by Ava Claire
Mrs. Wade stepped forward, still at a distance, but there was something different in her eyes. "You two fell in love."
I nodded through my tears. "And it's important to me that you know that, because I don't want you to think that this is all some ruse. Or that I'm just here because of his father's will-"
"Robert's will?" Confusion rippled across her patrician features. "Why would you just be here because of my husband's will?"
She didn't know? I looked at her, then Marie, then Branson. Hope leaped in my chest because I knew that Xander thought his mother was just ambivalent. That no one was on his side. The smile and indifference was long gone when she stormed forward, her eyes locked on her daughter.
"What have you done, Marie?"
Marie looked genuinely rattled for a second then sniffed and shrugged her shoulders. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Mrs. Wade looked like she wanted to strangle her daughter, but instead, she tightened her grip on her pearls, took a deep breath. She pivoted to Branson first. "Please get Maury Barrowman on the phone immediately." A curl slipped from her pinned bob when she whipped back to me but like a woman that was used to recovering and coming back stronger than ever, she quickly tucked it back in place and held out her hand to me. The smile she wore wasn't over the top and oblivious, the Vaseline smile of a pageant contestant. There was sadness in her smile with shades of concern. She did care about her son.
"I’m still murky on the details, but I think I have it figured out. I'll get a much clearer picture when you and I go have a chat with Xander and Robert."
I eyed her hand skeptically. "Are you sure that's a good idea? I'm not trying to start trouble, I just wanted to let you know that I care deeply for your son. Whether he's worth a million-"
"Billion," Marie corrected unhelpfully.
"I don't care about the money." I ignored Marie and put all my love, all I had in me behind my words. "I care about Xander."
"Then let's make this right." Light danced into Mrs. Wade’s eyes. "I'm glad that my son found you."
She cupped my hand between hers when I accepted it, ready to take the stairs and come face to face with whatever Marie or Xander's father threw our way, and come out on the other side.
Chapter Eight: Xander
My father had taken up residence in the east wing. The minute I turned down the corridor, I got hit with the smell of disinfectant and sickness. In another life, with another kind of upbringing, I would have had memories of raising all kinds of hell on the waxed hardwood floors. Mom's voice ringing out to tell me that I better be working on my homework if I'm flying the scooter down the hallway, Dad sneaking in after lights out, catching me with a flashlight beneath the blanket. Sneaking girls in after my parents nodded off. Keggers when they were out of town. Instead, the house felt like a museum and the closer I got to the room that had become my father's prison, the more I wanted to turn back. I knew how this all would end. I'd tell him fuck his addendum, he'd just stare at me with that dismissive glare that always cut like a knife, and thank me for visiting.
I paused in front of two oversized oak doors, the feeling of being small and like I was about to enter some royal court not lost on me. The room used to be my father's home office, but when his health deteriorated it became his 'recovery suite'. My mother's words. I don't think she'd used the words 'death' or 'dying' since he got sick. I wasn't sure if it was her usual burying her head in the sand or if some part of her loved him and couldn't accept the diagnosis. Ultimately, it didn't matter. My father was dying. Whether she ignored it or mourned it, it wouldn't stop the clock from running out.
I gripped the door knob, but I didn't turn it. The walk up had been a breeze. I had my speech ready. My game face was on. Yet now that I was here and I knew he was on the other side of the door, I was dragging my feet. Maybe all that nostalgia about what we had and what could have been bothered me more than I realized. As much as I pretended that all the ways he disappointed me had made me into the man I was, it was hitting me that my father had been and always would be a stranger.
But you don't have to be. He thinks he knows you. He thinks that you'll just lie down and take it.
It was high time my father met me.
I opened the door, squinting as my eyes adjusted to the blinding light. There was no massive oak desk. No walls lined with bookshelves. The ancient globe that he used to have propped in the corner was gone. Everything that this room was, his space, his throne room, had been removed. There was only the bed, hospital grade, covered in crisp white linens, a flurry of medical equipment, and an oversized armchair in front of the window that led to the balcony.
Still in awe of everything that was missing, I almost expected him to jump out of some closet and yell ‘Boo!’ Tell me that he was really okay. But I knew my father wasn't one for the games that children play. Mind games were his specialty.
Despite the fact that his bed was empty, I knew my father was in the room. I felt the heaviness of his presence. It didn't matter that the French doors were wide open and the sun was streaming into the room. A chill raced over me, but I focused on the window. I focused on the warmth. That whole 'great minds think alike' saying must have been based in some level of truth because when I stopped analyzing the roller coaster of emotions I was on and used common sense, I realized I knew exactly where he was at. I saw the IV bag on one side of the chair, the oxygen tank propped on the other. I almost called out an apology, sure I had the wrong room. The man in the chair was completely bald. The neck that held that person's head up was too thin to be my father's. Just down the hall there was photographic proof that this was a stranger. Robert Wade a head full of dark hair, just like mine; a neck as thick and fearsome as a tree trunk. Some invisible force pulled me forward, the reason I was there long forgotten.
Emotion seized every part of me when I stepped into the light and saw just how far gone he was. He was literally nothing but skin and bones, all the things that made him the larger than life character that seemed untouchable had been taken from him. The striking features that he'd given me we're now gaunt and forgotten. When he fixed his green eyes on me, it didn't have its usual effect; my hackles didn't rise, ready for a fight. I didn't see disappointment. I saw relief.
He licked his lips, his eyes fluttering slowly, painfully, like that mere act of blinking was too much to bear.
"Xander."
Tears I refused to acknowledge as such filled my eyes. I didn't know what to say, so I went with the most ridiculous thing I could have said. "H-How are you?"
One side of his mouth lifted. A smirk? My father didn't smirk!
"I'm fantastic."
The sarcasm? Definitely my father.
"Sorry," I offered, taking a pensive step toward the balcony. The doors were wide open; sunshine, birds chirping, flowers blooming pouring into the room, but I felt as gray as my father's skin. I never thought I'd say the words that were rattling around in my throat, but being there with him, pride and resentment seemed to dwindle close to nothing. "I'm sorry I haven't been to visit."
He brought his bony fingers to the nasal cannula that protruded from his nostrils, adjusting it with a wince. I leaned forward to help, to do something, but he grunted that he was fine and I retreated back to my spot in the sun and the darkness.
"I'm glad you came," he said with a slight wheeze. "It took you long enough."
I clenched my jaw. "You want to go in? Remind me of how I've failed you in your time of need? Have at it."
He shook his head so slightly that I almost missed it. "Failed me? No, Xander. I failed you."
Clearly, I was having some sort of delusion. A psychotic break brought on by witnessing something I'd been avoiding for months. But the look on his face was unmistakable. There was regret there. A sadness that ripped at my soul.
"Growing up, my father was barely around," he pressed on, his voice fragile and pained. "Business trips kept him gone weeks at a time and when he came home, my mother insisted that
I be on my best behavior so I didn't upset him. Seen and not heard. He did the obligatory meals, watched a little television, then retreated to his study." My father peered out the window, like he had a direct line to his past. "When he died suddenly, I remember how the preacher talked about how he loved his family. How he'd miss us all. I never told anyone this, but I thought it was all lies. He'd never told us he loved us. He never threw the ball around the backyard with me. I remember him patting me on the head, giving me some toy he'd collected from Timbuktu or wherever he’d jetted off to for business. I told myself we were better off, and someday, when I had kids, I'd give them the world. I'd do better."
He stopped, and I wondered if he was seeing the cyclical pattern. How the sins of the father were visited upon the son, two times over. I felt a hollow ache when I realized he was stopping to catch his breath. "We don't have to do this right now-"
"We do," he insisted, a bit of the authority I remembered re-entering his voice. "Too much time has been wasted. The choices I've made are the choices I've made. And they were the wrong ones. I chose wealth and prestige. Building this house, hiding behind money because I couldn't face the fact that the man I saw in the mirror looked a hell of a lot like a man I swore I'd never become. A workaholic who was a husband and father in name only. And worst—the time I had with you I spent making you feel like I was disappointed. Like you weren't enough."
I dropped my gaze to the floor. The parallels didn't stop with him and his father. I let my work become my life too. I shied away from the family piece, but I'd been on my way to walking the same lonely path.
Before Penny.
My father had shared things that I'd wanted him to share all my life. A lightbulb moment when he'd see that we were virtual strangers and we'd both go to our graves with regret. They were words I'd always wanted to hear...and it didn't change the past, and the very real future he'd tried to force on me with his will.
"What sob story do you have to explain your will?" I said, shifting back to the reason I was here in the first place. "I'm all ears."
His watered down, olive colored eyes searched my face and he let out a grunt. "I know that look. That anger that has you ready to punch a wall. Or punch me, but luckily, my cancer lets me off the hook."
Was he making a joke? Who was this man?
Why wasn't he being cruel? Dismissive? My heart felt too heavy to bear. "You can't joke your way out of this. Do you know how hard I've worked? And you're going to take it all away and give it to Marie?"
A part of me wanted him to laugh and rise from the chair. Pull out the tube and say that he'd paid some Hollywood makeup artist thousands to make him look like he wasn't long for this earth. We'd fall back into our roles, where he hated me and I would never be enough.
Instead, he looked up at me with tears glittering on his cheeks. "I do know how hard you've worked. You've done a hell of a job. When Marie slinked in here, already picking over my bones and asking about the company, I realized just how deeply I screwed up. I had a son whose life and identity was the company I built. A company that I'd used as a crutch to keep my family at a distance. I had a daughter who was a spoiled, entitled brat. We were all broken, and the addendum was my way to try and fix it."
My mouth hung open. The sound that came out sounded kind of like 'what?'.
"That is not my final will, Xander."
My world spun off its axis. I couldn't wrap my mind around what I was hearing. I shuffled to his bed, sinking into his starched linens. I gripped them in my fists, felt my nails cutting into my palms. I wasn't sleeping, but this wasn't real. It couldn't be real.
I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense. Your lawyer-"
"Took a big risk sharing that fake will with you," my father explained. "I assured him that you wouldn't take legal action when you learned the truth."
I released my death grip on the covers. "That's awful optimistic of you. What if I didn't show up here? What if I just said screw you, screw the company, and took my money and went off the grid?"
"Despite what the gossip pages say, you're not a petulant billionaire," he answered with that smirk. "I knew you would probably approach it with some sort of scorched earth strategy. You may have even found someone. And I hoped that whoever you found would show you that there's more important things than business meetings and six figure acquisitions. I hoped that you'd come here ready to walk away from it all, because you're a better man than me and learned a lesson that it took staring death in the eye for me to learn. Love, son, is worth the risk. I'm sorry that it took me so long to say this. I love you, Xander. I couldn't be more proud that you are my son."
Tears coursed down my cheeks and I cleared them off just as quickly as they fell. My father just let his fall. We didn't say another word. We didn't need words to describe the healing that was taking place. He was nodding slowly, the smirk now a full-on smile. He saw me. He accepted me. And I knew now, that he really loved me.
I heard my mother's voice fluttering down the hall. The closer she got, the more I realized that she was on the phone with someone.
"You know that he's ill, Maury! How could you have agreed to something so ridiculous! Get a girlfriend or Marie will be the CEO? Clearly his illness has eroded his ability to make competent decisions!"
I watched in awe as my father sat up tall, like he was preparing himself for my mother's wrath. She stopped at the door, glaring at the back of my father's chair. I'd never seen her face so red, her body trembling with uncontrollable anger.
"Robert, you have clearly lost your mind-"
"It was a joke, dear," my father said with a sigh.
"A joke?" she said shrilly. "I'm not laughing! Your son's not laughing. He's-" She covered her mouth in horror. "My sweet Xander. Are you crying?!"
Before I could gape at this feisty woman disguised as my mother, Penny appeared instantly, her eyes wide with concern. She rushed toward me, my mother hot on her heels. She came to the bed, taking my face in her hands.
"Xander, are you alright?"
I turned my head and planted a kiss in her palm. "I'm great. It's going to all be okay." Her face scrunched in confusion, so I rose to my feet and took her hand in mine. "There's someone I'd like you to meet."
My mother hung up on Maury and gingerly slapped my father's shoulder for scaring her with the addendum. "I'm very angry with you." When she leaned in and pressed her lips to his, all was forgiven. The tenderness between them made me smile.
When I stood beside Penny, my father beaming up at me with excitement, I didn’t think about all the time we’d lost or all the ways we’d hurt each other. I thought about love and hope and enjoying the time we had left.
"Dad, I'd like you to meet the love of my life."
~
Thank you for taking the time to read the Falling For You series. I hope you enjoyed it! xoxo, Ava
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ava Claire is a sucker for Alpha males and happily ever afters. When not putting pen to paper or glued to her e-reader, Ava likes road tripping, karaoke, vintage fashion, and fantasizing about her favorite book boyfriends.
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