ODDS OF LOVE

Episode Twenty Seven

                                                          Arlington , Virginia

Once upon a time Doris had been secretly nicknamed by her family's servants growing up as The Ice Princess. Primarily it was due to her rather chilly look ; her almost white blonde hair , steely blue eyes and milk white smooth skin. She had intimidated many people in  her seventy years on earth from her wealthy prominent parents to her younger sister Samantha whose crush and friend  Andrew she had stolen away to her long line of nannies who had been afraid of her too adept ability of getting her own way by any means to her constant rotating male admirers. All her admirers strived to thaw the ice from her heart and they all failed except for Andrew Norland , a young plumber's son who had been a firebrand lawyer for the poor and needy.   Andrew was five years younger than Doris but the moment she saw the handsome dark haired man with the piercing grey eyes she had had to have him. That is until Doris bored of the earnest do-gooder of a man she married and had three children with.  Then  she fell into an affair with an executive at her family's company. The affair was only for six months and she grew bored with it as well. She could barely remember the man's name even but when Andrew found out he left her. 

( " I never once cheated on you , Doris. Never. Ever. I was faithful to you. I loved you. No matter what. I still love you. God help me. I think I have been a good man. A good husband. A good father. How could you do this to me ? " )

Andrew had had the absolute nerve to ask her for a divorce and joint custody of the children with sole custody of Spencer. Doris had raged back then over it. Nobody dared steal away anything that belonged to her. She laughed in his face then and told him if he left her he would pay dearly. And he still left. And Andrew Norland did pay dearly. He lost his beloved children especially Spencer. 

Doris had bruised her very fair skin and lied in court that Andrew had beat her. She paid the servants to uphold her lie. She paid them to say he had also threatened the children. She bribed her daughter Lorraine to say that her father had also beat her. She left the boys out of her little deception due to the fact that Richard could not be trusted at times and that Spencer was too sensitive about his father. Of course she won. Andrew lost everything : The children ( with full custody given to Doris and no visitation at all to Andrew ) , his job as a legal aid  lawyer and his license to practice law. 

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Doris smiled coldly at the young Black maid who placed her glass of sherry before her on the crystal glass coffee table in her salon. She nodded regally at the woman as a dismissal. This girl was working out much better than the last one had. She did her job well with no back talk and she didn't steal as so many of them do. The last maid Doris had caught red-handed taking a can of tomato soup from the pantry and putting it in her cheap tacky little bag. The thought ! The silly thief had tried to beg for her job and said it was to feed her young child who was sick or some such nonsense. Of course Doris didn't hear any of it. She immediately fired her and called the police to have her arrested. Then she made a call to CPS about the child not being fed properly. Nobody stole anything from her. 

As the new one tip toed off silently from the room Doris sighed and reached for her iPhone 15 Pro Max. It was so hard finding loyal servants and husbands. She dialed Richard's office. She was irritated to get that cocky little upstart of a male secretary Nigel. She told her son so many times to fire him. He was quite rude and unsuitable to the task of running his office. Yes he sounded dignified with his crisp British accent but that was the extent of it. You could tell he was trash. Nigel acted like he owned Richard and more than once had refused to put her through to him , saying he was in an important meeting. 

" Mr. Norland is otherwise occupied , Ma'am , " Nigel  Hawthorne - Cyrus said in that cool tone of his that grated on her nerves. He acted like he was better than her. He even talked to Richard like they were equals instead of employer and employee.  And Richard tolerated it ! 

" Get me my son. Now. "

" I am terribly afraid that it is quite impossible , Ma'am. He is in a meeting with his divorce lawyer at the present moment in time. Might I take a message ? " 

This also irritated her. Richard was a fool just like his father. Why on earth was he divorcing dear Sarah ? Sarah was from such a good family and had given him a daughter. 

" Fine. Tell my son and YOUR EMPLOYER to call me back as soon as possible , " she snapped tersely before hanging up. Doris was never hung up on. She was always the first to leave a conversation. 

If Richard was not going to end this whole ridiculous matter of Spencer and that boy he had entangled himself with , she thought with a tightness to her thin lips , fine. There was more than one way to get the proper results. She would win this battle. She always did.