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CHAPTER 28
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2021-05-02 14:51:42I suppose I look like her.
My mother, I mean. I see the resemblance - huge eyes that appear vacant most of the time. Dark hair, sharp nose. She's a very beautiful woman, Genina Malatova - that's a fact I can believe. But my mother? I'm still processing. I'm still under the impression that Jamie McLelland is my mother; that Jamie is somewhere in Scotland waiting for me, and that Sebastian has no idea what he's talking about.
I have spent the better half of the first week of August staring at photos of Genina. I've been reading autobiographies about her family and about her journey to becoming Queen of Venetia (a country that I have never visited, and am reluctant on visiting now). When her father - my grandfather - Josef Malatova suffered a stroke that left half of his body par
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** For a moment, I feel like my entire world has completely stopped spinning. It's been almost two weeks since I haven't heard Alejandro's voice, and suddenly now, with a burner phone supplied to me by my royal grandmother in Venetia, he's speaking. To me. "Alejandro?" I mutter into the phone. I can hear him suck in a sharp breath at the sound of my voice. "Leslie?" he says. "Leslie is this...this is you? Jesus Christ." I want to say so much, but so little is coming out of my mouth. "Leslie, I'm sorry," Alejandro says. "I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry for leaving you. Believe me, I know I fucked up and I'm sorry." "Why did you
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** I'm tired of fighting. My father would be ashamed of me if he heard these words coming out of my mouth. "Leslie," I can imagine him scolding me. "Don't you ever quit fighting. My girls are fighters; they never quit." I suppose if my dear father understood the circumstances that currently plague me, he would have a change of heart. I should have talked to him before going to Venetia; he probably knew the extent of Ramona's 'fury.' Now that I think about it, talking to him should have been the priority. I could have asked him about what happened between him and Genina and about Ramona - my grandmother. But I didn't. I was too eager to meet her, and now I'm left not empty handed, but with a threat in my palm. Ramona had apparently guided my life this entire time, and I didn't ev
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** After breakfast, everyone retires to the living room, the kids having gone outside to play in the rain puddles. I'm in the kitchen by myself since it's empty in here. I think Sebastian knows that I'm trying to avoid him. It isn't the smartest plan, but the only one that I can think of doing. I get up and decide to take another nap in my room, but right when I do, Sebastian comes into the kitchen. He pauses when he sees me, then smiles weakly. I do the same, but somehow goose bumps accompany my grin. "Why are you hiding out in here?" he asks me. By his mood, he seems unfazed by what we spoke about outside earlier this morning. "I'm just thinking," I reply. "I hope my family isn't giving you a hard time."
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