Love Forever After (Candle Light Series) by Christina Ow Page A

should I say what time are you leaving?” Her voice was levelled and cool, like her expression. She put her cup down and turned the TV off. I looked at her uncertain of her cool manner. “Well speak, I don’t have all day?” She turned and stared at me with a raised eye brow.
    “Tomorrow morning,” I answered.
    “I’ll have the pilots notified. Come with me to the study you can tell them your travel plans.” She stood up and walked out the room. I followed fast behind her. She must be up to something.
    “No, I’ll book a commercial flight. That’s if you haven’t put me on the terror alert watch list?”
    “Nonsense, there is a reason I have a jet and it’s not to sit around and look pretty with the Stanford name emblemised on it.” We crossed the living room and the dining room before we got to the study. Kristy was right, this house is too big.
    “I’m not going to end up in some asylum in Wales am I?” I asked her, half serious and half teasing. There was something she was not saying, it wasn’t like her to just agree without an argument.
    She held the door knob and turned to me with a wide triumphant smile on her face. She was up to something. “Why on earth would I send you off to an asylum?” She opened the door and walked in. She held it ajar and waited for me to step in. I took a cautious step into the room, my eyes fixed on my mother. She closed the door and stared up at me, her hands crossed over her torso. “Why would I do that when I can bring the asylum here?”
    I looked at her shocked then turned to look around the room. Dr. Ashford was sited behind my father’s oak desk, standing next to him were two huge thugs. They crossed the room and walked passed me to the door and stood adjacent to my mother.
    “Mother!” I sounded out every syllable peeved.
    “You know Dr. Ashford, and these two gentlemen are here to make sure you don’t leave until two hours are up. I always get my way William you should know that by now. Dr. Ashford, you better earn your money’s worth. When my son leaves here the only ghosts he should be seeing are those on television.” She turned and sauntered out of the room.
    “William, would you please sit down.” Dr. Ashford spoke calmly pointing to the seat opposite him. I clenched my fists a few times reeling in the anger inside me that was threatening to explode. I walked to the leather seat and dropped in it. Gloria always had a trick up her sleeve.
    “It would be silly of me to ask how you are feeling. I know your mother hoodwinked you into seeing me...”
    “More like detaining me against my will,” the anger echoed in my voice.
    “Why don’t we just start,” Dr. Ashford stared at me with a pasted smile on his face, “when did you start seeing your wife?” He put his pen on his writing pad, eagerly waiting to jolt down how crazy I was.
    I folded my arms over my chest and gave him an unconcerned stare. I was determined to make sure we were both miserable through the whole two hours. “Didn’t she already fill you in?”
    “Yes she did but I’d like to hear it from you.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “How is your wife?”
    I laughed irritated, “She’s dead,” I said sharply.
    “And yet you see her?”
    “The ironies of life,” I stood up and walked to the liquor trolley, “Would you like one?”
    “No thank you. I’d prefer you weren’t intoxicated for this session.”
    I sipped at my brandy and walked slowly back to the seat, “I’d prefer to be back home in Manhattan and yet here I am. We are both not getting what we want.”
    His eye twitched and his pasted smile shrunk. I smiled, I was annoying him.
    “You only see your wife in your apartment, is that correct?”
    I sipped at the brandy again. I let the burning liquid flow down my throat before I answered. “Yes.”
    “And what do you think the reason could be?”
    I leaned on the back rest of the seat, “I’ll ask her that when I get home, if I get home.”
    “Do you