The Wrong Westbrook

I never thought my father’s legacy would come with a price tag… and that price would be me. And it all began the moment he was lowered into the ground.

The rain came hard that day, soaking through my black leather shoes. I stood apart, on one side of the grave, while the mourners gathered together on the other. They weren’t family — I didn’t have any, not anymore. They were businessmen, people who had shaken my father’s hand but never knew his heart.

Truth was, I didn’t either. Not really.

Ever since my mother walked out five years ago, my father became a stranger who lived in the same house. He sent me off to boarding school when I was just twelve, like I was another problem to be managed instead of his daughter. I cried, I begged to stay, but he hardly looked at me.

Now, at seventeen, I stood at his grave and realized just how completely alone I was.

“Mam, let’s go,” Jose’s voice broke through the patter of rain, gentle but steady, as if he knew I needed someone to ground me.

“Okay.” My voice barely carried over the storm. I clutched the black umbrella tighter and made my way to the car. Jose opened the door, and I slid inside, the leather cold against my skin.

As the engine hummed and the car pulled away, I turned to the window, watching the cemetery fade behind sheets of rain. My chest tightened. “Goodbye, Papa,” I whispered, my breath fogging the glass. “May your heart finally rest in peace.”

The rain showed no mercy, drumming endlessly, as if the sky was weeping on my behalf. It mirrored me too perfectly.

My mother hadn’t even shown up. Not a glimpse of her, not even a flower sent in her name. That abandonment stung deeper than I wanted to admit. She had walked out on us years ago, and today only proved what I’d feared all along—she had never looked back. To her, we didn’t exist.

As for my father… all I could ever feel for him was pity. He had loved her with a desperation so consuming it hollowed him out, and when she left, it destroyed whatever was left of him. He never learned to love me, not fully. Not the way a father should.

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, whispering into the blur of rain, “I will never love the way he loved her.” The words tasted like a promise, and maybe even a warning.

By the time we reached the mansion, the rain had softened to a drizzle, but the heaviness in my chest refused to lift. I hadn’t even noticed the car had stopped until Jose’s voice pulled me back.

“Mam, we have arrived.”

I blinked, startled, and glanced at the open door he held patiently. “Thank you, Jose.” My voice came out softer than I intended. He handed me an umbrella, though I barely felt the dampness as I walked toward the front steps.

William stood waiting, his familiar, weathered face as unreadable as ever. He bowed his head slightly. “Welcome back, mam.”

I managed a nod, nothing more. Words felt too fragile.

The house swallowed me whole the moment I stepped inside. Nothing had changed. The vastness of the marble floor, the gleam of old chandeliers, the endless rows of antique furniture—it all looked untouched, as though time itself had been kept at bay within these walls. And yet, despite its grandeur, the air held no warmth.

It struck me then, in a way it hadn’t before, how lonely it must have been for my father to live here after she left. Day after day, surrounded by silence dressed in finery. I used to wonder why he sent me away, why he buried me in boarding schools instead of letting me stay here, with him. But now, staring at these hollow rooms, I thought I understood. Maybe he hadn’t wanted me to witness his unraveling. Maybe he couldn’t bear for me to see his pain.

And yet, by protecting me from it, he had abandoned me to a different kind of loneliness.

“Kitty.”

The sound of that name froze me in place. I turned, slowly, and there she was. My mother.

She stood at the end of the hall like she had simply walked out of a memory, untouched by time. Her cream-colored dress clung to her frame, her heels clicked elegantly against the marble, and her golden hair spilled down her shoulders in perfect waves. Her skin was flawless, her figure unchanged, her blue eyes still piercing. Only I had changed. I had grown older, harder. I was no longer the little girl who clung to her skirts.

“You’re too late,” I snapped before I could stop myself. My voice carried through the empty corridor, sharp and bitter. “Why weren’t you at the funeral?”

She didn’t even flinch. “The weather was dreadful. I wasn’t about to sit out in all that dampness.” Her tone was smooth, almost bored, as if she had been inconvenienced by the idea of mourning.

Her gaze swept over me, cool and assessing. Then her lips curved, not in kindness but in critique. “And you, Kitty… you really should fix yourself. You look more like a widow than a daughter.”

Her words stung, though I refused to let her see it. She hadn’t been there to bury the man she once called her husband. She hadn’t even pretended to care. And yet here she was, dissecting me as though I were nothing more than a dress gone out of fashion.

I glared at her, the kind of glare that could have cut straight through her if looks held the power of blades. But, of course, she was untouched, unbothered, as if my anger were nothing more than a child’s tantrum.

I couldn’t stand there another second. My chest tightened, the weight of everything pressing down until I could hardly breathe. Without a word, I turned on my heel and fled, my footsteps echoing up the staircase as I ran to the only place that still felt like mine, my room.

Once inside, I slammed the door and leaned against it, trembling. The air was thick with dust and silence, but it was better than her voice, better than her indifference. My feelings swirled too wildly to name, rage, grief, abandonment, loneliness—all tangled into one unbearable knot.

Seven years. It had been seven long years since I last saw her. And now, here she was, as flawless and untouchable as ever… while I was the one left broken.

“Mam Emma.” William’s voice came softly from the other side of my door.

I wiped my face quickly. “Yes?”

“Attorney Travis Coldman is in the study,” he said.

“Okay, William,” I answered, trying to steady my tone.

When he left, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. My eyes were swollen and rimmed with red, the shadows beneath them far too deep to hide. Get it together, Emma, I told myself. Father would have wanted me to face this with dignity, not looking like I had been broken.

I picked up my concealer and dabbed it beneath my blue eyes, smoothing it as best I could. It barely helped, but it gave me something to cling to. A mask was better than nothing.

I tucked a strand of blond hair neatly behind my ears and with a deep breath, I forced myself out of my room and down the wide staircase. Each step echoed in the silence, as if the house itself was reminding me I could not escape what waited below.

When I walked into the study, the air felt colder. My mother was already seated at the long mahogany table, her posture immaculate, her face composed like a portrait. Beside her sat Attorney Travis Coldman with his briefcase resting neatly at his side.

Of course she was here. Not for the funeral, not for me, but for this.

“How convenient for you, Mother,” I said before I could stop myself.

Her blue eyes met mine with sharp indifference. “Mind your words, child. I am still your mother,” she replied with calm authority, as if the title alone excused everything.

I bit back the words rising in my throat, my hands curling into fists at my sides.

“Enough. Both of you,” Attorney Travis said firmly. He adjusted his glasses, his expression leaving no room for argument. “I am present, and there are things to discuss. Whatever quarrel you have can wait.”

The silence that followed was heavy, and I felt like a child again, trapped between two forces I could not control.

“I must tell you something important, Emma,” Attorney Travis said, his tone careful, almost rehearsed. “We have already spoken about this with your mother and father months ago.”

The words struck me like a slap. Months ago? My chest tightened. How could there have been discussions about my future, about Father, without me? I was his daughter. His only child. Yet here I was, blindsided, a guest in my own life.

I tried to hold his gaze, but my stomach churned. “What do you mean?” My voice came out sharper than I intended.

He cleared his throat and looked at me with a mix of pity and professionalism, the kind of look people wear when they know something that will shatter you. “There are certain matters your father believed you were not ready to carry. He thought it best to protect you, especially from the financial difficulties.”

I felt my nails digging into my palms. Protect me. That word burned. He had protected me so well I had been left in the dark, unprepared, and now he was gone.

Attorney Travis hesitated for a fraction of a second before continuing. “Your father had filed for bankruptcy.”

The words dropped into the room like a stone into still water, and I swear I felt the air shift. My breath caught, my chest aching as if someone had pressed their hand against me to suffocate the truth before it sank in.

Bankruptcy.

My father, the man who had built everything with his bare hands, who had worked late nights and early mornings, whose life had been devoted to holding this family together—gone, and now this.

I swallowed hard, my throat dry as paper. My eyes darted to my mother, who sat perfectly still, her face devoid of shame or sorrow. She looked like she had expected this moment, prepared for it even, while I was unraveling piece by piece.

“But you don’t have to worry about anything,” Attorney Travis said with a calmness that felt rehearsed.

My pulse quickened. “What do you mean?”

“Your father had an agreement with Westbrook Financial Holdings,” he continued.

The name alone made my stomach twist. “Westbrook? Isn’t that his rival corporation?” The words flew out before I could stop myself.

“Yes, but that is all in the past,” my mother replied, her tone sharp, dismissive, as though history could be rewritten with a single sentence.

Attorney Travis hesitated, his lips pressed together as if weighing whether to say the next words. “The agreement is…”

“You have to marry the heir, Mr. Aiden Westbrook, to secure your father’s assets,” Camila finished for him, her eyes gleaming with a cruel kind of satisfaction.

My chest caved in. “Get married?” I gasped. “Isn’t he old? I am only seventeen!”

“He is just thirty-five. Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “And besides, we have no money. Think it through, Emma.” Her glare cut into me like glass.

The rage boiled before I could control it. “Then why don’t you marry him!” I spat, my voice trembling with fury.

“A slow, amused voice slithered through the room, thick with arrogance. ‘Is that so? I am afraid we do not marry widows. We prefer our women untouched.’”

The air shifted instantly. My head whipped toward the doorway, and there he was. A man stood framed in the light, wearing a perfectly tailored navy suit that looked as though it had been made only for him. His piercing emerald eyes fixed on me with sharp precision, assessing, almost dissecting.

Heat rushed to my cheeks, my heart hammering so loudly I was certain everyone could hear it. My hands grew clammy, my skin flushed hot, and I felt a bead of sweat trickle at my temple.

Had he heard every reckless word I said?

The room was silent except for the pounding in my chest, and I suddenly felt as if the walls were closing in around me.