“Gavin, really?”
“Yes, he tracked me down through some mutual friends. It was such a surprise. He told me about how you found him and that you wanted to connect with him. He told me that you asked about us and that you thought. . .”
“He might be my father,” I confess.
“I was surprised, to say the least,” my mother says. “I always thought I was enough for you. I didn’t know that you needed that.”
“You were enough, you are enough,” I insist and choke up.
“At first it destroyed me. I was devastated,” she admits. “But Gavin helped me see the way. We started video chatting, and he helped me put it in perspective. For so long I’ve been trying to keep you away from England, but he helped me face the fact that you have every right to make your own choices about this. That you have your own history to face and discover.”
I’m speechless.
“Gavin also convinced me to open the letter from my dad. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.” She reaches into her purse and pulls out an envelope. “At some point in all these years, my anger turned to fear, and I was afraid to read his letters. I was afraid of what he would say to me. When I received this letter, with a note from Mr. Leeds, and I knew it was the last letter I would ever receive from him, I was especially worried about the contents. I was afraid he’d tell me how much I disappointed him, how much he hated me for leaving.”
“There’s no way he would do that,” I tell her.
“You’re right,” she says and doesn’t meet my eyes. “Here, take a look.”
She hands the letter over to me. I open it to read his final words to her.
My dearest Laura,
If you’re reading this, it means that I have passed on. After all the letters you returned, I can’t be certain that your eyes will ever see these words, I sure hope they do. I only have one message for you. I love you.
I could go on and on about regrets. I could apologize. I could rationalize all the choices we’ve made over the years. I won’t.
I only want to say that I loved you, whole-heartedly, and unconditionally until the day I died.
Your Loving Father
I wipe the tears away from my eyes and hand the letter back to her.
“To say that I have regrets in this area would be a serious understatement,” she says and puts the letter back in her purse. “I’ve decided to see a therapist and try to sort my issues out.”
“I think that’s a good idea, mom. I’ll do whatever I can to support you. We can go together if you like.”
“Thank you,” she says, and we both stare at one another. She takes a deep breath and squeezes my hand. “How about some tea? I want to tell you about your father.”
* * *
In my opinion, my mom makes the best tea in the world. While I’m definitely more of a coffee person, I can’t pass up a cup of tea with her. We sit at the table and let our tea steep.
“You don’t have to tell me about my dad if you don’t want to. It took me a while, but I realized that you probably have a really good reason for never telling me. I realized that I don’t have to know.”
“No, Cara, you should know. I shouldn’t have kept it from you for this long. It’s just,” she pauses and squeezes her hands together. “I’m ashamed.”
“Ashamed?”
She nods nervously for a moment and looks up at the ceiling before meeting my eyes again. “It all began when I was seventeen years old. My mom wasn’t really around much, as you might recall, and my dad stayed away too, probably because they hated each other. I don’t know. I shouldn’t really blame them for my choices. That doesn’t seem right,” she says, reconsidering.
“Anyway, I was your typical, too-good-for-it teenager. I hated the establishment and all that, but I especially hated the entire aristocratic scene my parents were a part of.”
I laugh a little. “I can totally picture that.”
She nods and goes on. “At one of my dad’s parties for clients, I decided I was going to do whatever I could to piss off my parents. I picked out this catering waiter that was lingering around me. He was young too, twenty at most. I started to flirt with him. It was so easy to get liquor from him, without my mom noticing.”
Oh wow, I never pictured my father to be a young, random guy. I always figured there was more. I listen intently as she goes on with the story.
“At some point, he told me he’d meet me behind the carriage house with champagne and a joint. So I excused myself from the party and wandered over there to wait for him. Well, I waited and waited, but he didn’t show. When I was about to give up, I heard someone coming.”
“It was him?”
“No, it wasn’t him or anyone I would have expected. It was my dad’s business partner, Clive.”
“Clive Livingston?”
“Yeah,” she says with an arched eyebrow. “You know him?”
“No, I heard about him while I was in England. Is he my dad?” I ask and press my hand over my rapidly beating heart.
She cringes and looks down at her hands. She doesn’t have to say yes, the answer is on her face. A sickening feeling washes over me. What I’ve heard about the man doesn’t impress me. Wasn’t he older? Wasn’t he married?
“But how?” I ask as I consider what this means. She slept with my grandfather’s business partner. Jesus.
“Well, when he found me behind the carriage house he was carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses. He told me he’d been watching me at the party and that he’d seen me sneak drinks with the waiter. To be honest, I thought I was in trouble.”
“Did he blackmail you into it?”
“God, no. I wasn’t in trouble. We just shared the bottle of champagne and talked,” she sighs as she remembers it. Apparently, Clive can still make her blush.
“He was so handsome. He had this unruly hair, much like yours, and these gorgeous green eyes. He wasn’t exactly my type, but as much as I hated the establishment, I didn’t consider him a part of it. You see, your father had pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He was almost like an impostor in these parts. Didn’t come from money or from a family like ours, he was just a bloke from Liverpool. He had seen the dirty, gritty parts of the world and that impressed me. It was easy to fall for him.”
“So how did it happen? I mean, wasn’t he married?”
Her shoulders hunch. “After our talk, I asked my dad if I could visit the office more often, that I was interested in the business. He naturally said yes and was a little bit thrilled, thinking I had made some sort of breakthrough, that I was coming back around. So I started visiting, and I would always find a way to see Clive.”
“So you…” I start, but I’m incapable of completing the sentence.
“Seduced him.”
“I hardly doubt that, mom. You were seventeen, he was what?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Jesus.”
“I know.”
“He should have been arrested.”
She pulls her lips into her mouth and chews. “He wasn’t. No one ever found out. Well, not for a really long time. We kept it secret.”
“And then you got pregnant?”
“Then I got pregnant. When I told my parents, they lost their minds. My mum wanted me to…end it, but I didn’t want to.”
“Well thanks,” I snap. I’m getting angry. I don’t like any of this.
“I know this is hard to hear. Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” I reply through clenched teeth. It’s too late now. Pandora’s box has been opened.
“I didn’t want to end the pregnancy, for lots of reasons, the primary one is that I loved you from the very start.”
“What were the other reasons?” I ask, knowing that I’m not going to like it.
She pauses for a moment before stating quietly, “I thought that he would leave his wife for me.”
“Mom, you were only seventeen years old. There’s no way that would have worked.”
“I can see that now, but back then, well, I said I was naïve.”
“What did you tell your parents? I’m sure they wanted to know who knocked you up.”
She raises an eyebrow at my harsh language. “I said it was a boy at school.”
“Gavin?” I ask.
“Eventually I told them it was him. He was out of the picture, and so was I. My mom, basically, kept me hidden during my pregnancy, as well as after you were born. I disappeared. People thought I studied abroad.”
“And how did Clive react to the pregnancy?”
“He was very upset for a long time. He wouldn’t see me for three years, wouldn’t speak to me. I went crazy over it.”
“So he never saw me?”
Her chin quivers as she shakes her head. “He had so much to lose, the business, his marriage. He didn’t want to risk it all.”
“But he did, the second that creepster put his hands on an underaged girl. How could he?”
“Cara,” my mom starts.
“No, don’t defend him.”
“I’m not defending him,” she insists. “It’s just that it wasn’t black and white.”
“You said he wouldn’t see you for three years. What happened after that?”
She doesn’t answer and takes a deep breath.
“You started up your affair again?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
The puzzle pieces are fitting together effortlessly. There’s just a few more to place.
“And after four years?”
“He wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t acknowledge you.”
“Christ,” I say and get up from the table. I start pacing around, wishing all the while that I could go back to when I was blissfully ignorant. “So then what? You broke up with him?”
“It wasn’t quite that easy or clean. When my mum died, and then—”
“Anna appeared.”
“Yes. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to get as far away as possible. I was so mad at my dad. I began to loathe both of them, truly despise those men and men in general. How could my dad cheat on my mum, and what made Anna so special that he did it so easily and was so easily caught? And what made me so terrible that Clive would rather die than ever acknowledge me as an important part of his life when I was the mother of his one and only child?”
“He didn’t have other kids with his wife?”
“No.”
“So that’s why we left?”
“Yes,” she answers.
“I found a bunch of old letters that granddad tried to send to me.”
Pain and regret flashes across my mom’s face. “I’m sorry I sent those back.”
“It’s okay, mom. I was angry, but I’m not anymore.” I’m barely holding it together. “In one of them, he wanted me to apologize on his behalf for something that happened with Clive. He said something about how it was only a business association. What was that about? Is that how he interfered?”
“It’s a bit complicated. Before things ended with Clive, my dad actually pushed him out of the business. Clive was furious, and it’s what made him dig his heels in about us. I wasn’t very rational when it came to Clive, and so I blamed my dad for why I couldn’t be with him. My dad wouldn’t understand this until later. You see, long after we were gone, my dad found out about Clive.”
“You told him?”
“No, Clive did.”
“What? Why?”
“Clive tried to extort him.”
“Are you serious?”
“After Clive was pushed out, he started up his own business and made some really shady deals. He got in trouble and needed money. So Clive went back to my dad and told him that he was your father. He told him that if my dad gave him the money, he’d make it right with me and that he’d bring us back to England. He’d leave his wife, the whole thing. My dad was furious. He wanted to kill him and more than anything he was upset with himself for letting it happen under his nose.”
“Did he take him up on the offer?”
“No. I wouldn’t let him. Clive always thought I wouldn’t get over him. He was wrong. There wasn’t any way I was going back to England. I realized then that we had been Clive’s bargaining chip. I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought of me, and of you, that way from the moment he found out I was pregnant. The slimeball.”
“Oh my God,” I say and continue to pace. I feel dirty like I have dirty genes. I was created by a monster. Tears stream down my face. It’s like I’ve been invaded. Like there’s an alien living inside me.
“Cara, calm down. You are not your father. You are pure Montgomery, you hear that?”
“I don’t feel like it,” I say through a sob. “Not anymore.”
“Your father wasn’t completely horrible. He had redeeming qualities. He was witty and incredibly smart. He had a lovely smile and enjoyed a good laugh. He was loving when he wanted to be, and I loved that most of all.”
I so badly needed to hear that because I have no idea how I could possibly go on with such terrible knowledge. I change course and ask, “So you talked to granddad?”
“Only once,” she answers and squeezes her eyes shut. “He reached me at work, over the phone. I was about to hang up when he said it was about Clive. Hearing my dad say Clive’s name made my stomach fall to my feet. I had to listen. He asked if he should give Clive the money. If it would bring us back. I was so disgusted. I told him the truth about Clive and how I felt ruined. I told him that I was angry he pushed Clive out of the company. That I blamed him for so much of this.”
“But it wasn’t his fault,” I argue.
“I know. I know that, I do, but I’ve never been able to see straight about it. I’ve never been able to properly face it.”
I remember that from my grandfather’s letter, he said the same about her.
“So where is Clive now?”
“Prison,” she answers and meets my eyes.
“What? Are you serious?” I’m the daughter of a criminal.
“Yeah, he got caught up in some illegal type of scheme it appears.”
“I had no idea. No one mentioned it,” I say, so confused. Reid must not have known. Maybe it’s not such a small world after all.
She shrugs her shoulders. She knows about it because she’s probably been keeping tabs on him all these years. He clearly haunts her.
“So that’s the story. It’s not pretty. For so long now I’ve wished you had a dad that could be there for you. I’m sorry that he hasn’t been.”
“And he won’t be,” I reply, not wanting to know him at all.
She lets out a big breath she’s been holding as if relieved that he won’t be a part of our lives.
“And so Anna?” I say, feeling as if we’ve wronged her.
“I regret that. I know we had that terrible trait in common, being the other woman. For years I’ve been projecting my self-loathing onto her. Love is messy, I get that, but I couldn’t accept their happiness, not when I was so miserable.”
“And Gavin?” I ask, hoping that he continues to be a part of her life.
Finally, there’s the smallest hint of a smile and her eyes match. “I’ve always been fond of Gavin. We were good friends, and I always knew he had a crush on me. I didn’t really know what I had right in front of me back then. I really wished that it had been him, that he was your father and not Clive.”
We have that in common. “I really like Gavin,” I say and smile.
“Me too.” She smiles deeply while looking down at her hands as if she’s only scratched the surface of her feelings about him. “We’ve gotten really close. He’s persuaded me to go to England, and I’m going to do it. It’s time I face the past and go home.”
“I’m so glad to hear that,” I reply. “For how long?”
“Well, maybe forever.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Work
Reid
The lift at AMB Tower is empty, as usual, this early in the morning. I press six and lean
against the wall, staring at my reflection like I have each day since I’ve been back at work. The man that stares back at me is expressionless, his eyes lifeless. Even the gold tie he’s wearing comes across as dull.
“You’re a fake,” I say at myself, just before the doors open to the newly minted Lewis, Spencer, and Associates office. The expansion isn’t even official, yet Victoria has implemented her rebranding plan. Dropping Montgomery from our name is a mistake, I told her, but she ran roughshod over me, and I didn’t have the will to fight about it. I don’t have the will to fight about anything.
“Mr. Lewis.” My assistant greets me with his iPad in hand, ever the ambitious go-getter.
“Good morning, Philip.”
“When you get settled in, we should go over your appointments for the day.”
“Very well.”
“Tea?” he asks.
“Yes,” I answer. He’s been polite enough not to ask why I’ve started having tea instead of espresso in the two weeks I’ve been back here.
“On it,” he says and leaves me alone in my office.
I sit down behind my desk and dock my laptop. As it boots up, I carefully straighten the stapler to align perfectly with my desk phone. Everything is clean and meticulous. Everything is black and white.
Philip enters with my tea and starts rattling off my schedule. It’s the usual slew of client calls, and I barely listen as I dip the bag in and out, but I pause when he says, “At three, you have the appointment at the auction house.”
The tea bag drips into the cup. “That’s today?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Rosenthal called to confirm yesterday afternoon. Do you need me to reschedule?”
“No,” I answer right away, not giving myself a chance to back out of this. “Arrange a car.”
“Yes, sir.”
The sooner I’m rid of every single object we inherited, the better. I’ve already made arrangements with Mr. Leeds to have Cara receive her proceeds directly. She said she didn’t want it, but fair is fair. After that, whatever remaining connection I have with her will be severed.
Be What Love Is Page 29