The Billionaire’s Hidden Heiress

Knox POV

I wince as Lorelai vomits, holding her long hair back as she heaves and splutters, helpless to do anything but rub her back in a soothing way. She wipes the back of her mouth with a trembling hand and quickly cleans the sink before allowing me to help her back into the living room. My father looks concerned. "Are you alright dear?" he asks, and Lorelai weakly nods. "Sweetheart", her mother croons, and I swear that Lorelai gagged again.

"Don't" I said sharply as her father stared at me mutinously "Don't even think of trying to pretend you give a damn about Lorelai. Or are you conveniently forgetting all about that interview you gave a few weeks back that effectively ruined her reputation? Somebody paid you for it. So don't pretend to give a rat's a*s about your daughter now" I sneered while Lorelai sways on her feet, looking pale, the blood drained out of her face. "Knox", my father's voice, is dangerous, warning me to keep quiet.

lan is composed, although, from the expression on his face, he is just as angry. Thatcher Mathew smirks at me "Keep your snake tongue to yourself little boy", he growls. "And we do care about our daughter, or we wouldn't be here."

"No" Lorelai speaks, and all heads turn to her, as she puts out a hand and I take it, feeling how cold and clammy it is, her body trembling as she raises her eyes and pins them firmly on both parents. "You're here because you want something, at least have the god- given guts to admit it," she says in a shaky voice.

Her mother smiled. "You were always the intelligent one in the family, Lorelai," she said, flicking her gaze at me and then back to her daughter, who refused to be cowed. "Too smart to be in this family, I always thought" she shrugs, "of course we want something" she adds and I see Lorelai wince.

It infuriates me "Spit it out already. Don't you have a heart? Can't you see how this is affecting her?" I blurted out.

"Don't Knox" Lorelai whispers, "trust me, I'm used to it."

But she shouldn't have had to be, I thought a little brokenly, nobody should have to be used to such treatment from their parents.

My father had remained silent up until now. He clears his throat. "What is it you want?" he asks.noveldrama

Lisa's eyes crinkle at the corners. "Money," she says, and all of us glance at each other, unsurprised.

"You came here to blackmail us," my Father says, looking unimpressed. "What makes you think that we'll pay up?"

He deftly doesn't mention that had been our plan before, warning me with my eyes. Lorelai looks pained and broken-hearted. Ian looks pissed.

Her mother smiles triumphantly. "Well, I daresay you wouldn't want more stories in the papers would you?" she challenges as we listen "about how you've abandoned your poor mother and father. How you've banned them from the upcoming wedding? How would it feel to have your wedding interrupted by your grieving parents? Can you imagine the chaos? The scandals?" she purred, her eyes glinting. "How can you do this?" Lorelai's voice is barely above a whisper.

Her mother gives her a look that's filled with condemnation: "It's survival of the fittest sweetheart. I'm impressed that you managed to snag yourself a billionaire," she said approvingly, "but you should have known that there was no getting away from your past. It will follow you everywhere, no matter how hard you try to pretend it doesn't exist."

"How much?" My father's voice was still calm.

lan and I glanced at him. He looks too composed, too calm for our liking. Does he have an ace up his sleeve? Lorelai looks sickened. "Just a few million, to get us through" her mother sighed. "If we need more, well, naturally, we'll come back."

"You're never going to go away, are you?" Lorelai asks, forlorn. "You're always going to be in my life, whether I want it or not. I won't let you take advantage of the Grants like you've done of me my whole life. I would rather call off my engagement than have the Grants pay you a single damn penny" she shouted, incensed.

Wait what? I stared at my fiancée whose chest was heaving as she glared at her parents with so much hatred that I visibly shivered. Her mother giggled "an empty threat". She said. "Somehow I can't envision you wanting to go back to stripping to make a living, Lorelai," she said, leaning in as Lorelai's eyes swam with tears, "humiliating yourself like that? Considering how judgmental you were of me selling my body to get what I wanted, you sure as hell were damn close to doing the same," she said, c*****g her head as Lorelai flushed.

"I never sold my body," she said, lifting her chin and spearing her mother with a gaze, "and I would never stoop that low." "You can't break off the engagement" I blurted out without thinking, "not now that you're carrying..." "Knox" she shouted, just stopping me in time.

"Here's what's going to happen" My father spoke, looking subtly at lan. "You are going to leave this house, you are going to leave empty-handed" he exhaled, "and be thankful that it's going to be in one piece."

Lorelai's father looked at my father scornfully. "What the hell do you think you are playing at, old man?" he demanded aggressively, "we're not leaving until we get what we asked for. Do you think we're afraid of you just because you are a Grant? I could not care less what your last name is, only that you have a large amount of money, money that my wife and I want" he snarled.

My father chuckled, "I think that you are both very stupid and naive individuals" he said blithely, causing Lorelai's mother and father to gape at him, their jaws dropping open "and I know you had every intention of trying to blackmail money out of us today, but that's not going to happen" he said quietly.

Lorelai's father puffed out his chest. "See here" he began, but my father interrupted, pointing at the mantelpiece above the fireplace that was littered with various knick-knacks.

"See the thing is, I suspected that something like this might happen, and I took the liberty of putting surveillance cameras in several of the rooms of the house," he said, as I stared at him stunned, and Lorelai grabbed my hand again, gripping it tightly "I knew that the news of Lorelai marrying my son would bring individuals such as yourself out of the woodwork and that you would try and demand money in some way, shape or form. Lowly individuals who use someone else's good nature to help themselves disgust me" he said as I silently agreed, "and I don't react well to being blackmailed", he finished grimly.

Lorelai's mother looked uncertainly at her husband who was glancing frantically at the mantelpiece. "I have microphones as well," my father said tightly, "so I have audio as well as cameras, if you are thinking of trying to smash the camera. Do you think the media would be interested in your story? How do you think they are going to feel about the story of Lorelai's parents coming back to blackmail her and her fiancée into giving her money? I think they would love to run that story on the television, with the help of providing the audio and surveillance tape. What do you think?" he asked.

Whoa. My father was furious. He wasn't showing it, but lan and I could tell at one glance he was close to losing his cool. When he got this angry, he started throwing punches. If Lorelai's dad didn't show some common sense he was going to be clutching a broken jaw soon. I half hoped Father would do it anyway.

"You bastard" Lorelai's mother hisses, as her shoulders slump "Do you think that we'll simply walk away?" she asks angrily. "I'm telling you to" My father wasn't mincing words this time, drawing his shoulders back and regarding Lorelai's parents with a dark expression on his face "I'm telling you to leave, to leave Lorelai and my son alone, to leave this town and city and to never come back. You have your money from whoever paid you to do that interview. That will have to suffice. I want you gone" he snarled, his lip curling back, giving him a sinister look that even had me taken aback "and I don't want you stepping foot anywhere near your daughter ever again unless you want me to hand over this tape."

The Mathews did not look as confident or as full of bluster anymore. Her mother looked angry, and her father was incensed.

"Lisa, we have to go" he snapped, glaring at my father who looked at him smugly, "don't worry, we'll come up with something else" he barked, as his wife stepped up next to him, "this isn't over," he warned us.

"On the contrary, it's more than over. Leave" my father repeated, "I don't want to set eyes on your ugly faces ever again" he warned, his voice chilling.

Thatcher stared at my father and then grabbed hold of his wife, almost yanking her towards the front door, while the bodyguards quietly opened it for them. We heard the sound of their stomping footsteps as they exited the mansion and the sound of the door slamming behind them, the sound of the lock clicking as the staff locked them out.

Lorelai sways on her feet and I quickly put her down onto the sofa, while my father lets out a long exhale. lan looks impressed.

"Father, that was brilliant. I never thought that would be the reason you asked me to put the cameras inside the house", he says.

"You could have told me" I mumbled while patting Lorelai's hand as the color began to come back to her cheeks.

A lone tear trailed down her cheek. I wiped it gently with my thumb. "It's okay they are gone now" I hushed.

But she lets out a sob as she looks up at lan and my father, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "I'm sorry" she begins to blubber as my chest seizes "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault" she begins to break down, and I know part of it's the pregnancy hormones and another part of it is grief, grief that her parents would never be the ones she had wanted or dreamed of when she was little, having just been hit with the reality of just how monstrous they really were once again. "I would do anything to keep my daughter in law safe."