought of being around Caleb’s mother tonight. She had never made a secret of how much she disliked me. It would be a true nightmare; I would feel even more in prison now.

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“Benjamin, could you please tell me where the swimming pool is?” I asked as soon as I walked into the Astor mansion, leaving my bag by the console at the entrance. I always left it there and always found it in my bedroom when I decided to do my homework. It was the little house fairies, I was sure.

I had loved swimming since I was a little girl, and the public pool had pretty much been all my father could offer me in the summer. I’d not swum here yet because I didn't feel comfortable and because I had no swimsuit, but I was now tense and apprehensive. When the Astors came back, I’d never dare swim again. I wouldn’t put it past my future mother-in-law to put piranhas in the pool…. Or maybe even my future husband.

Benjamin stepped behind me to grab my jacket. “It is one level down, Miss. Turn to your left and just follow the corridor. You can't miss it.”

“Thank you. Do you know where I could find a swimsuit?”

He nodded. “Yes, there are changing rooms at the pool and I believe there are a few items for you to choose from. Would you like me to show you?”

Lord, no.I shook my head. “No, it’ll be alright. Thank you.”

He bowed slightly before retreating… God knows where.

I went downstairs and looked around, somewhat intrigued. I didn’t even know there was more to the house. I took the left turn and the smell of chlorine guided me from then on. I couldn’t help but gasp as I passed through the door. The swimming pool here was even more majestic than the one at the Forbes mansion. It was seriously ridiculous! The pool was longer than the Olympic pool they had back home, and it was modeled to look tropical with fake trees, chairs, and a bar made out of bamboo. The changing rooms at the back looked like huts with palm roofs. The ceiling was made concave and cut to look like a cave, and at the end, there was an actual waterfall!

I shook my head, still in a daze. They’d hidden a flipping secret oasis in a Connecticut mansion.

“Who does that?” I whispered, taking it all in, trying to memorize the details that were appearing around me the more I looked. The citrus and coconut smell mixing with the chlorine. The grainy tiles which I presumed were designed to mimic sand.

I ogled at the ostentation of the room, but I was way too tempted to swim to stand marveling at it for long. I opened the bamboo chest by the huts and looked through the bathing suits. All the women’s suits were skimpy bikinis, each smaller than the one before.

I picked up a red one which seemed to be the least suggestive and changed into it.

“Oh, this is not going to work,” I whispered, detailing myself in the changing room mirror. The pieces of fabric barely covered me. I grimaced. I knew I had curves and sizeable breasts, but I was not big at all. Either these suits were made for the stick-thin models you saw on the runway or they were purchased like that on purpose so the lascivious men of this house could get a good look.

I grimaced, reconsidering the idea of a swim. Maybe I should just go buy my own swimsuit first?

I sighed, rolling my neck. I was alone here. I could swim a few lengths and then change back before going upstairs. Nobody needed to know, and I could buy a swimsuit another time, not that I’d swim here again anytime soon unless Jacklyn and James Astor were gone.

I looked out of the changing room. No way would I let others see me dressed like this. The room was empty though, and there was no sound except for the waterfall.

I sighed in relief. Stepping out of the hut, I adjusted the tiny triangles of fabric barely containing my heavy breasts. I rolled my eyes. I was prone to a flashing incident for sure.

“Oh, what the hell. It’s just a few lengths,” I muttered, hurrying to the pool. My worries quickly faded as my foot slid into the warm water.

I sighed with contentment once fully immersed, then started my lengths. The more I swam, the more I could feel the tension in my muscles fade. I pushed harder, enjoying the feel, the slight burn of exertion. I wanted to swim until I was too tired to think, too tired to get mad, just too tired…

When I felt my leg muscles starting to quiver and my arms feeling like dead weight, I decided to stop. I felt strangely better as I swam to the pool ladder, but froze as soon as I stepped out. Caleb was leaning against the bamboo bar with his arms crossed over his chest.

He detailed me from head to toe, making me shiver under the heat of his eyes. “Are you planning on taking a page from your mother’s playbook, huh? Hook the father and the son? Don’t bother.” He took a step toward me, shaking his head. “The son can see right through you and the father can’t give you as much as you want him to.” He threw me the bath towel. “Cover yourself; it’s pathetic.”

Anger spiked over the jab at my mother. It was enough to overtake the self-consciousness of my semi-nudity. “Stop soiling my mother's memory!” I pointed an accusing finger at him. “You know as well as I do she wasn’t like that!”

“And how would I know?” He asked challengingly.

The journal extracts I’d left him were so clear. I’d even sent him the pages where my mother had said that James had come in the middle of the night after one of the horrible fights she’d had with my father, that he had offered to take her and Archie and leave his wife and Caleb to start a new life. She’d told him then that it would never happen, that she might have been attracted to him at first, but it had been a lifetime ago and that this attraction was long dead, never to be rekindled.

“The journal pages say it all!” I shouted.

He frowned with obvious confusion. “What pages?”

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