CHAPTER FORTY SIX – WAS IT WORTH IT

"She's finally gone utterly mad." Lillian's clipped declaration punctured the weighty stillness that had permeated the study in their daughter's wake. "That addlebrained wastrel has irrevocably ruined her!" Exhaling a low breath, Richard set his crystal tumbler on the mahogany side table before removing his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose in consternation. "Not ruined...just unmoored, I'm afraid." "And whose fault, pray tell, is responsible for that?" Lillian sneered, rising to her feet in one sinuous movement and crossing to the study's expansive windows. "We indulged her every whim, every infantile fantasy of globetrotting until her delusions of grandeur spiraled into this...dysfunctional break from reality entirely!" Though her tone dripped with scorn, Richard recognized the bereft desperation lacing his wife's irate tirade. Pushing himself from the armchair's plush embrace, he crossed the room to encircle her narrow waist from behind, absently noting how her abdomen no l