MY UNEXPECTED MARRIAGE TO THE LOVELESS CEO

Chapter 3 🍂

Lisa's pov

"Darling one,"

Mama says as I step into her Drawing Room. She offers me her cheek for a kiss and in return, she does the same to mine. Then we sit down across one another.

The servants approach us with a tray each in their hands, pouring us tea and we wait until they are done and out of sight, then we start to talk. "It's been a long time," Mama is the first to break her silence.

Her fingers slowly stirring the tea in her cup, then she gives me a look that demands an answer and I sigh.

"Well," I grit my teeth, crossing my legs. My hands resting on each side of the armchair. "I suppose you're just busy with your duty as I've been with mine. That's why I never visited,"

"Alright," she picks the cup, leaving the saucer on the table and sips its content slowly. When she's done with her intake, her lips are pressed to wipe any possible leftover.

"That makes sense," she returns the cup back to its saucer, then her back goes straight as a rigid, motherfucking cold iron ruler. "I've been busy with mine too," she lets out a complementary smile,

"Until I heard your sister's incessant barking at how she's falling apart. Before you say anything, it wasn't in my intention to cut her away. She insisted her life would be better without a sense of duty to it, so in a better word, you can thank me for granting what she wanted,"

"She said she requested a private audience with you but it was rejected,"

"Oh, so she came up to you?" Mama looks a little offended. "She wanted to be seen with me, I think" I sip my own tea before it gets cold, then connect my eyes to that of my mother's staring ones.

"But I knew that'd send just the wrong indication to the people," my thumb runs across the surface of my left cufflink where a faint letter J can be felt under my sensor.

"And I don't want to be associated with anything that could be tarnishing my public image,"

"Speaking about public image, the dog you kept at home certainly did not get that memo,"

I look away, arched my eyebrows slightly to agree with her indication. "Well, she's just completely and immaculately immature and childish; what can one expect out of someone like that?"

I take another sip of the tea and start to grow a hunger for the cig.

"Many things, actually," Mama looks away at some distraction in the nearby window. Then, she tilts her head back and stares at me. "And to begin with, maybe start producing some heir and spare for the royal house?"

That's it. This conversation again. I look at the carpeted floor, then swipe my lower lip with the slightest move of my tongue.

"We'll try," I simply say. "That's what you said," Mama says. "But really, is that what you meant?"

"I thought we were going to talk about Jennie?"

"We are going to talk about her," Mama nods her head lightly. "But I need to remind you that I am not getting any younger and so do you," her icy tundra eyes stare at me in disapproval.

"In case things happen to me, you know when to step in. But God forbids something happens to you, I don't know who to step in; your sister? She already left this circus. It leaves only me and you now and I need you to understand that,"

She gives me a look, a look that I know so well not to question so I look away.

"Oh, darling one" my mother laces her own hand with mine. "One day, you'll bear the burden I wear as Head of the Family, and you'll see why it's important that we talk about this. Perhaps when the time comes, you'll understand me better and say, well, Mama was right"