by S R Nulton
She started crying again. “It was the only way to make sure that you weren’t under his thumb. He would never have treated you the way you deserved. He would have made you feel like you were unworthy and destroyed you before you had a chance to really start growing. When Marina approached me about keeping you, I said yes. My only requirements were she would let me send money for your needs and that you would have my maiden name until you turned 18. That would ensure that some inheritance from your grandfather went to you.
“And then, since I was so angry with your father, I decided to take it out on him the only way I could. I went to confront Giles’ mother. Neil brought him to me a few days later and told me what had happened, and it was like I was being condemned and given a second chance, all at once. I had lost one baby and gained another one to love and take care of.” She sighed and looked up at Ethan sadly before continuing.
“Everything about that time is so hard to recall, so fuzzy. It was only after Caitlin was born that I was able to see a doctor and find out that my postpartum is much more severe than most women’s, apparently almost three times as dramatic. It made me unstable and unhealthy. I don’t say that to be excused from my actions, but simply to frame them in a way that you might understand. It was never you that was the problem. You were wonderful and innocent and perfect. It was me and your father, we were the problem. And I did my best to save you from us. And I suppose that I also did it for me, to try and save myself, but I lost myself in the process. And I lost you, which is so much worse.”
Ethan sat there and digested everything she said before attempting to speak himself. “Thank you for giving me to my mamá. I don’t know if you know this, but she is the most amazing person in the world. She gave me so much love and acceptance. And Papá was just as wonderful. If it weren’t for them, I would have never been able to get to where I am today. And I did that without Neil. I’m not tied to him, not really… and I think it’s time to sever what few ties remain.”
Candace nodded. “It is. I’m sorry that we never got to know each other, but I’m glad that Neil doesn’t have you under his thumb like all the others. I know he was trying earlier this year. Also…” She bit her lip before continuing, “I think that’s why Cayden and JJ have been after you. He made some comments about your inheritance while they were over for dinner one night. It was about your inheritance as a Black, but I don’t think either of them heard that part.”
My eyes got wide and the words burst out of me in my excitement at finally understanding what was going on. “He thinks your taking his money! That’s why he’s been such a pill! He thinks you’re trying to take his money and his girl. He probably heard JJ say something about getting back together with you so she could get the inheritance and lost it.”
He nodded. “That would explain the brakes and the attacks. He wanted to make me look like I wasn’t worth Neil’s time and then he got scared when it looked like JJ was getting back together with me. He’s never really wanted her, he just didn’t’ want me to want her.”
We were all silent for a bit.
Then Ethan asked something very important. “Are you going to leave him? Neil? I mean, your relationship didn’t start well, and he has never treated you right.”
She smiled sadly. “Maybe in time. I’ve been married to him so long that I don’t think I could deal with losing that part of who I am right now. I can tell you I won’t be the same person I was before. I’m done trying to be perfect. It’s time to be real. And I intend to start by inviting you to Thanksgiving. Or, maybe I should ask if I can come with your sisters? I think it would be a nice time to introduce everyone properly.”
He smiled and nodded. “Sure. I’ll just tell Mamá that we’ll have it here this year and that there will be extra guests. Expect a pretty big crowd. Mexican families don’t do small parties.”
She smiled. “That sounds perfect. Oh! And I’m going to try and find some hobbies to keep me occupied. I’m considering taking art classes. Do you think…”
“Why don’t you call me sometime and we can talk about what your learning. I may be able to give you a few pointers. Or Aggy could. She’s a great painter.”
I flushed at the compliment but nodded. “We’ll be here. When you’re ready to talk about anything.”
Candace nodded and sighed. “I just wish it hadn’t taken alcohol poisoning to make me realize how messed up my life is.” She laughed ruefully. “Then again, I bet everyone’s life is messed up. I just didn’t know how to deal with mine.”
She left shortly afterward. As soon as she was past the gate, Ethan turned to me and gave me a long look.
“Thank you. I needed that. We needed that and it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t pushed.”
I shrugged. “No problem. So, what’s the plan? I mean, we don’t have any proof that Cayden is behind it all, but we know that he is, so what do we do?”
Ethan smiled coldly. “We get ready for battle. It’s time to make some calls.”
CHAPTER 14: INDEPENDENCE DAY
IT TOOK ANOTHER three weeks for Ethan to get everything squared away, but he did. I’d had no idea how much went into getting his plans in place! Still, I was grateful for what he was doing. I think we’d both hit the breaking point and knew something needed to change. There were several days where I just wouldn’t see him from breakfast ‘til dinner because he was trapped on the phone with his lawyers or in the forge, working manically.
It wasn’t the shutting down that he’d done before, though. This was different. He didn’t turn on angry or intense music and blast his ears out. Instead, it was joyous. His favorite song to belt during that time was “Grace Wins,” by Matthew West. It was refreshing to see him work hard because he was busy and not because he was hiding. It was also a little lonely to lose so much of our time together.
Not that I had a lot of time available either. Between the commissions for Christmas presents showing up in my inbox and the crazy paperwork the lawyers were demanding I provide, I was absolutely swamped.
Some of my favorite parts of those weeks were when I sat down to sketch a few ideas for the commissions up. I would do research on the person who was receiving the gift and then spend my evenings sitting by the fire pit and just drawing. It was a completely refreshing process, particularly as I knew that it was more than just a sketch on a page. It was going to be turned into something real and tangible. And it was even better when he could join me as I worked. Sometimes he would come out and spend time with me, just taking a break, humming whatever song he’d been listening to. It soothed much of my anxiety and made me smile as I found the best place to put the surprise in each piece.
Ethan and I always made sure to hide something useful under all the glitz. Sometimes it was a knife, once it was a tiny gun that made me think of Agatha Christie novels, but often it was something much more innocuous. A few times, we would add a secret compartment in a watch so that the client could put a picture of his wife or grandchildren in there. Other times it was a set of earrings that doubled as bottle openers (for an Australian woman who loved her beer) or a mini hammer and nails for quick heel repairs concealed in a long necklace. It was always a task trying to match the surprise with the customer, but it was so much fun to do!
It was also where we found the name for the series. We decided to call it ‘Hidden Splendor,’ and the tagline was ‘Beauty with purpose.’ Ethan was actually quite relentless in that concept. Something seemed to have stuck in his head when I used that phrase and altered how he viewed things. He now refused to make anything that didn’t have a purpose. It made for some interesting strategy sessions, but was worth it to see the contentment he had found.
It also gave me time to come to terms with my feelings. I was in love with Ethan. I’m pretty sure it would have been obvious to just about everyone else, I’d never fallen in love with anyone before, so I didn’t recognize it until then. It came on so slowly, but I was happy with that. It wasn’t a sudden lightning bolt of emotion that I
was afraid would disappear as quickly as it came. It wasn’t lust, either. Though I did find him incredibly attractive, I wasn’t being driven by that. No, I think that what made me feel secure enough to allow love to blossom was the slow progression from respect to friendship and from friendship to caring deeply for him.
It wasn’t a terribly romantic thought, but it made sense for me. I’d never been overly concerned about romance. Of course, his genuine care for me without requiring anything in return was possibly the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
I pushed those thoughts aside though. It wasn’t the right time for declarations of love. And when the time was right… well, I’d deal with it when it did. Hopefully without stuttering or lighting up like Rudolph’s nose.
When Ethan came to me a week before Thanksgiving, I was in the middle of researching the last of our Christmas orders. We had to make a cut off date so that everything would get to people in time. Most of our clients accepted it gracefully, but those who didn’t were invited to go elsewhere. We were done being pushed around.
“It’s time,” Ethan said as he settled into an oversized chair he’d had moved in a month before. He claimed the other ones were too small and had creaked when he sat in them. I think he disliked sitting on a pretty pink floral pattern, but since I didn’t like them anyway, I raised no objections.
“What’s time?” I asked, blinking a bit owlishly. I’d been staring at a screen too long.
“We need to go to the city tomorrow. Can you button things up here in time to come?”
That made me freeze. His anxiety at lunch finally made sense. We were going to confront Neil.
I cleared my throat and looked at my workload for the next day. “It should be fine. I mean, I don’t have any deliveries coming and I can put the voicemail up. Everything else can wait ‘til Wednesday.”
Ethan smiled. “Good.”
~
Ethan looked around the overdone office his father loved and thought it looked gaudy. Not in the traditional sense; it wasn’t covered in dust catchers and intricate carvings and gold leaf. No, it was sleek and shiny and such an obvious show of wealth that it was disgusting. Neil used it to intimidate people, but he also used it to pretend he was more than he was, something his father wasn’t pleased with. Luckily, that was one issue that Ethan wouldn’t have to deal with much after this. He’d needed to confront his father for a while, but it just never seemed like the right time.
And, if he were being honest with himself, he’d needed to accept that he was never going to build a healthy relationship with his father. He now realized that he had all the family he needed. His blood relations would have to decide if they wanted to be in his life, but they were now extra for him. He didn’t need anyone who didn’t want him. It was time to stop holding on to the past and start remembering that he was wanted. He always had been and he always would be.
Love could clarify many things in a man’s life. He was beginning to wish Aggy had come into his life much sooner…
The secretary looked at Ethan nervously and smiled. “He’s a bit busy today. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to come back and make an appointment.”
Ethan laughed. Of course, the old man was trying to use a power play on him. Neil’d been trying to get him into that office for years. He’d tried everything short of begging to get Ethan there, but the man couldn’t let him have the upper hand of showing up unannounced.
The man was still desperately hanging onto his illusion of control, and it was about to be ripped away from him.
“Tell him that if he doesn’t see me now, he will never see me again. Oh, and Cayden will go to jail.”
It was a bluff of sorts. He wasn’t quite willing to send Cayden to jail yet, but he knew he could. The idiot had managed to avoid leaving fingerprints, but he had missed the cameras.
In all fairness, Geo had hidden them really well. He had the typical giant and obvious security cameras, but he’d also installed some super tiny ones that were perfect for catching people who knew enough to avoid or deactivate the decoys. And they had caught Ethan and Geo’s brother attempting to injure and scare him. Not kill though. The cops said that the brakes had just barely held when cut, making it so that the car could drive out of the parking lot and the cameras showed Cayden getting scared off by one of the servers. The woman had come out to drop Ethan and Aggy’s work clothes in his car so they wouldn’t forget them later. Cayden had never meant to kill anyone, just scare them. It was the only thing saving his life.
Well, that and the fact that Aggy didn’t get hurt because of that stunt, he thought to himself.
As predicted, Neil immediately had Ethan sent in. He couldn’t have his name tarnished or risk losing someone who might bring him some more leverage on one of his children, and currently Ethan could do both of those things.
“Ethan. How are you son? It’s been a long time! You should come and visit more often,” Neil said as he rose from his seat. “Come on in. Sit and tell me why you’ve stopped in.”
Ethan had been around his father a few times, but the man’s innate charisma always astounded him. He was a dirtbag and everyone knew it, but when they were around him, it was easy to forget. He would have made a fantastic snake-oil salesman.
“I just told you why I’m here,” Ethan said as he took a seat in the opposite one that his father had indicated, just to be contrary. He felt a bit childish doing it, but he also knew that it was going to annoy his old man to be disobeyed so blatantly. “I’m here because this is the last you’ll see of me and I’m considering having Cayden charged with slander and attempted murder. The last charge may be downgraded when all the evidence hits court, but I doubt it will matter after the media gets a hold of the story. Feuding brothers don’t tend to go over well when one of them doesn’t fight back and is still being attacked constantly.”
Neil’s jaw clenched and he smiled at Ethan. Well, it was more like a grimace but most people would have assumed it was a smile. The cold eyes were a giveaway about it’s real intent, though.
“Why on earth would that be? I mean, I know that you and your brother aren’t close, but that’s no reason to accuse him of something so horrible!”
Ethan shook his head and pushed the anger down. Things would go much smoother if he wasn’t angry. If he were cool and collected, he would make a much larger impact on his father. The man liked to be in charge and he loved to push Ethan’s buttons so he’d get a response. It made it easier to manipulate someone if they were already thinking with their emotions.
“Why don’t we talk about you first. Like how you didn’t want anything to do with me until you secretly tested my DNA.”
Neil froze and Ethan smiled. That month of waiting for his lawyers had not been wasted. He’d dug around, with the help of Geo’s extensive network of informants, and found out a lot of interesting information.
“Oh, and then let’s talk about just how you obtained that DNA. Paternity tests done with both blood and saliva? That’s a bit invasive, especially considering I never donated the blood. Not willingly, at least.”
“I didn’t chose for it to happen that way, son. I just told them what I needed, not how to get it.”
Ethan shook his head, feeling upset. It was what he expected, but not what he’d hoped. When he was digging up the information on his father, he’d come across the paternity tests that were done when he was about 16. It was around that time that he’d started getting well known in the art communities as a rising star and he was also exceeding expectations academically.
That was the same time that he nearly lost his hand in an accident. Someone had moved one of his tools and it was thought at the time that Ethan had been careless when he’d put it away. Fortunately, his Papá had sent the tool to be serviced and found it’d been tampered with. Then they found out that Ethan’s bloody shirt had disappeared, along with the cup he’d been drinking out of at the time of the incident. Eduardo had always been suspicious, but hadn’t been able to put all the eviden
ce together. In the end, they’d all put the incident behind them and moved on. Ethan just wished that they’d looked a little harder at the time.
Apparently, one of Neil’s fixers had decided that the best way to get a sample of Ethan’s blood was to make sure he was hurt enough that no one would notice if a little of that blood was missing. And he’d almost been right. Eduardo had never been able to track the man down, but he had been able to convince Ethan that security was an essential to his health. Thus, the intense security that was in place at his home.
Finding out that his own father had nearly cost him his hand was quite a shock. That had been a terrifying time for him and it all could have been avoided if Neil had been man enough to ask for a paternity test at any point before that. But he hadn’t, not until Ethan was worth associating with.
Ethan stared his father in the eye and said, “You are a fool. You never cared until I might get you something and then you tried to force a relationship. But it didn’t work. I wasn’t desperate for your approval, like Cayden and the girls were. Like my mother was. Oh, she told me a bit about how you two got together. I’m honestly amazed she hasn’t left you after all that you’ve done to her, but I suppose that you weren’t really acting like a husband, so it wouldn’t change much.”
“Now see here, you little cripple. I will not allow myself to be insulted in such a manner. And definitely not by you of all people. I’ve taken down better men, better boys and I won’t be intimidated.”
Ethan sighed, regretting the need to bring up the next subject, but he knew he did. “Yes. I know all about how you take care of people who get in your way. Like your father.” He was gratified to see Neil flinch. “Oh, yes, I did that research too. Interesting how he just died one day and no cause of death was identified. And ‘natural causes’ doesn’t count. Not when the man was in the prime of life and had just finished hiking half-dome in Yosemite. You should have faked a heart attack. It would’ve made more sense.”