Tell Me With Flowers

48. Crooked reality

MILES

A chill ran down my spine as I looked at her, horrified. Though she had sunk on the cold marble floor, crying like she had lost the miss universe title, there was no ounce of regret drawn on her face. Her hair was perfect, her face wrinkled impeccably at the corners, her hands shook as she wiped her eyes – it all looked like an act that was meticulously planned to enact.

Questions circled around like a hawk and I knew I had to talk to her. But with this information I wasn't able to even look at her, let alone talk.

Ever since she had left me, I had hired a private investigating officer who had told me her whereabouts back then. All I knew was Shelly had got a role to play in Madrid and she had opted that pilot series rather than helping me cope up. Even dad had told me the same thing.

In fact, he had gone a step ahead to tell me that she was a witch to leave me when I needed her the most. He had cursed her along with me and had even funded me to drink for the first two days after she had left.

But this... This was so fucked up. But why would dad do such a thing when he knew that I loved her? What was his intention with it? It was him that had tried day and night to pull me from that kind of a mourning after she had gone away.

What was the need to pull such a stunt? Was it to showcase that he still had a part in my life that he could rule and call the shots when needed?

I was torn in two. Though we weren't that close to each other, my father considered me best to the other son who had thrown the materialistic things at him to go after the love of his life. Kevin had found Samantha and the love to build things before dad could sabotage it.

Now that he had me, he was playing me like a puppet to run his shows. What more did he want from me? I had agreed to be his successor in both hotel management and cooking. I hadn't turned away when he told me that he wanted to extend his hotel management to a business, an investment in all kinds ranging from accessories to industries.

I thought after my mother had died, he had become softer. But now, I can only tell that it was all an act. A lion under the disguise of a deer.

"You are wrong." I said, slowly, walking further away. This cannot be true. How can dad, the only person who had pulled me out of the therapies to makes sure that I stood tall back again be the reason for my own doom? "You are lying."

"No, Miles." Shelly said, standing up and going to her purse. She started digging into it like a mouse and I wondered what the hell she had packed in that small pink bag. "I have this."

She pulled out a small envelope, bigger than the purse she had on her hands. I had already started to contemplate if she was pulling out another stunt to get her TRPs raised to sky high. How could I believe her at all? After all that she had done to me?

Shelly Morgan was a girl who had a mind that sped like the bullet. She had escaped the ties that came with marriage to live her own life. When she saw that I wasn't pinning over her like a love sick puppy, she had come back to my life only to ruin my reputation that I had built from scratch after she had disappeared into thin air.

She had further gone ahead to screw Megan's life in spite. Now, she had come back crawling with a new story, saying that my dad was behind all this? How was that fair? In all honesty, I was trying my best not to kick her out of my house right then and there.

"Look at this." She pointed the envelope at me, her eyes brimming with tears once again. There was a time when I had run to her when I saw her like this, a fake sad face that masked a zeal of profound emptiness to prove that she was right. "Your father gave it to me two days after your mother had passed away. You should look at this."