Free Losing Control by Mila McClung

a
place like this.”
    “Well, we can lie together and talk,
at least.”
    She nodded; they shed their fabric
trappings and snuggled under the finest linen sheets and hand-woven blankets.
Fawn felt like she was in some time travel scheme – there weren’t any signs of
technology in the room, not even a digital clock.
    “All right, what did you mean by all
those cryptic statements?”
    He blew out a hard breath. “I guess I
should start from the beginning, when my dad died. I was eighteen, fresh from a
boarding school in Europe. That’s where I’d spent most of my childhood. My
summer vacations were taken up by camp and visiting Grandpa Leo at the beach
house. I never lived here more than a week at a time, over Christmas, or for my
birthday. Anyway, I came back here for the funeral. No one else seemed
interested in running the company. They all wanted to sell it to a competitor.
But my mother, Elizabeth, was determined to keep it, and make it more
profitable. She talked me into taking over, said she’d hire the best experts to
help me.”
    “I was so upset at losing my dad; I
guess I let her convince me that he would have wanted it that way. I dug in,
became some kind of workaholic machine. The company was the only thing on my
mind, night and day. Then, a couple of years later I took a rest at his weekend
retreat and found a personal note from him hidden in a clothes drawer. The note
said that Elizabeth was not my mother. He had been having an affair with a
Swedish maid who gave birth to me. Shortly after, the maid, Inger, disappeared
and Elizabeth took over, raising me as her own.”
    “So where is your real mom?”
    “I don’t know. In the letter Dad said
she just left one day. He tried to find her but the trail ran dry.”
    “Did you look for her after you found
out?”
    “No, I figured if she hadn’t come
forth by then, she didn’t care.”
    “Maybe she died.”
    “Yeah, maybe.”
    “But it wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault that
you weren’t her son. Why do you hate her? Don’t deny it. I can hear it in your
voice every time you say her name.”
    “It’s true. I do hate her. She drove
my father to seek out love somewhere else. She certainly never gave him any of
hers. She doesn’t have any.”
    “Like my mom. Was she excluded from
her parents’ love, too?”
    “No, it isn’t that simple with
Elizabeth. She’s one of those takers. They want control over everybody and
everything. But instead of handling things herself, she’d rather sit up here in
this creepy old house like some matriarch of old, and command people to do her
dirty work.”
    “Well, you don’t have to do what she
wants. Can’t you refuse?”
    “No one refuses Elizabeth. It isn’t
done. My poor sister, Libby, actually allowed herself to be married off to some
royal brat in Europe, just because Elizabeth wanted to be able to say we had
royalty in the family. She’s been trying to hook me up with a minor princess
but I avoid the subject by avoiding her.”
    “Are you afraid of Elizabeth, Taury?”
    “I always was as a kid. But I’ve
learned to ignore her as best I can these days.”
    “So why did you bring me up here?”
    “I thought I might as well. I didn’t
want her coming down to the beach house. She has a way of belittling anything
worthwhile. I guess I didn’t want her saying something cruel about my
renovations.”
    “Sticks and stones may break my bones
but words will never hurt me. Remember that old childhood phrase? It’s so
untrue.”
    “I think words hurt worse than
anything, if you let them.”
    She wrapped him up tight in her warm,
naked limbs.
    “You don’t have to worry about me,
Taury. I won’t let her words hurt me. That’s what you’re really afraid of,
isn’t it? She’s going to say something ugly about me, or where I come from.”
    “Knowing her; she will, yes.”
    “I meant to ask you before … why did
you pick someone like me when you could have a minor princess?”
    “Because you are