Leah Ashton - Behind The Billionaire's Guarded Heart

‘I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.’

‘Mmm...’ her mother said. ‘You can always quit.’

But... ‘It pays almost double what I was earning at my last placement.’

‘I know,’ Irene said.

Her mum didn’t say anything further—but April knew what she was thinking. She was torn between supporting April in her goal to pay off her credit card and live independently—a goal she’d supported once she’d been reassured April wasn’t going to end up homeless—and solving all her problems. With money.

Which was understandable, really. Her mother had, after all, financially supported April her entire life. And April honestly had never questioned it. She was rich—it was just who she was. Her bottomless credit cards had just come with the territory.

But, really, the only thing she’d ever done that really deserved any payment was her work for the Molyneux Foundation. And besides a few meetings she’d probably spent maybe an hour or two a day working for the foundation—with a big chunk of that time focused on making sure she looked as picture-perfect as possible in photos.

It had been a cringe-worthy, shamefully spoiled existence.

‘You understand why I need to do this, right? All of this: living here, living on my money, living without the Molyneux name?’

‘Yes,’ Irene said. ‘And you know I admire what you’re doing. And I’m a little ashamed of myself for being so worried about you.’

This was cringe-worthy too—how little her family expected of her. Her fault as well, of course.

‘But that’s my job,’ Irene continued. ‘I’m your mum. I’m supposed to worry. And I’m supposed to want to fix things. But, if I put that aside, here’s my non-mum advice—keep the job. Keep working hard, pay off your debt and move out of that awful shared house. It’ll make me feel better once you’re living in your own place.’

‘Yes, Mum,’ April said, smiling. ‘I’ll do my best.’

And then she remembered something she’d been thinking about earlier.

‘Hey, Mum, did you keep that type of stuff? Stuff that we all made at school—you know, gifts for Mother’s Day? Finger paintings? That sort of stuff?’

Irene laughed. ‘No! I’m probably a terrible person, but I remember smuggling all that stuff out to the bin under cover of darkness.’

They talked for a while longer, but later, when April had ended the call and gone to bed, her thoughts wandered back to that faded little bookmark Hugh had once given to his mother.

Was she just being sentimental? She wasn’t sure how she felt about her mum not keeping any of her childhood art—but then, had it bothered her until now? She hadn’t even noticed. Maybe Hugh was right—maybe it was just a badly painted bookmark.

But that was the thing—the way Hugh had reacted...the way he’d raced to see her immediately, and the way he’d washed her Dockers mug as if the weight of the world had been on his shoulders...

It felt like so much more.

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