Page 38 of The Second Ending
This event was just a casual gathering of friends, her mother insisted. There was no need for a caterer or for help to set up the tables or organise the space. No, Ashleigh could do that all by herself. All those years of university and law school, after having given up her dreams of music, to be the substitute maid? For the first time, anger rather than frustration began to trace its way up her spine.
This was the last time. Ashleigh decided she’d play nice today, but never again. She had a plan for a new fundraising campaign for the music program, and as soon as it was implemented, it would be her parents’ hostage no more. Now her main goal for the weekend was to make it through and smile at the right people without letting her mask slip. The recording was next week, and once it was over, these people would haveno more hold over her. She grimaced and tried to find a suitable expression to paste over her scowl.
The guests eventually filtered in and the usual small talk ensued about cruises and golf games and the frightful new applicants at the club filled the air. It was the chatter of the well-to-do and the movers and shakers whose influence could make or break someone.
Another piece of the puzzle. She did not like the picture it was forming.
As she wandered through the room, asking if she could bring someone more tea or another pastry, she noticed Sebastian making the rounds as well. But he wasn’t a stand-in-servant. He was hobnobbing with the best of them, talking and laughing, and drawing them around him like a practised showman. She wandered in their direction, hoping to hear what he was saying.
He made no attempt to hide his agenda, and every word confirmed what Liora had told her. He clearly had political aspirations, and was sucking up to her father and cronies for their support.
“...and we’ll make a terrific team, too.” He grinned his wolfish leer at his audience. “With your support, we’ll go straight to the top, and you can be sure I’ll keep your interests in mind. And with Ashleigh at my side, we’ll get the centre-left vote as well. She’s a great asset—a legal aid lawyer who works for the people, stands up for abused women, all that nonsense. It’s exactly what that contingent wants to hear, and we’ll milk it.”
There! The rest of Liora’s report was confirmed by the bastard’s own lips. With Ashleigh at his side… had he ever thought to mention this to her? Or did he just take it for granted that she’d go along with whatever he wanted? Maybe he assumed that her parents’ stronghold would continue, and that she’d do anything they told her to in order to preserve her pet project.
This was all she was to him. To any of them. She was a tool, an object to be used for someone else’s purposes, with no thought as to what she, herself, thought or felt. He clearly had never cared for her at all, even as a friend. Friends don’t do that to friends.
The frisson of anger transformed and grew, until she didn’t even feel hurt by this deception. All there was, where she once rather fancied him, was a towering pyre of contempt and rage.
Ashleigh Lynch was tired of being used and things were going to change!
CHAPTER 21
DISCOVERY
How she madeit through the weekend, Ashleigh didn’t know. Perhaps her fury was the armour she needed, shielding her from any possible added insult. She went through the motions with a fake smile and condescending words that everyone accepted as sincere, and counted the seconds until she could run away.
“You’re not going already, are you?” Her father’s voice followed her into the room where she’d put her purse. “I still need you to look at some things.”
“No, Dad.” She tried to keep her voice firm. “I’ve been here all weekend, first for your thing yesterday and then for the executive meeting of the Maple Club today. I have a life. I have things to do. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were looking for reasons to keep me from going home.”
“Ashleigh!” He followed her into the room and stood by the window. “I’m hurt. How could you think such a thing? We love you. That’s why we want you near us.”
“What about Penelope? I never see her here. Why can’t you love her once in a while?”
“Ashleigh… That’s not fair. Besides, she’s busy. She’s got a family.”
“And I’ve got a career. I might have had a family, if you hadn’t interfered.”
Her father’s voice grew strangely hard. “You know he wasn’t the right sort. Besides, you’re better at these things than Pen. Look, it’s just one small folder. It won’t take you more than five minutes. Surely you can do that much, after I paid for that fancy law degree of yours.”
Aha. The guilt trip. It had been a while since he last played that card. He must be saving it for when he needed it, because it always worked.
“Fine. But don’t ask me again. I’m not your personal secretary.”
He didn’t say a word, but strode from the room towards his office expecting that Ashleigh would follow. As she did.
Her father disappeared inside and returned a moment later with a folder that was far thicker than he’d indicated. “There are a few things in there. I’ve flagged the important ones with a yellow sticker. I need to know that there’s nothing I have to take another look at, and there’s a letter I’m sending that I’d like you to go over.”
Ashleigh clenched her jaw. Of course. More nonsense and busy-work. It was one more thing to keep her close and jumping. But fine. Whatever. She accepted the folder with bad grace and went to the small table in the corner of the living room to sort through the piles inside. This was going to take a lot more than five minutes. But it was the last time.
She kept flipping, scanning just enough of each document to get a sense of what it was about and how much time it would consume. As always, it was mostly nonsense that should have hit the recycling pile the moment it arrived. Form letters, updated information on interest rates, summaries of investment earnings that his accountant would surely already have on-line.The usual pile of things that most certainly did not need her attention.
Then her eyes landed on a line of text on a document and stayed there. She read it again, and then she began at the beginning of the letter. It didn’t seem too important, unless you knew. It was just about needing to sell some family property in town in order to buy a cottage on the right beach on the right lake, where the right people summered.
It went on, with a throw-away line about not liking the individual wanting to buy the land. Something about stringing him along and then finding a new buyer.
Oh bloody hell!
