The first semester in Oxford has already started. Balancing between studying to become a lawyer and life in general, Julia Eden has found herself sitting across from a shrink, or in better words: a psychologist.
It only gets worse when the old man s...
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Darien Pryce later told her nanny, Charlotte (or Lotte as she had called her ever since she knew how to talk), what she should have told her a week ago - that her father was returning to London last night.
Her father, Edward Pryce had returned from Downtown Dubai after almost a month, thoroughly disappointed that Lotte didn't know beforehand. If she had, she would have pressed the geyser in his bathroom on, changed the sheets of his bed, and also made some Laverbread, a traditional Welsh dish Edward liked before he arrived. Darien had been in touch with him regularly. So naturally, he had assumed she would tell Lotte. But she, herself, had forgotten all about it. She had been in, her friend Olivia's house, smoking pot, when her phone had buzzed. There were possibilities Lotte could smell the weed off Darien when she arrived at the penthouse.
There was something about that call though. Lotte was not only angry about Edward's surprising return, but also very frantic about something. Darien had an instant thought that perhaps, her ten-year-old sister, Rhea Pryce, skins and bones and prone to allergies, had collapsed. It was probably a default thought of hers in every single situation after her mother had died.
Darien had been only eight back then, tall and gangly, her sleek straight hair stopping right at the nape of her neck. She had found her mother that day in the bathroom. Marlene Pryce had lain in a bathtub full of pink water. Later Darien had realized it was blood. Darien's face had been as solemn as it had been on her first day of nursery, her pretty brown eyes huge on her mother. Marlene's back had been propped against the tub, her long black hair, resembling Darien's, touching the damp bathroom floor. Her eyes had been closed and she had looked as though she had been sleeping. But it had been the slit in her arms, from wrists to the crooks of her elbows, that had made Darien realize that Marlene Pryce hadn't been just sleeping.
That had been the moment Darien had screamed. Hot scalding tears had ran down her heated face. Her father had come running from his study and distraught at the sight of his wife, dead in his daughter's arms.
"It's all my fault," he had cried, taking her mother's body from her and rocking with it held against his chest.
But it hadn't been his fault at all. He had loved her all throughout their marriage and when he had read his wedding vows to Marlene, he had said, "I will never hurt you" and he never did.
Only Marlene, herself, had been hurt so much that everything had seemed lifeless to her. Darien had been old enough to understand why there were other men in the penthouse when daddy had been gone for business trips. There had been one particular man who brought jewellery everyday for her mother and closed the door to let her try the necklace or the bracelet or whatever it had been on. When he would leave, her mother would pour herself a drink and sit on her wing chair by the fireplace. Sometimes she would cry, sometimes she wouldn't.
