The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 849

"If it isn't Tyler's," asked Preston, "then who's the owner?"

Alex put down his butter knife.

"Mine."

Nobody at the Tiffany breakfast table said a word. Somewhere in the kitchen the kettle began to sing, and nobody got up to take it off.

Then Aunt Marissa laughed. It was a short, sour little laugh, and she shook the newspaper flat again.

"Listen to him. Did you hear that, Gideon? Some young man gets the best house on the whole hill, thirty million dollars, handed to him like a birthday cake." She looked at her stepdaughter over the top of the page.

"And what did my daughter get? A husband who is good for nothing. He has eaten at this table since the wedding, and he can't even pay for his own toast."

Preston was laughing so hard he had to put his coffee down.

"Yours? The glass house at the top of the hill? Yours?" He pointed his good hand across the table. "Are you laughing at us, you id..."

He stopped. Since the night Serena stood up to the Baroness, nobody in this house called Alex an idiot. Preston swallowed the word so fast he nearly choked on it.

"You... you clown," he finished.

"Thirty million dollars," said Patricia, one hand over her bad eye. "You couldn't pay for that house in eight lifetimes."

"I didn't pay for it," said Alex. He buttered the other half of his toast. "It was a gift. I only have one house. And it's the biggest one."

"A gift!" Patricia slapped the table. "Oh, I love it. The Wolfes give a house away, and they give it to the boy from the kennels. Somebody write this down."

At the far end of the table, Gideon had stopped reading. He held his book open in both hands and looked at Alex over the top of it. It was the way a man looks at a dog that has walked too close to the road.

"Son," he said softly. "Don't. Please. Just say it was a joke."

"It isn't a joke, sir."

Under the table, Serena's hand found his knee and pinched it, hard.

"Alex," she said, very low, through her smile. "What nonsense is this? Stop it. They'll never let you forget it."

"It isn't nonsense."

"Alex."

"Fine." Preston leaned back with his arms folded, enjoying himself more than he had in weeks. "Fine. A thousand dollars is too small for a lie this big. If that house is yours, I'll jump off the end of the harbour wall. In my clothes. In front of the whole harbour."

"Count me in too," said Patricia at once. "I'll hold his hand on the way down."

"The water's very cold this time of year," said Alex.

"So is your future," said Preston.

Pauline had not laughed at all. She sat very straight beside Marissa and watched Alex the way a cat watches a door.

Alex wiped his fingers on his napkin and stood up.

"Then let's go and look at it," he said. "All of you. Bring your swimming things."

---

Ten minutes later, the family left the Tiffany house and went up the hill in two cars.

Gideon drove the family's old car. Marissa sat beside him and complained the whole way. About the potholes. About the price of petrol. About the son-in-law who was going to shame them in front of the whole coast. Serena sat in the back with Alex. Her hands were knotted together in her lap.

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