“Liesl. I meant Liesl. This situation is temporary.”
“Is it? I don’t know if her disgust for you will be short-lived. When I did the walk through of the house with her, she pointed out the kitchen where you screwed her sister while she was ill upstairs. I believe hate is more apt a descriptor.”
“You went after her,” he accused.
“Actually, you are wrong, McGrath.” The man’s stunned silence made him smirk with arrogance, “I was dining in my favorite restaurant, and she introduced herself to me. We have talked every single day except one since then. She is interesting, talented, and beautiful. She is a breath of fresh air. I like her very much. I think I’m going to make it, so she forgets all about your sorry ass.”
“She is my wife and she’ll come home to me and do as she is told. She can raise this child as her own, as his stepmother.”
He was dumbfounded for a moment, “you’re kidding me. You want your ex-wife, the woman you cheated on, to raise her nephew as her stepson, instead of having her own kid?”
“She will come around.”
“You’re insane.” He had to be dreaming this conversation. He shook his head in amazement. “Why do you think she’ll agree?”
“She loves me.”
“She loathes you.” Isaias corrected, “if I accomplish anything in this lifetime, it will be to ensure she never returns to you. Even if we don’t work out, I will do everything in my power to keep you away from her. You don’t deserve her.”
“Look, I’ll be the first one to admit I messed up.” Merlin admitted quietly, changing tactics. “Sandy got her hooks in, and I slept with her once. She started threatening to tell Liesl if I didn’t do it again. I didn’t want to lose my wife and I kept giving in. I told her at the wedding it was the last time, but I messed it up and got her pregnant.”
“Yeah, I’m not a priest. Your confession doesn’t mean anything. I’m going to tell Liesl too. We don’t keep secrets. You shouldn’t have fucked your sister-in-law in the first place, let alone, gave her ammo to extort you.”
“She holds all the cards. Keeps talking about abortions and falling downstairs. I had to take the ring back or she’d have an abortion. I had to get the house back or she’d throw herself down a flight of stairs. She’s insane.”
“Good luck with that,” he felt no pity for the man’s situation. “I repeat, you screwed up and I’m going to take full advantage of it. I like Liesl. I’m going to wine, dine and seduce the hell out of her. My mother loves her already.”
“You introduced her to your family?”
“We went to her art show last night. Your father was not pleased to see me.”
“My father knows you two are seeing each other?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“No. I’ve been avoiding his calls all week. He’s pissed. They hate Sandy with a burning passion and love Liesl.”
“I wonder why. One is very definition of trailer trash and the other is a goddess. Anyway, I must go. I have a date to prepare for.”
“Machado, I’m begging you. Back off. This kid will be born in six months. I’ll be divorced in seven. Let me win her back.”
“I’d rather see her with any other man but you. If she doesn’t want me, I will personally introduce her to all my single friends and their friends too.”
“I’ll get her back.”
“Good luck to you,” Isaias said as he hung up the phone and shook his head. As he considered the desperation of the other man, he snickered. To the victor go the spoils.
She was running her fingers through a rack of dresses thinking of the events of the morning when her phone started ringing.
“Don’t answer it,” Janka warned as she noted the name on the display.
She declined the call and then groaned when it immediately started ringing again.
“Dang it.” Angrily she pushed the rack of clothes aside and answered the phone. “Mom, what do you want?”
“You bulldozed the house?”
“No. I sold the house. The guy who bought it from me bulldozed it. He’s building a play park.”
“Your sister is devastated.”
“Okay, Mom, I need you to hear me, and I mean really hear me, right now. She needs psychiatric help. She is so fixated on having everything which is mine, she has become unhinged. She is mentally ill.”
“She loves you. She wants to be like you.”
“No, she hates me, and she wants to destroy me and everything I love. Everyone knows it. What I don’t understand is how you know yet turned your back on me. I didn’t do anything wrong, Mom. I didn’t do a damn thing wrong and yet you treat me like I should take it straight up the wazoo.”
“You’re her big sister.”
“And this makes it okay for her to have fucked my husband, taken my engagement ring, went to the same place I went to on my honeymoon and then demand I give her my house too?” Her mother was quiet, “Dad would be so angry with you, Mom. If there’s a heaven, he’s looking down at you right now shaking your head for failing both your daughters.”
“I’m trying my best!” her mother screamed.
“No. You’re trying to appease a crazy person who manipulates you with her bullshit. She needs to be remanded to a facility to have her head examined and instead you pat her on the shoulder and give into her every demand and whim. It’s what you did at Christmas when she wanted my toys. It was what you did on my birthday when she wanted to blow out my candles. It was what you did at my prom when she kissed my date.” She growled and mocked her mother’s voice, “you’re the big sister Liesl. You need to teach her how to share.”
“What do you want me to do? I can’t disown my child.”
“Yet you have no qualms about harassing me on her behalf.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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