The Sins of the Mother by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online

Amanda accused him often of being “owned” by his mother, which annoyed him, but he had no need or desire to prove her wrong. He was content in his life as it was, and happy to let Amanda run the show at home. She directed their social life and who they saw, and he knew how determined she was to meet important people and ultimately become a judge. Prestige and appearances were important to her, far more than they were to Phillip. He had lived in his mother’s shadow for years, and in some ways it suited him. He had no desire to take over, and he didn’t want all the headaches that came with being the CEO. He had seen how it had eaten up his mother’s life, and how time consuming it was. Instead, he was happy to sail his boat on weekends, or play golf, and leave the office at six o’clock. He didn’t want to stay in the office until midnight as his mother often did, or spend his life on planes to other cities and foreign countries, and he knew his brother, John, felt exactly the same way. They knew too well the price you paid for the life their mother led. Amanda considered his lack of hunger for power a major character flaw, and she never let him forget it. They fought about it often, and when she went on a tirade about his mother, he ignored her or went out. He liked his life as it was.
    Amanda was tall and stately looking, blond with cool blue eyes and an excellent figure. She went to the gym frequently, except on weekends. She dressed well, and he was happy to pay for it. He liked having a beautiful wife on his arm. And he was well aware that as an only child, she wasn’t crazy about his family, and thought both his sisters strange, and his brother negligible as an artist, and his college professor sister-in-law of no interest whatsoever. John’s wife, Sarah, didn’t play the social game, and was only interested in academia and intellectual pursuits. The only one in the family that Amanda truly admired was his mother, although Amanda had never warmed up to her and didn’t really like her, but one had to respect her for turning a hardware store into a worldwide event. Amanda had to give her that. She wished that Phillip were more like her, but neither of Olivia’s sons had her ambition. They were much more like their father, who had been content to stay in the background and be part of Olivia’s support system. Joe Grayson had never wanted more than that, nor had his boys.
    Olivia stood alone in her passionate attack on life, taking the world by the horns with her creative and financial genius. Amanda only wished she had had the opportunities Olivia had. But she benefited now from the name and wasn’t shy about using it when it served her. And she was doing all she could to use it to get appointed to the federal bench, which she had been working on for several years. She wanted to be a judge so badly she could taste it, and she used every connection she had to that end. She was always annoyed that Phillip hadn’t done more to help her achieve it, but he always insisted that he didn’t know the right people to help her. Amanda was certain that her mother-in-law did, but she had never dared to ask her for her assistance, and Olivia had never volunteered. The relationship between the two women had always been civil, but there was no great warmth between them. Amanda loved every opportunity to be in the social columns and the papers. Olivia cared about none of that and was interested only in the business section, where she appeared regularly on the front page. Phillip never did, nor did he care. And it meant nothing to him when Amanda got them in the newspapers at some social event.
    “What are you reading so intently?” Phillip asked as he walked into the kitchen, and saw Amanda reading an e-mail with a serious expression, as her coffee grew cold beside her. He helped himself to a cup, and sat down across from her at the kitchen table. As always, she was beautifully put together in a cream-colored linen suit.