Chapter 10

~ DEBORAH ~

“Mum, what are you doing? Take it easy!”

Ashley almost stumbled when I dragged her into one of the guest bedrooms. I didn’t slow down. I didn’t care. I pushed the door shut behind us, the slam echoing through the room.

She looked irritated. But I was livid.

“Come on, Mum, chill,” she snapped, pulling her arm away from me. “You don’t have to get all mad. I was just getting to know her better, that’s all.”

“What you were doing,” I said slowly, my voice calm in a way that meant I was anything but, “was letting her know you hate her.”

She lifted her chin stubbornly. “What? Am I supposed to like her?”

“You could at least pretend.”

She laughed once. It was sharp, disbelieving.

“That’s what I was doing.”

“No,” I said flatly. “You weren’t.”

She began pacing, her anger bouncing off the walls like a trapped animal. Ashley had always been like this—too much emotions and not enough control. Her emotions moved first and her brain followed later. Just like her late mother.

“Arghhh! I hate her!” She dragged her hands through her hair, the words tearing out of her in frustration. “The way she stood there in that dress...feeling so entitled! Like she already belongs here! Like she’s already Mrs. Blackwood!”

“She will be,” I replied.

The words hit hard. Slowly, she turned around. “Not if I can help it.”

“And how exactly do you plan to stop it?” I stepped closer. “By glaring at her? By throwing little childish comments her way? You think Nathan wouldn’t notice all that?”

Her breathing quickened. “I was gone for a few months!” she snapped. “Just a few months! And I come back to this? A wedding?” She shook her head, like she was still finding it hard to believe. Like it was a dream. “I didn’t even know he had started dating again.”

“Neither did I,” I said. That was the part that still stung.

I’d only found out after the date was already set. When invitations were already being discussed. When it was already too late.

“How could he do this?” Ashley demanded. “How could he be getting married?”

“You had your chance, Ashley.” The words came out cold, bitter, like I was feeling.

Her face fell.

“If you had done what you were supposed to do, we wouldn’t be here right now! You would have been the one in that dress, getting married! Not that cheap little social climber!”

I moved towards the window, realizing I was about to explode. Trying to calm myself, I stared out over the manicured lawns of the Blackwood estate.

The Blackwood name had so much wealth behind it—and power. Influence that stretched beyond what most people could even imagine.

Yet, after my husband, Johnathan Blackwood died…after the reading of the will…I realized something very important.

I may have spent years being married to him. Years being the devoted wife, the good stepmother to his only son—since nature had made it impossible for me to have my own children.

I may have been the supportive partner at every gala, every board dinner. Every important point in his life.

But when it came to the properties that truly mattered, all of it sat firmly in Nathan’s hands.

I had smiled during the reading of the will. I had played the dignified widow, accepting what was given to me—lesser properties, allowances, comfort.

In the course, I had understood. Without blood, without a direct heir, I would always be slightly outside the circle.

Unless my daughter married into the center of it.

Unless Ashley became Mrs. Blackwood.

I turned back to her.

“How do you think I feel?” I asked quietly. “Watching him prepare to marry someone else when I’ve spent years imagining you in that position?”

Her anger flickered. Hurt replaced it for a moment.

“I tried,” she said, softer now. “You know I tried. He just… He wouldn’t stop seeing me like a sister.”

Sister. That word had always infuriated me.

I had adopted Ashley when she was four years old, after my sister, a single mother, had died with nothing but debt and a child. I had brought her along with me to this house, raised her here, alongside Nathan.

They’d become close. Very close. He’d protected her, spoiled her, defended her.

He loved her. Just not the way we needed him to.

“Maybe he’s never going to see me as anything more than that,” she whispered, sad.

“Because you allowed it,” I snapped.

Her head jerked up.

“You should have pushed harder! You should have made it impossible for him to resist you!”

“I tried!”

“Not hard enough!”

Silence fell over the room. Ashley’s eyes hardened.

“So, what now?” she asked. “Are we just going to stand back and let her have him? Let her walk into this family and take everything?”

I inhaled slowly. “It’s too late to stop the wedding.”

Her face twisted in disbelief. She shook her head.  “No.”

“Yes.”

“You’re giving up?”

“No. I’m thinking,” I said contemplatively.

She stared at me, confused.

“You can’t stop a train already moving,” I continued calmly. “Not without getting crushed under it.”

Her breathing slowed.

“But,” I added, “you can loosen the tracks.”

Something shifted in her eyes. “You mean…”

“We let the wedding happen. We have no choice.”

Her jaw tightened. “And then?”

“And then,” I said quietly, stepping closer, lowering my voice a bit, “we make sure the marriage doesn’t survive.”

Ashley went very still. “It’s not going to be easy. He really loves her.”

“There are certain things love do not survive, dear.”

“But what if she fights back? She may be stronger than she looks.”

“Everyone has a weakness, darling. You just have to find out what it is.”

Ashley’s lips curved slowly. “So… I just need to pretend.”

“Exactly.”

I raised a hand, smoothening her hair back gently. “You smile. You compliment her. You make her feel comfortable around you.”

For a second, I saw resistance flicker across her face. Then something else replaced it.

Understanding.

She nodded slowly.

“You don’t allow her see your jealousy,” I said, adjusting her posture the way I used to when she was a child—shoulders back, chin up. “You don’t let Nathan suspect a thing.”

Her beathing steadied.

 “You make sure you remain close,” I continued.

 “Close enough to study her.” Ashley smiled, her eyes darkening with something more controlled, more dangerous.

“That’s right,” I replied.

“Close enough to know the right buttons to press.”

“Exactly!”

For a moment, we stood there in quiet understanding. The air between us no longer thick with anger—but with strategy. Ashley’s smile was slow, deliberate, calculating.

Then it faltered. Her brows pulled together suddenly.

“But what if she gets pregnant?”  

The words dropped between us like stone.

Pregnant.

A child would steal everything. A child would bind Kimberly to Nathan in ways that charm and seduction never could. In this family, blood was power. Blood was permanence.

“That will never happen,” I said vehemently, confidently, because I had thought of every possible scenario here.

Ashley’s eyes searched mine, fear creeping in where confidence had been. “But it could happen. How are we supposed to stop her from getting pregnant when they become husband and wife?”

“Leave that to me,” I said.

Nothing was going to stop me from getting what I wanted, what rightfully belonged to me. Certainly not that sly, self-serving gold digger who had managed to weasel her way into Nathan’s life.

The wedding was going to happen, yes. But Kimberly’s future in this family? That was something I controlled.

And she had absolutely no idea what was coming for her.