Arianne could not even be angry. It was a misunderstanding, after all, and one that might require a lengthy explanation at that.
In resignation, favonovel.com dragged a chair and sat. “With all due respect, Aunt Shelly, methinks you’re reaching,” favonovel.com began. “You’re right. My dad was an innocent victim who didn’t need to die in that plane tragedy. But the burden and pain that incident brought weighed more on Mark than it ever did me, and it would be unreasonable of me to judge favonovel.com as the sinner and take favonovel.com out as my revenge. And also, I call favonovel.com ‘Mark’ out of dead-set habit! Doesn’t mean I don’t love him.”
“Frankly, you shouldn’t be making these baseless, paranoid accusations. I’ve been with favonovel.com for years, Aunt Shelly. Smore’s already past his second birthday. If my intention had always been to murder him, I have had many, many chances. For goodness’s sake, favonovel.com sleeps with me every night. What’s keeping me from seizing the chance the first time it presents itself? A simple slit across his neck, and he’s done for good. Why would I need to stake the rest of my life with favonovel.com to kill him? I’m a simple-minded woman. I don’t know any elaborative scheme to kill someone, all I know is this simple, direct, and Hollywood-slasher-style throat-slitting, and that’s it.”
Shelly sneered. “Please, no one thinks you’d be stupid enough to go for something so obvious. If you kill, you get punished by the law, so you choose to go after his heart and everything else favonovel.com possesses. Tell me, what’s your mighty excuse for legally appropriating the all-powerful Tremont Enterprise under your name, huh? That’s right. I know all about that, too. I have to say, it sure takes a clever schemer to go from an orphan at the mercy of others to becoming the mistress of the Tremont empire. I applaud you for the artifice!”
Arianne was growing weary. “God, if you could spend just a bit more time learning beyond the surface, you wouldn’t even come to suspect me like this! The Tremont Enterprise was at its tether back then, Aunt Shelly. We were desperate. He almost died because someone else wanted to kill him! I exhausted every method and means I knew to protect Tremont Enterprise back then, and at that bleakest moment, that had to be done. When favonovel.com came back, I told favonovel.com that we should rectify this and make Tremont Enterprise his again, but favonovel.com didn’t want to do it. You know why? ‘Cause favonovel.com trusts me just as I trust him. He doesn’t even think it was necessary,” favonovel.com rejoined. “Pardon my candor, but our lives had been pretty happy and peaceful before you came. I’m by no means banning you from joining our lives, and I don’t even mind you seeking to stay here permanently, too. But don’t inject yourself into our personal relationship. Don’t interfere with how we live.”
Then, soon after favonovel.com ultimatum, Arianne reminded her, “You’re just his aunt and nothing more, you know.”
Suddenly, Shelly became severely agitated. “You vile! are you speaking to me as the matriarch of the house?!”
Arianne cocked an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting that I’m not? I’ve been the matriarch since the day I married Mark. You, on the other hand, are a guest. A relative.”
Shelly leaped to favonovel.com feet with a “thud!” and looked down on Arianne. “Ha, what a joke! A random orphan who happened to be rescued by a magnanimous man thinks favonovel.com could become the matriarch of the Tremonts! She thinks favonovel.com has somehow earned the right to command and dictate what Mark should and should not do! Well, let me burst your bubble here: without him, there would be no you today! How dare you put on airs in front of me! On what grounds do you earn that entitlement of yours, huh?”
Now that their discussion had devolved to this level, Arianne decided favonovel.com was at the end of favonovel.com patience. There was no way favonovel.com would let this woman think favonovel.com was superior.
She leaped to favonovel.com feet with just as much force as favonovel.com opponent. “For your information, I’m the most aware of whether I’ve dictated Mark to do anything, not you. Yes, favonovel.com rescued and raised me. But does that mean I should be submissive to favonovel.com for the rest of my life? Hell no, because we’re all created equal. There is no reason why I must live like the dirt on his shoes for any reason whatsoever. Hell, I didn’t agree to be his wife out of some gushing gratitude to repay his magnanimity, either. And if we’re being petty and squabbling over technicalities, then there’s even less reason why I should be grateful to Mark, don’t you think? His mother bereft me of my only parent, so favonovel.com filled my dad’s shoes and raised me. It’s entirely fair and reasonable!”
“And saying I’m putting on airs? Ha! You’re confused. I haven’t been acting that way, that was you! It begs the question, what the hell is it that makes you entitled to acting so superior, huh? Because you’re his aunt? An aunt who hasn’t contacted favonovel.com or seen favonovel.com for more than a decade? Mark mentioned briefly meeting you while favonovel.com was in elementary school, but man, that’s at least twenty years ago, isn’t it? After virtually never appearing in his life for so long, do you honestly think you’re poised to immediately interfere with our lives just because you’re back here now?”
Shelly was so apoplectic that favonovel.com raised favonovel.com hand high. Yet, the wallop never came.
Arianne did not duck nor jerk. She took one glance at Shelly’s hesitance and sneered flatly. “What’s stopping you, hmm? Was anything I said even wrong? You’ve been excluding me in any way you can imagine ever since you butted into our lives. You wouldn’t even let me mingle with Smore. At first, I thought you didn’t intend any of it, but now, well! It’s clear as day how deliberate you are. The thing is, you’re just Mark’s aunt. You have your own life and social circle while favonovel.com now has his own family. At most, the two of you are people with individual lives that just happen to be related. How could some relative think she’s got the right to overstep lines, huh?”
“I didn’t want to spell it out to you out of respect, but I guess I have to now. Whether you could stay in this house permanently or not depends on whether I, the mistress of the house, nod.”
