An Heir At Any Price: The Billionaire's Obsession - Contemporary Romance by Forbidden Fruit Press Page B

usually runs me around $2000.00 and that’s just
our part. I can only imagine what rehab was going to cost on top of
the bill she had already racked up here. Bridgette didn’t look like
a woman who often worried about money.
     
    I heard myself saying, “Whatever we
need to do to get her help,” and then I started trying to figure
out in my head how “we” were going to do that. The only solution I
could come up with was accepting Aiden’s offer. I couldn’t see any
other way out. If I didn’t, I’d be drowning in the medical bills my
entire life.
     
    “Would you like to see her now?”
Bridgette asked me. I wanted to say no. I was angry with her, hurt,
disgusted…but as usual I didn’t.
     
    “Sure, thanks.”
     
    ***
     
    The room was dark, just the way she
liked it. She had undoubtedly already yelled at some poor nurse for
opening the blinds and they hadn’t made the same mistake twice. The
thick, velvet curtains pulled tight across the window left it void
of light. I switched on a small fluorescent lamp near the door so
that she wouldn’t complain about it getting into her eyes. She
looked like she was sleeping. Her face was more peaceful than I’d
seen it in a long time. The fluids they gave her went far in making
her at least appear healthier. I remember when I was a little girl,
I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Now
sometimes I don’t even really recognize her. I sat down on the
chair next to her bed.
     
    “Mom?”
     
    Her eyelids fluttered but she didn’t
open them. I called out to her again and her peaceful face turned
into a scowl.
     
    “Go away.” She grabbed the sheet on
the bed and turned on her side away from me.
     
    I was suddenly incensed. She had no
one to blame for this but herself yet here I sit feeling guilty and
worrying about her and the bills…all the things she should be
worrying about and she had the audacity to speak to me that way. I
was about to do something I was very unsure of in order to secure
both of our futures. That should have been her job, or at least our
job together. She’d put us both right here though, I wasn’t going
to take the blame for that. Getting angrier I stood up and pulled
the sheet back off of her.
     
    “No, I will not go away. As usual, I’m
paying for this little excursion. You have no idea what I am going
to have to go through to pay for it. The absolute very least you
could do is express some real remorse for a change. I feel like I’m
raising an obstinate child most of the time and I’m sick of this,
all of it. I’m going to pay these bills, and you are going into
rehab when you leave here.”
     
    My mother opened one eye slowly and
then after a few seconds she opened the other. She groaned I was
sure it was a headache. If she’d been at home she’d have a beer or
vodka in her hand by now. She used to tell me that the best way to
get rid of a hangover was to treat it with a vodka chaser. Ah, the
lovely things a mother teaches her child.
     
    When she pulled them fully open, I
could see that she had tears in her eyes. It wasn’t fazing me
though, I knew it as just another of her well-practiced
manipulation techniques.
     
    “ Holly, I don’t want to go
to one of those places. I want to stay home. I’ll miss it and you…I
can stop. I don’t need to be put in one of those cold, scary
places. The people are mean and I don’t sleep because I want to be
home in my own bed so badly…Please tell me that I don’t have to go,
Holly.”
     
    “You can’t do it by yourself, mother.
You’ve tried before, it doesn’t work. If you refuse to go to rehab,
I walk away.”
     
    “What does that mean?” she said,
looking truly confused.
     
    “That means exactly what I said. I
walk, Mom. I’m not doing any of this with you anymore. This is the
last time. You get into rehab and get some help and I’ll pay for
it. You walk out of here and go home, I stop paying for it all. But
mostly, I stop seeing you. I have no