Quinn (The Waite Family) by Kathi S. Barton Page A

coming. Their house wasn’t large enough for him as well as his friends. She loved her son, but she had to draw the line sometime. Having Robert there was bad enough with his temper, but the two of them…no, she wouldn’t have that.
    That would have to change too. The living arrangements were just too cramped and too beneath them all. Shannon pulled out her little notebook and noted that in it. Shannon gave an indelicate snort. House indeed. It was barely more than a hovel with its f ive bedrooms and three-car detached garage. The dining room was hardly big enough for twenty guests when she entertained—which hadn’t been much. Her friends were just too busy this time of year and frankly, she was ashamed to bring anyone there.
    Then was no pool either. When she’d pointed that out to her ungrateful daughter, Alyssa claimed that Shannon didn’t swim so it would be a waste of money. Everyone who was anyone had a pool, but Alyssa wouldn’t budge. She told her if she wanted one, then to pay for it herself. Of course she would…and pigs would fly. But Robert was not happy and when he wasn’t happy then he was—
    “Mrs. Howard? Mrs. Waite said to tell you she isn’t going to see you today.”
    Shannon startled when the man touched her arm to get her attention.
    “She suggested that you make an appointment like everyone else.”
    “But I’ve been here for three hours. I need to see her. Tell her that as her mother, I demand that she come down here this instant. I’ve been put off—” Four men in security uniforms and guns stepped up behind the man speaking.
    “As I was saying,” the man said with a smirk, “you need to make an appointment. These gentlemen will see you out.” The man walked away, leaving the others standing there.
    Shannon didn’t say anything. She’d been literally tossed out on her ass before by these “gentlemen” and she wasn’t going through that again. She tried to hold onto her anger as well as she could and not give these men any reason to grab her, but it was difficult. By the time she had been escorted to her car and she got buckled in her head was pounding. She’d had enough.
    ~~~
    Alyssa stood at the window and watched her mother be escorted out. It hurt her to see this, but she’d had no choice. When a woman tried to drug her own daughter to make her have sex with her uncle, things were a lot harder to forgive and forget. Her mother made her own bed and now she had to lie in it. Turning away from the window, she sat back at her desk.
    Her mother and uncle had drugged her when she’d been seventeen. Her father had only been gone a few short weeks, having died of a heart attack, and they had just read the will. Alyssa had inherited everything. All the money—billions of it—the houses, over a dozen of them all over the world, and her family, but all she wanted was her daddy back.
    Shannon was mad because Alyssa’s dad had known about the affairs and that neither Nathan the fourth nor her other brother Robert were her full brothers. She was his only child and the only one to inherit. Alyssa was also responsible for her mother and brothers’ wellbeing. She was to provide them with so much money a year for twenty years; a crock of shit, Drew had called it. But that hadn’t worked the way her daddy wanted.
    She had met them at the restaurant when her mother asked and had been drugged. Their plan had been to have her uncle Samuel get her pregnant and she would have no choice but to let them continue on the way they had been. But Alyssa had run away from the restaurant to be hidden away for nearly ten years.
    If it hadn’t been for Cain and his sisters Alyssa wasn’t sure how much longer she would have stayed away. Alyssa reached for the bottled water and went through the ritual of checking it.
    The drugs had been in her tea glass. And to this day, she could only drink bottled water after she checked for pin holes and broken seals. It’s not that she didn’t trust anyone,