The Contract (The Contract 1)

A tear slipped down her cheek, the sight of it startling me.

“I learned very early in life, love was an emotion that didn’t interest me. It made me weak. So I stopped trying.”

“There was no one?” she whispered.

“Only one. A caregiver when I was about six. Her name was Nancy, but I called her Nana. She was older, kind, and she was different with me. She would read to me, talk, play, listen to my childish nattering. She told me she loved me. She stood up to my parents, and tried to get them to pay more attention to me. She lasted longer than some, which is why my memory of her is sharper than others. She left, though; they all did.” I exhaled hard. “I think my parents thought she was spoiling me, so they dismissed her. I heard her arguing with my mother about how isolated they kept me and I deserved more. I woke up a couple days later to a new nanny.”

“Is she the one Penny reminds you of?”

“Yes.”

“And since then?”

“No one.”

“You weren’t close to your grandfather, either? He was the one who seemed to want you the most.”

I shook my head. “He wanted me to continue the VanRyan line. I rarely saw him.”

Her brow furrowed, but she remained silent.

I stood, pacing around the room, my stomach in knots as I allowed myself to remember. “Eventually, my parents could barely tolerate each other, let alone me. My grandfather died, and they separated. I was sent back and forth between them for years.” I gripped the back of my neck as the pain in my chest threatened to overwhelm me. “Neither of them wanted me. I went from place to place, only to be ignored. My mother flitted around, traveling and socializing. There were many times I would wake up to a stranger there to babysit, while she went on her merry way. My father went from woman to woman; I never knew who I’d run into in the hall or the kitchen.” I grimaced. “I was actually grateful when they sent me away to school. At least there I could forget.”

“Could you?”

I nodded. “I learned early in life to compartmentalize. I meant nothing to them. They told me often enough, showed it in their neglect.” I huffed out a huge gust of air. “I had no feelings for them, either. They were the people who paid for things I needed. Our contact was almost always limited to a discussion of money.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It’s the way it was, all my life.”

“Neither of them remarried?” she asked after a few beats of silence.

I laughed; the sound was bitter and harsh. “My grandfather had put a stipulation in his will: if they divorced, my father was locked into an allowance. My mother couldn’t touch the money, so they stayed legally married. My father didn’t care; he had plenty of resources. He fucked around when they were married, and he continued when they separated. They settled on a monthly figure, and she lived life the way she wanted and he did, too. A win-win situation.”

“And you were lost in the shuffle.”

“Katharine, I was never in the shuffle. I was the discarded Joker in the deck. However, in the end, it didn’t matter.”

“Why?”

“When I was almost eighteen, my parents were at a function together. I forget what it was—some society thing. They were big on those. For some reason, they left together, I suppose he was taking her home, and a drunk driver hit them head-on. Both of them were killed instantly.”

“Were you sad?”

“No.”

“You must have felt something?”

“The one thing I felt was relief. I didn’t have to go places I wasn’t wanted, but sent to for appearance sake. More importantly, though, I didn’t have to pretend to care about two people who never gave a shit about me.”

She made a strange noise low in her throat, bowing her head for a moment. Her reaction struck me as odd. She seemed so upset.

“Since they were still legally married, and their wills had never changed, I inherited it all,” I continued. “Every last dime, which is rather ironic, considering the only time they did anything good for me was by dying.”

“Is that how you afford your lifestyle?”

“Not really. I rarely dip into my holdings. I used it for important things, like to buy this place and to pay for my education. I never wanted the life my parents had—frivolous and wasteful. I enjoy working and knowing I can survive on my own. I am beholden to no one.”

“Is that what you’re using to pay me?”

I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the slight dampness of stress lingering. “I consider you important, yes.”

Again, she bowed her head, her hair falling forward and covering her face. I sat down beside her, and faced her straight on.