What did she mean by ‘your father’s whereabouts?’ She never had a father… not even when she was just a child!Deirdre forced herself to calm down. This had got to be another one of Charlene’s tricks! A stupid scheme to ruffle her feathers—she would make up all kinds of things to confuse her so that she became more and more puzzled the longer she dwelled on it. “I know what you’re thinking, Deirdre. You must be thinking to yourself, ‘My father? But he’s dead! What whereabouts could there possibly be?’” A smug grin surfaced on Charlene’s lips. This was the moment she was finally the one with the advantage. “Well, the answer is simple. Your daddy is alive.”Deirdre clenched her hands into fists and shot Charlene a biting glare. “So, this is why you wanted to see me? So someone can listen to some bullsh*t you made up?” Deirdre retorted frigidly. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t believe a single thing out of your mouth! I don’t even know who my father is, so how can someone who’s n
“How stupid do you think I am, Charlene? I don’t even know if whatever you said is true. Maybe you’re telling the truth, or maybe you’re just making things up! Besides, you said it yourself. You hate me. Why would you suddenly tell me anything just because you got out of prison?”Panic surfaced and settled in Charlene’s eyes.Deirdre nailed it. Charlene never planned to tell her the truth. If this piece of information was enough to get her out of prison, then, Charlene could continue using it as leverage against Deirdre.“Who says I won’t? It’s not like it’s anything useful to me!” Charlene blustered. “I’ll tell you if you make Bren release me from prison within a month.”Deirdre snickered so coldly that Charlene shuddered. “So sorry to disappoint you then, Miss McKinney.”Charlene’s heart raced. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re telling me you don’t care about your own father? That you don’t care about why he’s never come to see you, or where he is now?”Deirdre deadpanned.
“I’ve been thinking about my mother. Just thinking about how much I owe her… sometimes keeps my sleep away.” She was telling the truth. Ever since the day to see Ophelia drew near, her emotions had just gotten kicked up. Her pregnancy might have amplified it, too. Brendan was silent for a moment. When the car stopped at a red light, he held her hand and squeezed. “You don’t have to think about it. She’s coming back.”“I know.” She turned away from him and said nothing more.They returned to the mansion, where Mrs. Engel heard about Deirdre’s trip to the hospital. Concerned, she began to make a broth according to a herbal home remedy she knew to be effective and helpful. As she brewed, she vented, “It must be that Charlene again, isn’t it? She doesn’t talk with any filters, and she’s a walking jinx magnet. Anyone would catch a cold from looking at her soul. Lord knows how glad I am that her butt is being sent to prison!”Deirdre gave a perfunctory chuckle—until she had to drink
Deirdre swore her strength had just left her entire body. But then, quite suddenly, she felt something pop through her lips. She opened her mouth and realized it was a piece of candy. Mrs. Engel was surprised. “That is brilliant, Mr. Brighthall! I forgot to prepare some sweets myself!”Deirdre was quite taken aback, too. It was the first time she ever noticed how perceptive and mindful Brendan could be. “T-Thanks.”The candy was very sweet. As it melted and spread across her mouth, she felt the broth’s taste subsiding. Soon, all she felt was the sweetness of the candy. “If you like it, I’ll put a can of the same candies in the kitchen. You’re allowed to pop one in every time you finish Mrs. Engel’s herbal remedy on top of your medicine.”Wait! It had to be those two combined!?Deirdre’s expression froze. “How long am I supposed to drink that?”Mrs. Engel smiled. “Just a week! It’ll be over like a breeze!”-Charlene’s sentence came three days later. The police had also cle
Now, while these two were meek, they were not stupid. One of them even managed to launch a counter-argument weakly. “Brendan Brighthall? Give me a break. How can someone like him even be remotely related to you? And if you really were his fiancee, he wouldn’t have let you be incarcerated in the first place.”Charlene was infuriated. She chucked the pillow at that woman’s face and snarled, “You f*cking tw*t! With an IQ this sh*tty, no wonder you two could only rot in prison for the rest of your life!”The woman jerked backward in fright and squeezed herself at the end of the bed, putting herself as far away from the pillow as she could. Charlene, though, interpreted it as the young woman being terrified of her. She beamed.“Aww, are you scared? Then get your *ss over here and massage my shoulders! I think it’s high time I change the power dynamic in this cell. From now on, a new queen rules this place!”A new voice suddenly joined the conversation from outside. “Oh yeah? Who’s that?
“Get over here, the two of you! Get her down, nice and easy!” Yael ordered. The two women immediately shoved Charlene down to the floor while Yael pushed the pill into her throat. Then, squeezing her jaw, she said, “Your plastic surgery looks like sh*t, darling. I should help fix you up. Give you a fresh new look…”-When Sam’s call arrived, Brendan was working from the living room couch. He saw who it was and ignored it.Deirdre saw his phone flashing by accident and felt even more perplexed. Why was he squeezing into her couch when his study was literally there?The phone rang for a while before Brendan finally answered it on loudspeaker. “What, Sam?”There was a moment of hesitation before Sam answered, “Charlene’s child is gone.”Deirdre sat straight. Her child was gone? How?Brendan did not even care. “What, that’s it?”“No, that’s not all. She seems to have gone through some serious mental breakdown. She’s so unstable, the police’s floating the idea of sending her to a
It actually felt… upsetting. Now that she thought about it, Brendan had always treated Charlene well. Had that woman not disappointed Brendan as much as she did, she would have become Mrs. Brighthall, no contest. “Are you cold?” Brendan stopped the car next to her and opened the door. Deirdre sulkily went inside and leaned her head against her seat. “If I tell you I’m tired, can I not go?”Brendan said nothing for a long beat before starting the engine. “Sorry. Please be a little patient. I’ll drive as quickly as I can.”He turned up the heater, and yet it did not dispel her nipping annoyance. When she was the one who became the victim of someone's scheme and subsequently lost her eyes and child—all of which was worse than whatever ordeal Charlene had gone through—Brendan had never thought of coming to see her. Sure, Steven Young had duped him back then. He was none the wiser. But what he was doing today proved that he could have always gone to see Deirdre while she was in pr
Madame Brighthall’s smile blossomed from her lips, and suddenly it seemed like spring had dawned on a face fraught with illness. She even coughed less. “Go and make them some nice, warm chicken soup. By the time they are inside, they’ll have something to enjoy.”The maid caught her mistress’s infectious joy. “Okay, ma’am. But please, you stay in here and don’t go out to join in on the fun, okay? It’s very cold out there,” she reminded Madame Brighthall. “Unless, well… they take too long, I guess.”“I know, dear.” The older woman ran her finger through her hair bun and shot an annoyed look at the maid as if a little disgruntled. “What was that supposed to mean? I’m not a kid, you know. I’ve long grown bored of snow. Why would I want to get out there and join in on the fun?”The maid tittered and left. Deirdre and Brendan did not spend too much time out there, either—the weather was just too cold. Brendan could tell from the way her hand started to lose warmth, so he led her insid