So the grand question was; who did he think it was?
Fuck…
I hated all of this.
Everything.
I never imagined any of this happening and feeling so damn powerless was killing me slowly, like poison working its way through my body and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I didn’t know what the hell I would have done if I’d been alone in this.
Knowing I had others around me offering their help and support alleviated the burden in a big way.
Helpless and useless as I’d felt, it gave me something to hope for.
Ryan and his father were doing their best.
Georgie was also arranging her flight. She’d sounded sick on the phone and as much as I’d begged her not to come she insisted on being with me as soon as she could.
Much as I wanted her to stay in LA, I knew in my heart that having her here with me would help massively.
It helped to give me the strength I lacked. It was something I never had before. I was just tossed into the deepest end of the ocean and had to swim.
Sometimes it still felt like I was still swimming around trying to make my way back, trying to make my way back to a life I’d wanted so badly. It was just that life had changed drastically. The person who I’d wanted so badly to be at the shoreline waiting for me to surface wouldn’t be there.
Mama wouldn’t be there ever again because someone killed her, someone took her away from me.
The thought made me tear up again but blinked back the tears so I could focus.
When I turned the corner to Ryan’s house, I saw a red Mercedes parked on the drive. I didn’t know who that was and I wasn’t really prepared to see anyone else by myself. Ryan’s car wasn’t there so this person was in his house alone.
What if it was his mother?
Jesus Lord, if it was her… with the way I felt I wouldn’t hesitate to rain Armageddon upon her. I mean end of the bible, Book of Revelations style Armageddon. God himself would have to come down from heaven and calm me down.
That was the mood I was in. I’d felt compassion myself and figured she was sick so of course she wouldn’t have been around with everyone else.
But I wasn’t stupid. While I’d figured that, I was sure by now she knew I was back in town and it wasn’t like I could forget the reason I’d left.
She would stay away from me because it was wise. There was no way she’d want her precious family to know what she was really like.
I parked my car and got out.
Pausing for a moment at the bottom of the steps leading up to the house, I caught one last breath of fresh air to clear my head.
A breath and a silent prayer that the person inside wasn’t Ryan’s mom.
On that breath I proceeded up the steps and opened the door. Ryan had given me a key for the house.
I went inside and footsteps echoed against the wooden steps of the stairs.
When a naked blonde woman flashing a satin dressing gown in her hands came into view, my mouth dropped. On seeing me, she shrieked and covered herself.
My mouth sunk further into the fucking ground when I recognized her.
Tiffany!
Tiffany Tate.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Those were the first words to fly from my mouth.
This bitch had put me through so much when I was growing up. I was helpless then. Not so now, not so at all.
She had the audacity to snarl at me and look at me as if I was the one who was out of place in this scene. She looked exactly the way she did when I’d found her in my room that time, back at the O’Shea mansion. Although it was clear she’d had work done on her face, she didn’t look all that much different.
“Me? You’re asking me that? Are you kidding me? What are you doing here?”
“I asked first.” I stood my ground. “What are you doing in Ryan’s house.”
“I’m his wife. I think I have whatever right I want to be here.”
Shock flew straight through me. It washed over me starting from my eyes as I eyed her with astonishment. Then it cascaded from there to my toes.
Ryan’s wife…
He’d married Tiffany?
My Ryan got married to her, the one person I hated the most.
She was who he was talking about.
He was divorced but she was here calling herself his wife and she’d come down the stairs naked like it was normal for her to do that.
Back in high school they were always on and off. Maybe this was the same fucking thing.
Jesus Christ, why was everything so fucked up.
The door flung open behind me and Ryan came in looking flustered.
He looked from me to Tiffany, scanned over what she was barely wearing and shook his head.
“Fuck no.” He growled, nostrils flared. “Fucking hell no.” It was then that he looked back to me.
“You married her?” I scuffed. God, in the grand scheme of things this was so far down the rung.
I had no right to ask him that. I had no right to want to know anything of his private life. It was just that it was her.
“Lana please, you know we’re divorced,” he answered.
“So the answer is yes.” I rushed past him heading back to my car.
I really didn’t want to feel like the sixteen year old again who’d just seen the boy she liked making out with the girl who everyone thought was the most beautiful in the school. I didn’t want to feel like that today, or ever.
Ryan rushed up to me and caught me. Not just grabbing my arm but actually caught me, slipping his arm around my waist and picking me up, stopping me in flight and pulling me flush against his chest.
“Please, don’t go,” he begged. “Please.” It was the agony in his voice that must have reached the place in my heart that loved him.
He held me for a few seconds and set me down.
I turned to face him and shook my head. “Ryan, you got married to Tiffany Tate?”
“Lana, all kinds of shit happened to me six years ago. I literally fell down the rabbit hole when you left. Then I saw you in LA and I let you go. I came back a mess and she seduced me when I was drunk out of my damn mind. The next time I saw her she told me she was pregnant.” He stopped and my heart stretched with the revelation of more news. A child. “It was some elaborate trick because the baby wasn’t mine. I found out last year that my son isn’t mine and it crushed me. I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you before. I’m truly sorry. It’s just more shit to add to everything else, more that happened to me that I wished hadn’t.”
Shit!
This was all my fault.
All from one thing leading to another.
I’d left him believing his life would be better, but it wasn’t. Everything, he’d told me was all horrible. There wasn’t one thing I could hold on to that happened to him that was good.
Nothing at all.
This was what happened to him.
He got married to Tiffany …
It was too much. All of it.
I couldn’t deal with it. “I’m sorry...”
He reached for me but I backed away and the hurt in his eyes gripped me.
“Lana…”
“I’m sorry I left you. I really am.”
“Don’t go. Don’t leave again.” His eyes pleaded with me.
I drew in a ragged breath feeling lightheaded. “I need some space. There’s too much. Too much going on Ryan. I just…”
I couldn’t continue. Nothing I said felt like it was the right thing.
I really did need some space and strength.
Only one person could give me that.
I left him standing there, jumped in my car and fled, heading to the cemetery to see Mama.
I’d only been once and that was for the funeral.
After I’d left I tried to come back to visit her grave. I couldn’t do it. I even went as far as hiring someone to tend to the plot on a weekly basis, doing a job I should have been doi
ng for the last seventeen years. I couldn’t do it though because it meant accepting she wasn’t with me anymore.
Today was the day of acceptance because I needed her and that was the only place I knew I’d find her.
Chapter 21
Ryan
Thank fuck when I went back inside the house Tiffany was dressed in actual clothes.
She knew not to fuck with me when I breezed back inside the house ready to combust with fury.
If she was a guy… I would...
I balled my fists at my side and shook the thought free from my mind.
I didn’t even like thinking like that because it meant acknowledging I was totally tempted to hit her, and I was. I hated any kind of violence against women. Thought, or otherwise.
“What are you doing here?” I asked in a cold steady voice.
She stepped forward from where she was and brought her hands together.
“I came to see you.”
“Looked like you came to more than see me.” She was naked under that dressing gown when I came in.
God knew what Lana must have seen and thought. How did Tiffany even get inside the house?
Fuck. It didn’t matter.
There was so much shit on my mind and I needed to weed out the trash like what was happening now to free it up to deal with the real problems.
The real problems that just got another added to it.
Lana drove off and left, upset, and I felt the connection we’d built up over the last few weeks snap.
Tiffany looked down at the wooden floor and her gaze climbed up to meet mine.
“Your mother told me you still loved me very much and that I should try to break the ice. I came here to do that,” she explained.
I narrowed my eyes and my brows snapped together. “When the fuck did she tell you that?”
“Yesterday, after we saw each other. She told me you said you wanted to give me another chance but you were too afraid to try, but the love was always there.”
Holy fuck!
What the hell was Mom playing at?
I couldn’t have expressed more opposite words.
“No,” I breathed and she brought her hands up to her cheeks.
“No? It’s not true?”
“Tiffany. None of that is true. You know the extent of my feelings for you from what I’ve specifically said and that’s disgust. It’s disgust.”
I wouldn’t have normally been so crass and crude, or abrasive. Those however were my true feelings spilling out. I’d had enough of everything.
I was done with the shit and pussyfooting around. Why would Mom do this to me?
Force Tiffany on me when she must have gotten from my conversation with her that I wanted to be with Lana.
“Ryan I have apologized so many times. I have been in love with you my whole life. I made a mistake and I went the wrong way about everything. None of that meant I didn’t love you.”
“Are you kidding me? You tried to pass another man’s child off as mine. Jack. Tiffany I love that child so much and blood might mean nothing to me but one day it might to him. He feels like mine but he will never be. You lied and you schemed and you’re here telling me this bullshit.”
“It’s because of her isn’t it?” she spat, ignoring all of what I’d said. “Her, she was always in the way. All you did was use me to make her jealous.”
That part was true. Not my finest moment but true. It wasn’t however like she suffered in the mix from it.
“That is irrelevant to the shambles of a marriage we had. Don’t act like you’re the fucking victim here.” I threw back.
“Irrelevant? We’ll see how irrelevant the past is when I stop you from seeing Jack!”
I wasn’t sure what spark of an idea flickered off in that head of hers to make her say that to me.
Threaten me?
Really?
Seemed like she’d forgotten who I was.
I picked up the vase Mom got me for Christmas and threw it across the room. It crashed into the wall and sent shards of glass everywhere as it shattered.
She shrieked, scared and rushed to the corner as I moved for her.
She thought I was going to grab her, what she didn’t know was I could have won an award for my self control.
“Tiffany.” I chuckled, dark with the fury that now roiled within me. “Don’t you fucking dare threaten me! Don’t fuck with me and don’t threaten me. Ever. I know the law. I know I have no rights to Jack, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The only people who could give me the permission I sought to have my little boy in my life were his biological parents. Since we didn’t know who his father was that meant the ball was in her court.
“I’m no one’s fool and I won’t be yours. You won’t play me like you did before.” I added. “You tricked me once before and you won’t do it again with threats. I pay for everything you have. The house, the car outside, the fucking shit you keep injecting your face with. If you mess with me I’ll make sure Jack gets taken away from you.”
“You can’t do that,” she whimpered.
The smile came back to my face. “You fucking evil bitch. Try me. Look… at my face Tiffany. I’m serious as fuck. This is the last time we’ll have a conversation like this. If you cross me you won’t like it. You will lose everything and I will make sure I’m the only parent who’ll have access to Jack. Blood or not. Understood?”
I had to admit there was a sensation of relief, of a burden lifted as she nodded. She nodded agreement and her shoulders fell.
“Good. Now here’s what you’re going to do.” I raised my finger like I was making a point. “Set up visitation rights, allow me to see my child and that is all. I will continue to send you whatever you need. I will continue to pay for everything. You just leave me alone.”
Tears welled in her eyes as she nodded.
I stepped away from her, allowing her passage to leave.
She moved away but stopped, turned and looked back to me. “I still love you Ryan.”
I looked away. Away from her and over to the long French windows.
Whatever she felt for me didn’t matter anymore. It never did.
She left and the door closed.
I sighed, frustrated and looked around the place. Broken glass everywhere and the tension still in the air.
Mom…
I couldn’t let this go. It was too important and actually below the belt.
She basically told Tiffany to seduce me.
This was the last thing I wanted to deal with now. I’d made progress this morning with the P.I.
I had a lead on some drug dealers who were looking for Larissa years ago. She’d skipped town just after Amelia died and no one knew where she went.
She was still at large but the thing the P.I. found out was that she owed a mobster drug dealer called Frankie twenty grand. He’d threatened to kill her and her family if she didn’t pay up.
I’d told the PI to pursue the lead. A mobster drug dealer did sound like the sort of person who could have killed Amelia.
That was what I was going to tell Lana.
It would have to wait now.
That fury still blazed in me. It sent me straight to the mansion to see Mom and only subsided when I saw police cars on the drive.
Mom was outside bawling her eyes out while Dad was being led away by an officer.
He was in handcuffs.
* * *
I didn’t know the nightmare could get any worse than it already was.
It could.
It fucking did.
The police had Dad in custody on suspicion of murdering Amelia on account of them questioning an anonymous witness who placed him with Amelia at the DoubleTree. It was conclusive to the time period that she died. It looked like Dad would have been the last person to see her alive.
I was offering legal representation.
The officers must have had him for three hours booking him in. I waited outside in the vi
sitors lounge for them to finish.
Mom was at home, probably beside herself with worry but I couldn’t think about her now.
Dad couldn’t have killed Amelia.
I knew he would never do something like that. He would never kill anyone.
However, someone being able to place him at the DoubleTree around the timeframe in which Amelia was murdered raised enough suspicion to work with. Records from the DoubleTree released an hour ago, listing him as staying the night there with her cemented it.
When the officers were finished with him I was able to see him.
We met in his jail cell. He looked like the shell he’d spoken of weeks ago when he described me.
His skin was so pale and his eyes were void of the man I knew.
I sat in front of him and looked him over.
He kept his eyes on the hard gray concrete of the jail cell, not looking at me. Shame was all over his face.
I moved and sat next to him, placing an arm around his shoulders. The gesture was the only thing that seemed to create some response from him.
He twisted his head around to face me and released a short sigh.
“Tell me what happened Dad.” I nodded. “Tell me. This is off the record. It’s just you and me. Tell me what happened.”
More shame filled his eyes and I had a feeling I knew what he was going to
tell me.
Could almost guess it.
“I had an affair with Amelia,” he confessed.
I couldn’t feign surprise because I think deep down I always knew. Hearing it
though was hard. I would never have pegged dad as the kind of man who would do that.
“I never killed her Ryan. I couldn’t… I loved her,” he added, and he reminded me of the person I’d witnessed that night I spied on him with Amelia in the library. I could tell something was going on. The signs were there.
“I know,” I replied and his gaze sharpened. “I know you didn’t kill her, but I also know that you loved her, more than Mom.”
He hung his head down. “I didn’t want any of this to happen … I didn’t mean for any of it to. It just did. Ryan, I asked your mother repeatedly for a divorce but she wouldn’t give me one. I doubt she knew about me and Amelia. It doesn’t make it right. I may be this badass lawyer in the courtroom but every time your mother begged me to give her a chance I did. I shouldn’t have because it wasn’t fair. I didn’t love her, and love isn’t something you force. She changed a lot after we got married. She changed and became this person I didn’t recognize. The wealth went to her head and she started treating people who didn’t have what we had like they were nothing. It was the first sign of ugliness and I drifted away. Then Amelia came on the scene and I think I fell for her straight away.”
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