Amber Frost Read Online Free PDF Page B

you?”
    “No, Mom. I’m fine,” I assured her as I took my place at the middle of the table.
    “Hmm.” She looked me over critically, her thin features pinching into a frown. “It’s past time for you to visit the tanning salon then. I’ll book you in for this weekend. We’re having dinner with the Simons on Sunday and we can’t have you looking this pale and drawn in front of Clarke’s parents, they’ll think we breed weak stock,” she half-joked. My mother’s skin was pulled tightly over her cheekbones, due to her most recent face-lift. It did hold a healthy, warm glow though, a look that she expected me to emulate.
    “Okay, thanks Mom.” I struggled to sound grateful.
    Just then my father finished his phone conversation. He turned to offer me a brief but genuine smile.
    “Hello, darling. How was your day?” he asked in his deep, gruff voice.
    Strange, confusing, tedious, I answered in my head.
    “I had a great day, thank you,” I answered, smiling sweetly. He nodded, his attention already elsewhere as he picked up his phone again.
    My parents were becoming strangers to me. The only thing I felt when I looked at them nowadays was a small twinge of guilt over the lack of affection I had for either. I glanced over at my mother, her tall, slim frame so similar to my own. That was where the similarities between us ended though; my mothers lips were thin, her hazel eyes small, almost beady, her nose slightly snubbed. Sometimes it seemed like she was jealous of my looks; most of the time she was proud, wanting to show me off, encouraging me to primp and prep myself and wear clothes that showed off my body to its best advantage. My mother had never been very maternal; she’d always seemed to view me as more of a possession, like a doll, rather than a daughter.
    My mother was an only child and had been spoilt her whole life, not unlike myself I supposed. She’d come from money, her own father teaching her valuable investment skills that had helped get us to where we were today. She’d always had high expectations not only for me and my father but also for herself. It had once seemed like she truly believed she was helping us by pushing so hard but since my grandfather’s death two years ago when she’d inherited her family fortune, she’d become colder, harsher and even more driven. I had started to wonder if she’d ever be satisfied.
    My father and I had once been close. I had been his precious little girl who could do no wrong. He had spoiled me rotten and I’d had him wrapped around my little finger. As the years went by though, he’d become less interested in me and more involved in his work, his aspirations reaching higher and higher. His thick, dark hair had grayed, his handsome, chiseled features had hardened, the lines in his face running deep. His strong, muscular build had softened, a round belly protruding now from his middle. It made me feel a little sad that I didn’t know him anymore. He was not the same man who used to pick me up to spin me in his arms, to toss me in the air and laugh in pleasure at my own delight. Now I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my father laugh.
    Yet no matter how distant my parents had become, I still wanted nothing more than to please them, to make them proud of me, to earn a little of their love and perhaps a little more of their time. But how could I possibly make demands on them when they had given me so much? I went to the best school, lived in one of the largest houses in Victoria, I had expensive clothes, and all the best things that money could buy. How could I be so selfish to want more?
    My thoughts were interrupted as Walter came through the small door at the back of the dining room from the kitchen. He pushed our meals on a small cart, silently serving first my father, then my mother and last of all me. As always, his dark and serious features were twisted and pinched as if he smelt something bad. I wondered if I was just imagining him