A new meaning to ‘a change of life’

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It was not the thought of having a large house in the most expensive part of London, the servants, or what he could do with the money.

That was all for the charitable intentions she had set out a long time ago when he had mentioned that there was a lot of good she could do rather than just spend it on drugs parties and alcohol.

Yes, that was the first of what he called the doosie arguments.

After that, it was the unkind remarks of her friends, what he called the hangers-on and aristocratic deadbeats.  It earned him no kudos, so he went off and did his own thing.

He should have tried harder.  It was clear she had loved him, but there were too many forces pulling at her, the friends, the lifestyle, the parents, the aristocratic blood.

That all came back in that moment he saw Adria, her best friend and perhaps the only other voice of reason, and who had been in the beginning his arch enemy, the one who tried hard to prove he was just like any other man; and in the end, became an ally when she found he wasn’t anything like she expected.

Just too late, the damage had been done.

This visit brought back some very raw memories, and having to work with her again was going to be difficult.  Perhaps it would only be fleeting because this was going to be a fly-in fly-out job, sort out the mess, and move on.

He could see the original bequest to her charitable organisation had been sequestered from everything else, and all he had to do was divorce the new charity, pull out her interest in it, or that of her organisation as a parent and let them sink into what she had called ‘piggie quagmire’.

It was what he had always feared would happen that someone like her father would intervene and take everything from her.  Having met Howard, he could see that would never have happened.

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