Lana sighed. She couldn’t help it but she didn’t like the child – didn’t trust her. She was still waters, deeper than the ocean, that fucker. She would be proved right eventually. She loved her granddaughter – of course she did – but there was no liking there. Jessie Flynn was so selfish, so arrogant, so self-assured it was sickening to witness. She wouldn’t be a kid for long. Already she knew too much. She had never understood the word no but, then again, she had never heard it. Everything she had ever wanted, she had been given. Michael would pluck the moon out of the sky if she asked him to. She was the only child, late arriving, and she was treated like fucking royalty. But she was also sneaky. Even as a little kid she had known she possessed the upper hand in the relationship with her parents. She was an accident waiting to happen, she would not toe the line for much longer, Lana would put money on that.

She looked at her daughter, who she loved with a vengeance and, modulating her voice, she said carefully, ‘All I’m saying, Josephine, is she plays you like a fucking banjo.’

Josephine laughed. ‘’Course she does, Mum! It’s called being a teenager. It’s what they do. But she knows that me and Michael wouldn’t put up with too much nonsense from her. She is still young enough to listen to what we say to her. Now, do you want another glass of wine or not?’

Lana nodded. Josephine poured the wine, and Lana turned her thoughts to her daughter. Josephine rarely left her house now – more often than not it was Lana who did the shopping for the family these days. Josephine was becoming more insular by the week, and young Jessie wasn’t a fool – she would be bound to use that to her advantage. It was human nature. She had a lot of her father in her; she was stubborn just like him, and she was prone to serious anger when thwarted. She was her mother’s double in her looks, but she had inherited none of her mother’s kindly nature. Like her father, she rarely showed anybody her real self. She had inherited Michael’s temper too. It had occasionally surfaced over the years and, just like Michael’s, when it did finally erupt, it was a powerful force in its own right.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Sixty-Nine