The Pretender and The Prince novel Chapter 18

Ondine remembered when she was in elementary school, her mom ran a small breakfast cart. Business was so good that it made the owner of the neighboring stall burn with jealousy.

They were living in a walk-up apartment in a rough part of town, and there was no way to get the heavy cart up the stairs. So every day after closing, her mom would leave it parked in the alley.

One morning, as they were about to head out, her mom noticed one of the wheels was missing. She didn't panic. After a quick, fruitless search of the area, she calmly pulled out her phone and called the police.

By the time Ondine was in ninth grade, her mom had saved enough money from the cart to open a small diner. She expanded the menu from just breakfast to include simple, quick lunches.

It was a tiny place, barely big enough for four tables, but it was always bustling. Ondine would help out on weekends, doing her homework at a corner table between taking orders.

She remembered a regular customer back then, a man who would always bring little gifts. Sometimes it was fresh fruit, other times it was a bag of her favorite snacks.

Ondine was fifteen and had seen her share of puppy love at school, so she wasn't completely naive about these things. It was obvious the man had a crush on her mom and was trying to court her.

At first, Ondine resisted the idea completely. She didn't want some strange man becoming her father, and she certainly didn't want him stealing her mother's attention. Every time he came into the diner, she would greet him with a cold stare.

Eventually, her mom must have said something to him, because he just stopped coming around.

The summer after she graduated from high school, Ondine got a job tutoring kids at a camp run by a classmate's relative. She earned seven thousand dollars that summer.

The price of gold wasn't as high back then. She took thirteen hundred dollars and bought her mom a beautiful gold necklace with a delicate rose pendant.

When her mom received the gift, she scolded her for wasting money, but her eyes crinkled with a smile so wide it couldn't be contained.

The night before Ondine left for college, they had a heart-to-heart talk.

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