What Sophia Thought She Knew About Me
Blackwood Manor was precisely the kind of place Sophia dreamed about.
Stone terraces.
Old trees.
Crystal chandeliers.
A sweeping staircase that seemed designed for bridal photographs.
She believed Lucas had obtained it through one of his business connections.
The truth was simpler.
I owned it.
Sophia did not know because she had never shown much interest in learning anything about me that could not benefit her socially.
To her, I was Arthur Bennett, a retired civil servant who wore practical shoes, compared grocery prices, drove the same car for twelve years, and spent Sunday mornings tending roses.
I encouraged that assumption by never correcting it.
Lucas knew our finances were comfortable.
What he did not know was their scale.
Long before retirement, I had started purchasing small commercial properties.
One became three.
Three became eight.
Over the years, I acquired interests in several private companies, two office buildings, rental properties, and land that appreciated far beyond anything I expected when I first bought it.
Most were held through legal entities whose names had nothing to do with Bennett.
I had no interest in looking wealthy.
I cared about being secure.
That distinction had apparently been lost on my son.
The home Lucas and Sophia occupied belonged to one of my companies.
The office building where Lucas ran his business belonged to another.
The trust that covered a substantial portion of his living expenses had been created with my money.
And the property Sophia kept calling “our future house,” Willow Creek House, was also mine.
I had allowed them to use these things because Lucas was my son.
Somewhere along the way, he had stopped viewing assistance as generosity.
He began viewing it as entitlement.
I did not yet understand how far that entitlement had gone.
I was about to find out.
