This Heiress Doesn’t Fight Anymore Chapter 08

This Heiress Doesn’t Fight Anymore Chapter 08

Silence for a few seconds.

Then the pounding started. Fists on wood. And Graham’s voice, barely holding together:

“Maren! Open the gate!”

“Who the hell is that kid? You’re throwing away everything for him?”

I showered, crawled into bed, and was out the second my head hit the pillow.

Early the next morning.

I opened the gate.

Graham was still there.

He’d been sitting on my front steps all night.

His suit looked like he’d slept in a ditch. The whites of his eyes were almost entirely red.

He scrambled to his feet when he saw me, legs completely numb from sitting all night, and nearly went

down.

I didn’t look at him.

I walked right past him and headed to the shop for a doughnut.

On my way back, a sports car, obnoxious red and obscenely expensive, skidded to a stop behind the

Maybach.

Someone half–fell out of it.

Bennett.

He looked worse than Graham.

Hair wrecked. A stark handprint blazed red on one cheek.

The second he saw me, his face crumpled.

“Maren!”

He collapsed to his knees in the dirt right in front of me.

Every person walking by stopped and stared.

I bit into my doughnut and raised an eyebrow.

“Mr. Whitmore. Little early for theatrics, isn’t it?”

Bennett grabbed fistfuls of my pants, kneeling in the dirt, crying so hard he could barely get words out.

“Maren, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

“I saw the footage. All of it. She jumped in and grabbed you. She did it on purpose, Maren.”

He punched the ground. Hard. Swearing at himself.

The crack echoed down the empty street.

“Come home. Please. Mom and Dad found out everything. It destroyed them. Mom had a complete

breakdown. We threw Brielle out. She’s gone. You’re the only daughter this family has. You always were.”

He looked up at me, desperate, hoping.

Searching my face for something, anything, to hold onto.

There was a time when a single smile from him could make my whole week.

That was a different life.

I chewed. Swallowed.

“You done?”

My face gave him nothing.

Bennett’s voice died. “Maren…”

“Then let go of my pants. I got these for ten bucks on Amazon, and you’re stretching the fabric.”

Bennett flinched like I’d slapped him back.

His hands fell away. Limp.

Graham stood a few feet away, watching my face. Whatever he saw there, or didn’t see, made him look like something inside him was caving in.

“Is there really nothing left?” Graham’s voice barely held. “You don’t feel anything at all?”

“No.”

I popped the last bite of doughnut into my mouth and smiled.

“I already died once, remember? And after that, nothing, not family or love, beats a good nap.”