I knew what I was doing, but Patrick’s blatant accuse almost made me lose my temper. I’d put up with him for so long, I had no patience for him anymore. He knew how good I was at my job. He’d practically begged me to invest in his company, an industry I’d had no knowledge of whatsoever, and not only had I stepped in, ready and eager to learn, I’d thrived in it.
So I wasn’t willing to let him make me feel any less worthy than I was because I’d stepped in and helped raise his family business to its former glory when it’d been on the verge of bankruptcy. I understood his resentment, but I wasn’t going to take his insolence.
“Anna has planned a surprise birthday party for you tonight at the country club,” I said.
His eyebrows rose and his face seemed to relax a bit. “She has?” he asked.
I nodded, sipping my red wine. The last thing I wanted was to disappoint Anna so I was determined to do everything possible to make sure the night would be a success, and most importantly, to make sure my kids were happy.
“I don’t want to fight tonight.” It was supposed to be a surprise party, but in order to make the time easier, he needed to be aware of the information. “We’re supposed to be there at seven. If you have somewhere else you want to be, you can go. I just need you to know her only request was for us to act like a family.”
He went silent and was distant for a while as he took a sip of his scotch. He loved Adrianna. I had no doubt, so I knew he wouldn’t let her down considering how much effort she’d probably put into the night.
“Did you ever think things would turn out this way?” he asked.
I met his gaze. His eyes were a deeper shade and his expression was softer. I hadn’t seen this side of him in a long time.
“To be honest,” I shook my head. “No, but we’ve raised two beautiful wonderful children.”
“I mean between us, Amelia.” He reached for my hand over the table.
My automatic reaction was to pull away, but I faltered. This man was the father of my children. I had caused him pain and unhappiness. This day was his birthday, the least I could give him were my sentiments on the matter.
“I know we married young,” he said, pulling away his hand. “But I was so in love with you.” He took another sip of his scotch.
“Patrick.”
“You never said yes,” he said in a slow sad voice.
I had no idea what he was talking about. “Patrick, we’ve had a good life together. We have a beautiful family.”
“Amelia, when I proposed to you, you never actually said yes.”
I raised my eyebrows in bewilderment and a bit of surprise.
“I didn’t realize it until years later. I was so happy and in love it never really occurred to me. When it did, we’d already had Jonah and Anna. I was so happy. I just assumed your answer had been yes. But when I look back, I don’t recall hearing you say it.”
Come to think of it, he was right. I’d never said yes. I’d never expected him to propose to me that night and when he did, my mother took over and shortly after, everything happened so fast, it never really crossed my mind.
“Oh my, God.” I shouldn’t have been shocked. This was Kathy.
“It made more sense to me years later after I realized this. You were never in love with me. That was why we were never able to be a conventional married couple.”
“Patrick, it’s your birthday. Do you really want to talk about this right now?” I was unsure of how else to respond.
“I’m tired of being cold and distant. I’m tired of acting like I don’t care about you.” He reached for my hand again, interlocking our fingers. I wasn’t sure if he was drunk or just being different. It just felt like he was someone I wasn’t sure I knew.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
He took a deep breath and relaxed his fingers on mine. “I’m saying that I’m sorry. You were the absolute best thing that ever happened to me. I had chances to leave, to walk away and I’m pretty sure you did too. But you stuck by my side and we raised two great kids.” He released a soft laugh. “I know at times I’ve been a sanctimonious idiot, but I just want you to know that you did a great job with Jonah and Anna,” he said.
I was baffled. He hadn’t paid me a compliment in years. As a matter of fact, I’d never heard him speak that way about anything else other than our kids and work.
“I’ll be at the country club by seven. We’ll walk in together,” he said and left before I could protest.
I felt guilty for some reason that I couldn’t bring myself to understand. I cared deeply about Patrick. He’d been a part of my life for a very long time and even though it hadn’t always been great, he’d given me something no one else would ever have been able to; my children, Jonah and Adrianna.
I knew our relationship was strained, but I didn’t understand why he took off just when he’d made an attempt to make himself heard.
We’d both led different lives for a long period of time, but despite that, he’d always played a very important role in my life both personally and professionally.
Since we’d gotten married, men had grown more respectful towards me and best of all, through him Kathy had learned to keep a polite amount of distance from me, which had led to me keeping her away altogether. So we had a lot to appreciate about one another.
Perhaps our only downside was the fact that I’d never really truly loved him, which I’d always regretted. But to now learn on top of that, that I’d never said yes to his proposal, it made the whole matter sad.
The most prominent thing I remembered about that period of my life was losing Isabel. Everything else had been a blur except for the wedding and the birth of Jonah. It made me wonder about my mother and her motives during that period when I’d been grieving.
Without a second thought, I called James and told him to bring the car around. I got up a few minutes later and walked out. I found the car waiting for me, got inside when he opened the door and gave him Kathy’s address.
I’d never willingly visited Kathy but I’d been to her house before. She had an extremely large estate, but then again, she’d always had a thing for space. Her place was only twenty minutes away from the country club so I got there in no time. I had no idea what I was going to say until I knocked on the door and she opened.
The look of surprise on her face did little to affect my being there.
“Amelia, oh how wonderful to see you.”
I walked past her and replayed Patrick’s words in my head.
“You know I was just thinking about how nice it’d be—,”
“Stop!” I couldn’t think with her yammering about. “I’m not here for you,” I said firmly.
She stood upright, surprised by my belligerence. Though physically she still appeared fit and strong for a woman in her seventies, I could tell she was tired and on the verge of surrender. I hadn’t seen her in years, but her state wasn’t going to deter me from what had brought me to her doorstep.
“What—. What’s going on?” she asked.
She was one of the guests at her son-in-law’s birthday party and while it was still early, I could tell she’d just started to prepare for it.
“You knew, didn’t you?” The look of confusion on her face did nothing to appease me. “You knew about the nature of my relationship with Isabel,” I said.
“Amelia, why are you bringing this up now? It’s half a lifetime away,” she said dismissively.
“Not for me!” I didn’t mean to come off sounding so upset but there were emotions going through me that I hadn’t prepared myself for. “You knew about us. You knew it wasn’t just business or friendship.”
She watched me for a while then exhaled, turned and walked away. “I don’t see what purpose this serves now,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to serve a purpose. I just need to know the truth.”
“You were young, Amelia. You didn’t know what you were doing. It was my job as your mother to guide you. I had to make sure you
made the right decisions.”
The ironic thing was, there was a part of me that was actually surprised to hear her say that. “You knew my heart was breaking,” I said.
She turned to face me, her expression softer. “I did,” she said.
My heart constricted in my chest. Kathy had broken my heart plenty of times, but there was something about this particular one that felt different. “So you orchestrated the whole thing with Patrick.”
She helplessly watched me, then nodded and said, “He was humble, sweet, kind and patient, just like her.”
I could almost feel my heart dislodging itself from my chest. I forced myself to breathe. “He was nothing like her.” My voice came out sounding harsher than I intended it. “I can’t believe this.” How was it possible? How could I not have seen it?
“You’ve had a good life, Amelia. Everything worked out for everyone,” she said.
I looked at her in consternation. “For everyone except me,” I said.
“You have two amazing kids, a good husband and a great business. I don’t understand how you choose to see only the negative.”
I walked up to her so fast, I was tempted to scream.
Her eyes widened in shock and what seemed like fear. Then it occurred to me. “Did you know she was dying?” I asked, trying hard to be strong but knowing her answer would destroy me.
“Not in the beginning,” she said, then went ahead to explain. “When you two started working together, I had no idea. When her father threatened to take everything away from her, her mother told him about the illness and he shared the information with me, so we both backed off.”
My heart was pounding so hard, my whole body was shaking. “So you knew she was going to die.”
Kathy met my gaze and nodded.
I couldn’t believe it. It felt like I couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t enough air circulating to my lungs. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “How could you not tell me?” I took a few steps away from her. I’d never had a panic attack, but it felt like one was occurring.
“I thought you knew,” she said.
I pulled away my arm when she tried to reach out to me. “I’d never cared about anyone else in my life.”
“Amelia,” the concern in her voice was evident.
“You’re a monster,” I said in between gasps of air.
“I was trying to protect you. Please understand. Your father and I worked so hard for your future. I was only trying to make sure you had everything,” she said.
Suddenly, everything went quiet. I calmed my physical form and repeated a therapeutic mantra in my head as my breathing slowed. I was reeling, but I needed to regain my self control. When my breathing came back to normal, I stood upright, slowly opened my eyes and met Kathy’s gaze.
She’d always been one step ahead of me. She was old now. There was nothing I could do to get back at her.
Isabel was gone and my anger towards her and the illness had greatly declined over the years, so there was nothing I could do about that either. There was nothing left. Kathy had failed to help ease my pain and had instead opted to exploit it.
At that point, I was more than certain she’d picked out Patrick for me way before Isabel had died. She’d held all the cards. She’d gotten her way. She’d won and all this time, I’d thought I was the one in control.
“My father worked hard, like his father before him. You were just a pretty face by his side. Everything I have, it came from him. Everything I am, it came from him. You’ve made no contribution to who I’ve become,” I said. “I’m never going to let you take any credit when it comes to my life, my kids or my work. You were never a mother, a friend or a mentor to me.” I’d never really thought I’d ever have to say these words out loud. “You were weak then and you’re weak now.”
I wasn’t trying to hurt her. I was speaking the truth. She was a horrible excuse of a human being, manipulating my entire life and exploiting my pain to serve herself.
When I left, there was a lot going through me. I’d never been able to tell if Kathy hurting me was intentional and at that point, I was done trying to figure it out.
I was still thinking about her when James informed me Patrick had arrived. I put myself together and got out of the car to meet him. He looked a little more like himself, though there was still something different.
After my conversation with Kathy, I was too worn out to wonder about it so I tucked my arm around his and headed towards the entrance of the country club. He acted surprised, as he was meant to and Adrianna couldn’t be happier.
My natural social poise carried me through the night even though I was breaking inside. I’d never had to deal with these kinds of emotions before, but they all accumulated at once and were on the verge of pouring out and destroying me.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Patrick and I parted ways after the party while the kids stayed behind with their friends after the older crowd dispersed.
I was a little tired from spending so much time around people while pretending to be happy and I just wanted to be alone so I headed to my penthouse.
I had managed to silence my thoughts all through the party but now, when I was alone, they were slowly starting to find their way back.
My earlier conversations with both Patrick and Kathy replayed themselves in my head as my past with Isabel came alive with a breathless effect that weakened me.
I remembered our time together. Over the years I’d grown accustomed to feeling different things which I could now identify and somehow manage to comprehend, so I was able to tell how I had felt about her.
It had been powerful and overwhelming. I remembered her asking if I would’ve stayed with her had I known she was gravely ill.
At the time, I hadn’t known how I felt about her, but now I knew my heart and at that period of my life, it had been breaking for the person it had loved. The sad part was, she had never known. Maybe the knowledge would’ve given her peace.
If Kathy hadn’t rushed my grieving period and gotten me married so fast when the wounds were still fresh, I probably would’ve dealt with Isabel’s passing a long time ago.
I wouldn’t have to experience flashes of her every time I desired to feel the way she’d made me feel. She’d be a lovely memory that I fondly remembered instead of a phantom of loss and pain.
The thoughts drowned me in a pit of distress. When I got to the penthouse, I poured myself a glass of red wine and went to my bedroom. I undressed and went to the bathroom to prepare a bath as I wondered how I would’ve turned out had I never met Isabel.
Would I have ever experienced anything close to what I’d shared with her? Would I have ever noticed something was missing? Or would I have lived my entire life never knowing there was more to it other than work?
The questions went on and on as I got into the bathtub. I took a deep calming breath and submerged myself under the flowery scented foam. When the water started to cover my face, I closed my eyes and relaxed.
I’d never thought about Isabel so much or so consistently. The unexpected appearance of Olivia had awakened her in me. My thoughts and feelings about her were not in a chaotic manner anymore. They were clear and in order.
For the first time in my life, I understood myself better than I ever had before and through it, I lifted my head up from the tub and took my first breath of freedom. It was time to let Isabel go, time to let her rest.
I wasn’t sure how long I spent in the bathtub, drinking my wine, letting go of all the cares of the world, but when I got out, I felt somehow lighter. It was a nice feeling.
When I was done dressing, I went to refill my glass of wine as the memories of the evening took over. Adrianna had been pleased because the party had been a success and Jonah, well, he’d been his usual self.
There was a great part of me that had wished the person standing by my side, holding my hand had been someone who made me happy. Someone I cared about in a deeply passionate way.
I knew it was
too late for me to get what most people had gotten in their late twenties or early thirties, but it didn’t make me want it any less.
It was strange though, because when I was in a room full of people and Olivia happened to be there, I’d notice her and some strange motion would take place in me. I didn’t entirely understand it, but I wanted to believe it was purely driven by my attraction towards her.
We’d made plans to meet up the following evening and I’d had half a mind to cancel but there was something I was craving that only she could offer. Your world could use a little bit of chaos. Her words echoed in my head.
I had denied myself so much over the years. My kids were grown, I’d done all I could for the businesses, and Patrick was leading his own life. Where was I? What did I have to show?
I wasn’t seeking some sort of reward, but didn’t I deserve a little bit of excitement? I knew Olivia was the wrong person to seek it in. She was half my age; she was my employee and she was my protégé.
I took a breath at the unsettling thoughts and went outside the balcony of my living room for some fresh air.
It was a warm night and the skyline of New York was stunning. The countless stars in the sky were casting down a white glow that met the bright lights of New York skyscrapers halfway.
I took in the view and slowly, my mind went back to Olivia. My unsuccessful attempts to resist thoughts of her were tasking so I just went with the flow.
Her confidence was becoming more and more appealing. She could move closer to me, touch me and kiss me without fear in her eyes.
Her touch was always so unsettlingly gentle. It always felt like her softness was a response to the intimidating way I presented myself and instead of pulling away, I always lingered, which allowed her to melt my icy exterior.
She presented herself to me in a non-threatening manner, which I always somehow found myself responding to. She’d taken the time to study me and get a glimpse into what I responded to.
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