Page 17 of Damaged Billionaire Daddy
I’d been telling my mother for years to stop drinking and smoking; however she never listened to me, and that was one of the reasons I couldn’t stand to be around her.
What those things did to her…but at the same time I’d never known her any other way. My mother’s always been a drunk who couldn’t stop lighting a cigarette, so why should I expect her to change?
Her priorities were all jacked up. That was why she spent most of my childhood pawning me off on my grandparents rather than raising me herself. Apparently before me and with the help of my dad, she’d been clean and good at one point, but when he died, everything changed. I was sure he would’ve hated the person she was now.
All in all, that’s the reason my grandparents and I were so close. They were the parents I never had the opportunity to have, and I couldn’t thank them enough for everything they’d done for me.
The only difference? While I hung onto the hope that Mom would change one day, they’d already come to the conclusion that she wouldn’t. She couldn’t make these kinds of calls to them anymore because they had stopped picking up the phone.
“Momma,” I started. “If you really need something, then you know I’m here for you, always, but I’m not going to keep giving you money for you to destroy yourself, okay? I can’t. I love you too much for that.”
“But Kandis, I doneedthis. Don’t you know I’ve beentrying to quit, but it’s hard. If I can just do one more week, then I’ll be able to let it go. I know I can.”
“Momma, I’m sorry, but no.”
She paused before speaking. “You are a no-good, greedy, ass skank, and every day I regret the day that you…”
I ended the call before she could say anything else and leaned against the wall of the winery, letting out a deep breath to calm myself. It was the same thing every time. She asked me, and if I didn’t give it to her, she lied in an attempt to bargain before resorting to calling me all of the ugly names she could think of.
Not today.
I thought about calling Mila back before deciding against it. What I needed right now was some time to myself. I was sure she’d understand if she were in my situation. Besides, it was not like I wanted to go to that party anyway, something she was completely aware of, so hopefully she wouldn’t be too upset.
After I’d calmed myself down a bit, I opened the back door to the winery, figuring I’d throw myself into work to get my mind off of everything. It was not like the day could get any worse.
Or could it?
Richie was in the winery, standing with my grandmother and speaking with her as if the two of them were friends and had been for years. My eye twitched as I watched them, and the anger began to overfill me.
I was already having a crappy day and now this? Hadn’t I made it clear to him that he was to stay far away from this business and my grandparents? What part had he not understood?
“You’re back,” my grandmother stated, grinning as if Richie was the best company in the world, something I doubted. “Good. I was wondering where you went.”
“Well, here I am.”
“I’ll be right back, okay?” She left to go to the back, and I glared daggers at Richie.
“Did you forget what I told you?” I snapped, all of my pent-up frustration spilling out onto him.
He smirked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I didn’t forget.”
“So why are you here?”
“The amount of power that you think you have over me is comical.” He took a step towards me, leaning down to whisper in my ear, so close that he was sending shivers down my spine. He shouldn’t affect me this way, and I hated that he did. “See, I thought about what you said, and you could tell your grandparents if that’s what you wanted to do. However, how are you going to let dear old grandpa know that you were a slut and lost your virginity to me?”
My blood ran cold, and my breathing became heavy. “How…how did you know that?” I’d certainly never told him, and the only other person who knew was Mila. There was no way she would have said anything, right?
He chuckled, pulling back enough to look me in the eye. “Do you think I’m an idiot? I put two and two together.”
My heart was erratic. “That doesn’t make you special, and it doesn’t mean that I have any amount of attachment to you. If that’s what you’re worried about…”
“I’m not worried about anything,” he cut me off. “It’s not as if I think that it means you’ll be drooling over me, but I figured you’d be losing quite a bit of your dignity telling your grandfather what happened between us. You won’t be his sweet little grandbaby anymore, will you?”
I don’t think I had ever been as angry as I was at that moment. “Are you trying to blackmail me?”
“I’m doing exactly what you did to me.”
“You’re never going to get the business. Grandfather won’t let you and neither will I.”
