Chapter 53\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJonathan? Selena? You\u2019re both home?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mother\u2019s voice rang out as she entered the penthouse, her face already twisted with anger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat horrible Margaret Ross,\u201d she fumed, dropping her designer clutch on the entryway table. \u201cWe\u2019d arranged for Selena to meet her son Edward for dinner next week\u2013everything was settled\u2013and suddenly she calls to cancel! She had the audacity to imply that our Selena wasn\u2019t good enough for her precious son! The Ross family barely has two nickels to rub together after the recession, and she thinks she\u00a0<\/p>\n
can look down on us!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mother pulled me into her arms, then gasped when she saw my face. \u201cSelena! What happened to your face? Who dared to hit my\u00a0<\/p>\n
daughter?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I burst into fresh tears, unable to form words through my sobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what your full\u2013time mothering has produced!\u201d Father shouted. \u201cA daughter who\u2019s destroying our family\u2019s company!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHow dare you speak to me that way!\u201d Mother shot back. \u201cSelena is your daughter too!\u201d She turned to me, her voice softening. \u201cDarling, tell me what happened. Mother will make it right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I knew the loss of the company\u2019s contracts was my fault, or at least connected to me. Father\u2019s slaps were deserved. But it wasn\u2019t entirely my doing\u2013if Cedar hadn\u2019t somehow wormed her way into Ridley\u2019s good graces, he would never have targeted me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMom,\u201d I choked out between sobs, \u201cit\u2019s Cedar\u2019s fault! She convinced Ridley to target our company! Dad blames me, but I\u2019m innocent!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat ungrateful little-\u201d Mother began to curse, but was interrupted by her phone buzzing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still sniffling, I moved closer to see what it was. It was Margaret sending her a link. Mother had been humiliated by the woman earlier, and would normally have ignored her, but the preview mentioned Wright Creatives. Curiosity overcame her anger, and she opened it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The color drained from her face as she stared at her phone screen. She looked up at me in horror. \u201cSelena, did you attend the Wilson Group\u2019s cocktail reception tonight?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I knew from her expression that it was already too late, Everything was ruined.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My tears flowed freely as I collapsed back onto the sofa. \u201cMom, I ran into Cedar at the reception. She deliberately tore my dress off, humiliated me in front of everyone! I\u2026 I want to die!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I lurched toward the wall, as if to bash my head against it, but lacked the strength to follow through.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mother wasn\u2019t even watching me anymore. She was scrolling through her phone, reading messages from the elite women\u2019s groups she belonged to, which were surely all discussing me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\ud83d\ude42))\u00a0<\/p>\n
96\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 53\u00a0<\/p>\n
I watched as her expression hardened bit by bit, then yanked the phone from her grasp. The insulting <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Sky Remembered the Touch of Our Unfinished Goodbyes by Lysa Orion Rehn 53 Chapter 53\u00a0 \u201cJonathan? Selena? You\u2019re both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zero-stars-for-daddy-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}