A Life Well Lived Novels & Stories

I knew this better than anyone because that was exactly how I had lived in my last life, while everyone else believed I had married the perfect gentleman. “Enough.” Donna Isabella raised her hand, putting an end to the scene. “Arnold, keep your wife under control.” “Yes, Mamma,” Arnold replied politely, nodding with apparent humility. “I’ll make sure she’s properly taught.” However, his thoughts were gleeful. ‘Serves you right. Seeing you humiliated like this makes me happy. This is what happens when you don’t obey.’ The dinner officially began, though the tension still lingered in the air.

And through all of it, the ordinary life would be what it was — warm and full and genuinely lived, in the packhouse and the hills and the kitchen table mornings and the evening steps with the bond carrying what it always carried and the accord signal in everything around us. The ordinary life was the point. Not the extraordinary events of the building phase. Not the governance milestones or the archive submissions or the combined shift records. The ordinary quality of a life lived well, in a territory built well, among wolves who chose well, day after day, without ceremony or fanfare, simply because the choosing was what the founding philosophy was and the founding philosophy was real.

A life for a life. And it was up to me to decide who lived.

But how could a woman in her 60s possibly outrun a group of men? Besides, I'd specifically instructed them to give my dear mother-in-law some special attention. In all the years I'd been married into the Lambert family, she'd made my life a living hell. I had to hand over every penny of my paycheck. I wasn't allowed to buy myself new clothes. I was expected to be the dutiful daughter-in-law and do all the housework. When I was newly pregnant with Ricky, she forced me to get up before dawn every single day to cook and do laundry for her.

Be sensible. Every word carried a commanding tone. He clearly believed I would react the same way I always had—no matter how he mocked or humiliated my feelings, I'd eventually crawl back, apologizing just to stay by his side. Not this time. I gave a small shrug and tossed the phone straight into the trash can—along with the pathetic life I'd once lived. There was nothing left in this town to miss. My gambling father died years ago. I'd sold the house, and now, with my mother healthy again, we were heading overseas to start anew.

Carrying this weight all day plus the cannulas is something I do every day and I have gotten used to it, but it is still tedious not being able to move around as much as I would like. I toss and turn in bed looking for a comfortable position, when I finally find it I close my eyes and the last thought that crosses my mind before falling asleep is only one, and it is the one that has remained during all these years. I don't want to die, not yet. Please...

Now I live in Hawaii, where I own several properties and have various businesses in motion. Life has smiled on me in the best possible way, and I am very satisfied with everything. Andrés, my adoptive father, would be very proud of the woman he created. My father did a good job, but he didn’t have the empire I built myself. I’m a businesswoman, intelligent and shrewd. No man measures up to me, and they certainly can’t win me over with expensive gifts and tired lines. There isn’t a man on this earth for me; I feel great being alone. Besides, love makes you weak, so anything that makes me feel weak and vulnerable is discarded.

He trusted me to run the household, which I was perfect at because I'd listened to his wife go on and on for months about their perfect life. She had no idea that I was taking notes. That it was through her that I learned all his likes and dislikes. That it was because of her, a picture had started to form in my head. A life of parties and shopping trips out of town, rubbing elbows with the rich, and being able to afford anything I wanted, like sending my daughter to the top private school in the nation where she would be in close contact with the offspring of the wealthy, upping her chances of marrying into one of those families, and being set for life.

She creased her brow and bit her lip. "See, even someone as smart as you are, have to think it over when the answer is so obvious. You get the one you like; it's the one that will give you the most pleasure. If you concentrate on what the enemy has or is doing, you lose yourself in them. Every situation in life is different. The one common denominator is you. That means, in all things, be true to yourself. The best defense in life is doing and being who you want to be, not what someone else forces on you, and never waver." She seemed to be giving my words some thought. "What if I like the Bugatti Type 40?"