Pity From My Rich Sister? Oops, Her New Family Came Begging Chapter 10

Pity From My Rich Sister? Oops, Her New Family Came Begging Chapter 10

My father nodded quickly.

“If you’re still upset, tell her off. She deserves it.”

Growing up, every fight between Elodie and me had ended with the same excuses.

“You’re older. You should know better.”

“She’s younger. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?”

No one had ever made Elodie apologize to me.

They had never even asked her to stop.

Now they had dragged her here and ordered her to say she was sorry.

Apparently, favoritism could change.

Not because they finally understood what they had done, but because my value had changed.

Once you carried enough weight, even the loyalties that had once seemed unshakable became painfully fragile.

“Apology accepted,” I said. “You can leave now. I’m heading back to Aldercrest in a few days, and I

have a lot to take care of.”

“Aldercrest?” Merrick’s eyes lit up. He lowered his phone. “None of us have ever been there. We should come visit you.”

“Sure. I’ll take you to dinner and cover your hotel.”

My mother’s smile faltered.

“A hotel?”

She frowned.

“Why wouldn’t we stay with you? One of your licensing deals was worth ten million dollars. You must own a place in Aldercrest. It would be ridiculous for your own family to stay somewhere else.”

Merrick immediately agreed.

“Exactly. Your house is probably huge. Why leave all that space empty?”

I looked at them and smiled.

“I do own a home.”

Their faces brightened.

“But it’s mine. It has nothing to do with any of you.”

The room turned cold.

My mother’s smile froze.

“I came to Port Cresswell and stayed in a hotel, didn’t I?”

No one answered.

My mother’s expression shifted several times, but she could not find a response.

Merrick suddenly became fascinated by a hotel brochure. My father cleared his throat.

I opened the door.

“If that’s all, please leave. I really am busy.”

As my mother stepped into the hall, she looked back at me.

“You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”

“No.”

I closed the door.

After I returned to Aldercrest, bits of news reached me from time to time.

Keaton had cosigned a sizable loan for a friend who disappeared with the money.

His wife took their children and moved in with her parents. She was filing for divorce.

Ottilie married a man she met through a dating app after only a few dates.

Less than a month later, she discovered he was buried in huge debt.

They fought constantly, and her social media filled with vague posts about how exhausting

adulthood was.

My mother became ill.

It was not life-threatening, but she needed to stay in the hospital.

Merrick claimed he was too busy at work to take time off.

Elodie had problems of her own. The Kincaids had introduced Rhodes to another woman from Port

Cresswell. Her family was just as well connected as Elodie’s, and she was younger.

Elodie spent her days obsessively checking Rhodes’s location and trying to work out where he was

going.

She had no time to sit beside our mother’s hospital bed.

My mother, meanwhile, told anyone who would listen about me.

“She has a PhD. She was always the sweetest, most obedient child. Whenever I got sick, she brought me medicine and stayed by my side. She never worried about catching anything. She was such a

devoted daughter.”

Then she would start crying.

The child who had obeyed her most completely was the one she had driven away.

News of them reached me only in passing, through business contacts, social media, or the occasional message from an old classmate.

None of it stirred much in me.

It wasn’t numbness.

My days were filled with research data, academic conferences, and international partnerships. Those old family grievances were not worth a single slide in my next presentation.

My world held harder problems to solve.

And far greater mysteries still waiting to be explored.