Taking Rein

Chapter 18: Pact

Chapter 18: Pact

Sophie's POV

*****

I couldn't believe what she was telling me, and it didn't take too long before I started feeling my blood boil. There she was again, making plans for my future without consulting me first. Not only did she tie me to Josh and Julia because of their families, but she was also trying to force me to go to a school I didn't want to go to, to do something which I didn't want to do. 

I loved fashion, there were no doubts about that, but that wasn't the sector I wanted to keep working in and both her and my dad knew it. They kept trying to control my life, and I couldn't take it anymore.

"Why did you take this decision without me?" I said, trying to keep my voice down to avoid anybody from hearing me. "You know very well that I have no interest in studying fashion."

The anger in her face was evident after I said what I had. She never seemed to accept the fact that I was my own person, with my own opinions. They wanted to control me like some form of puppet and I wasn't going to just sit back and do nothing about it. 

"Of course you do honey," she said in that sickeningly sweet voice of hers. "We've talked about this, haven't we? When you get married, you and your husband will take over your dad's company, and you'll take over mine."

I shook my head at the audacity of that woman. She was talking as if I had been completely okay with this whenever they told me about it back when I was eleven years old. That was why she was so obsessed with my relationship with Josh. She knew that if my dad and his dad were to merge their companies, Josh could take over and it would be huge. It seemed like the perfect plan. But not for me. 

"No, you talked about it and I listened, but it doesn't mean that I agreed."

Her eyes quickly turned to slits as she frowned at me, her slight wrinkles becoming evident because of it. "Listen Sofia, you should be grateful I even managed to get you in that school after what you did. I expect you to think about it and give me the only reasonable answer," she said before hanging up, leaving me on my bed in tears. 

It was impossible to do anything else after that conversation. I always felt like I was trapped in a cage with no escape. It was so ironic how I was so against going to Equestrian Creek, meanwhile it seemed to be the only place where I had any form of freedom. Things would have been so different if my mother was still around. She certainly wouldn't have forced me to move all the way to Italy to go to a school which I had no interest in attending. 

I asked myself how my father could have agreed with something like that, but deep down, I myself knew the answer to that. My father had no problem with Amanda's idea, mainly because he himself was ecstatic of the fact that my future family and I would take up his business. Once Amanda was in the picture, it seemed as if it was the perfect fit for him. 

Knowing that thinking about it would only make me angry and upset, I decided to simply stop thinking about it and go talk to aunt Helen about letting me borrow some of my mother's riding videos. She was ecstatic as soon as she found out that I was planning on riding Hades, and I even noticed her getting slightly teary eyed. 

Spending the rest of the evening watching the videos, I nearly forgot all about Amanda's call, that was until I turned off the television and tried to get myself to sleep early, wanting to prepare for an early morning of practicing with Hades the next day. Yet instead of sleeping, all I found myself able to do was toss and turn in my bed, thinking about how my future seemed to already have been decided for me.