Chapter 54 Back Home (One)

• The fleeting camaraderie that Sebastian and Carol shared the night before they left Paris disappeared as though it had never been when they got back home. Carol never saw much of Sebastian in the months that followed that time, and when she did see him, he acted as though they were strangers. The only time that there was a semblance of normalcy between them was whenever his uncle called and they had to talk to the man together.
• Carol began to hate this arrangement with a passion. If he wanted to act like she did not exist, then it was better that he did so all the time, and not just when it suited his purposes. He made sure that she got her monthly allowance at the end of every month, and even doubled it, making it a hundred thousand dollars from the fifty thousand that it was when she first started to live with him.
• When Carol asked him about it, he told her that it was a reward that he thought that she should have for playing her part in trying to convince his uncle that they were beginning to fall in love. Soon after they got back from Paris, Carol had called her sister and invited her over, but surprisingly, Victoria had declined, to Carol's great relief. The last thing she needed to do was to deal with Victoria's petulance and insubordinate attitude.