Lies, Lies And More Lies✔️

53: Destination Unknown

"I'm sorry for all the terrible things I've done to you and your family. I hope you can forgive me and I hope we can move on from this someday." Ruby said with her head tilted down to the ground. She had interlaced her fingers in front of her and had barely looked up the entire time she spoke.

I hadn't heard a hint of sarcasm in her apology but I was still suspicious of her. Ruby was a brilliant actor. She could cry on cue, just like that. There was no way I was buying her apology. I was done falling for her tricks.

"Tiara." My mom called and I cleared my throat as I realized they were all waiting for me to reply to Ruby's apology.

I wanted nothing more than to tell her to go to hell but I refrained from doing so. If I just accepted her apology or pretended to at least, she would leave and I'd never have to see her again.

"Apology accepted." I said plainly, ignoring the looks on my parents faces. They looked like they had things to say but didn't. They had promised me not to interfere.

"I'll make it up to you, I promise." Ruby said and I declined immediately, shaking my head.

"You don't have to! Let's just bury the hatchet and move on." I put on a fake smile, hoping that we could wrap this up quickly.

"Alright." My cousin looked up for the first time. She had a look of relief on her face. "On that note, I would actually like to invite you all to the launch party of my perfume line." She reached into her purse and pulled out a card.

"Launch party?" My mom questioned and Ruby nodded with a smile on her face.

"I understand if you won't be there. I just thought it would be a good opportunity for us all to have a fresh start." She said and I held back a scoff. It didn't take her too long to play the manipulation game. Fresh start she said. It was quite laughable how she had managed to put us in a tight spot. If we refused her invitation, we would have looked like a malicious bunch and she would have gone back to our extended family to complain about us.

"We'll be there." I said before anyone else could speak and took the invitation from her hand. Her smile grew wider after that and I held back an eye roll. It was really hard to forgive Ruby when it was so obvious that she never had any intentions of repenting. I had done so in the past but every time I had decided to give her another chance she made me regret it. It was really upsetting but I had learnt to never trust her even if she cried blood. Hopefully, my parents had learnt that valuable lesson as well.

"I apologize once again for my behavior, Aunt and Uncle." She turned to my parents who gave uncomfortable smiles. "Thank you so much. I'll text Tiara the additional details." With that said, she took her leave.

Benjamin gave a sigh as soon as we heard the front door close and Adiola hissed.

"You all saw what she did there, right?" I turned to my parents who shook their heads in disappointment.

"It's quite unfortunate that your cousin turned out that way but we should forgive and pray for her. It would do us no good if we harbour hatred in our hearts." Mom advised and dad nodded in agreement.

"It's so hard to forgive someone like that, mom. It's not that easy." Benjamin voiced my thoughts and I nodded in agreement with him.

"I never said it would be easy but we have to at least try. We need to forgive and forget." Mom went on giving us lessons on forgiveness for the next thirty minutes and I thought it was pointless trying to convince me to forgive Ruby. Of all the terrible things my cousin had done to me in the past, this was by far the worst of them. She had turned my entire family against me. She wanted to completely destroy me and she would have succeeded if I hadn't fought back. She was a horrible person truly and that was hard to forgive.