by Raine Miller
After the second text was sent, Caleb powered off his phone and pulled me into his arms.
He showed me how much he loved me, as he had done from the very beginning when we’d first met.
My gentleman lover with the dirty mouth and the romantic sensibilities, who couldn’t remember what a meatball was called, and who knew nothing about shopping at Target before he met me.
My filthy rich billionaire, who concerned himself with villages in Africa in need of fresh well water more than how to make the next dollar.
My husband who loved me and who would be the father our future children adored and respected.
My wonderful, amazing, perfect man.
EPILOGUE
Caleb
February
You have always been just like your father. I never understood his fascination with the help.” My mother waved her hand in a graceful circle toward Brooke and Ellen. “JW’s philanthropic notions with his charities and good works to help those less fortunate were deeply in him. You’ve followed right in his footsteps, Caleb.” I knew what she was doing. Her skills at delivering an insult while making it appear as if she was simply being charming were almost legendary. I decided to call her out on it.
“Okay, since I am just like my father, is that why you sold off his treasured Blackwater without ever mentioning to me you were selling, because you knew I would object?”
“No, Caleb. I sold Blackwater for the reason that it was mine to sell. Your father gave it to me to do whatever I saw fit.” I could hardly believe it, but I’d seen the documents to prove that she was, indeed, telling the truth. Why would Dad give her Blackwater in the first place, though?
“Why keep the news of selling from me?”
“I didn’t really. I just put it up for sale and didn’t discuss it with you. It’s not like you showed much of an interest, Caleb. It’d been years since you even went there, until you met Brooke that is.”
She waved her hand in our direction again, as if she were bestowing her grace upon poor peasants begging for a favor. It annoyed me greatly. “Do not go there with Brooke.” I was barely able to keep a lid on my temper. You would think with how incredibly, seriously wrong my mother had been about Janice that she wouldn’t even consider showing anything but kindness toward my beautiful girl. But that would mean conceding, and in her twisted view, it put her on the losing side. Very fucked-up ideology to liken us to combatants in a battle, but sadly those were the rules she played by—and they were ironclad. Losers were given no quarter and even less sympathy. No second chances.
Janice, for instance, had been shunned by the tribe and would never be welcomed into Boston’s inner circle of society again. Despite the actual fucking restraining order preventing her from coming within two hundred feet of us, I’d made sure her wings were clipped. It was either agree to leave the country or face a messy trial inside a Boston courtroom. A courtroom with plenty of drooling media hacks lying in wait to deliver the most unflattering picture of the day to the eager public, whose sole entertainment was watching celebrities go off the rails—she figured her psycho shit out real quick. Janice might be crazy, but she wasn’t stupid. She chose Hong Kong.
My mother did not heed my warning tone and turned away to take a sip from her wineglass. “I don’t understand what the fuss is with selling Blackwater. The old place brought in a fortune. All’s well that ends well.”
“What the fuck, Mom?” I exploded. “I want an explanation, and I want it now.” I stabbed my finger down on the table. “Why did Dad ever give Blackwater to you in the first place?”
She scowled at my f-bomb. “Language, Caleb, remember how you were brought up, please.”
“How I was brought up . . . hmm . . . that’s interesting, my dear mother, because I don’t really remember you being very involved with me. Dad was, of course, but I only remember nannies and babysitters reading to me, or giving me baths, or any of the normal things mothers do for their children.” I wished I didn’t have to ask her the rest, but I needed to know. “Why have I felt, for my whole goddamn life, that you resented me—that you could barely tolerate being around your own son?”
“Caleb, this is not the time, nor is it the place, for this discussion.” She looked around the room at all the faces. My brothers, my sisters, Herman and Ellen, Brooke, James, my cousins—all of them waiting to hear from her. Everyone was uncomfortable and yet frozen in place. I felt the same. All of the ugly was about to come spewing out in front of everyone, and I did not care.
The fuckin’ bell had been rung. Fuckin’ loudly, too. There was no unringing it.
“Madelaine, you need to tell him the truth,” Herman said. “JW is gone, and the boy deserves to know.”
Every eye in the room turned toward my uncle, including both of mine, as all of the hairs on the back of my neck tilted straight up.
Along with the axis of the earth.
“What is the fucking truth that’s been kept from me for my whole life?” I yelled back at her.
She flinched in her seat.
The only thing holding me from going into a total meltdown was Brooke’s hand rubbing on my back in gentle but steady circles, grounding me from absolutely losing my motherfucking shit in front of everyone I cared about most in the world.
My mother straightened her back and lost the hauteur that she usually carried around on her face. I knew the truth I was about to hear would change everything.
She turned to me and said it calmly.
“The truth is, Caleb, you are not my son.”
RELIEF. I felt relief for the first time in thirty-one years where my “mother” was concerned. I didn’t have to wonder what I’d done to spurn her love. Now I understood. It finally made some goddamn fucking sense to me. I blocked out everyone else in the room. I knew they were there, but I didn’t care anymore. The truth is all I cared about, because I had nothing to hide from any of them.
“My father?” I was almost fearful of asking.
“Your father was your father, Caleb. You are his son, but you are not mine.” More relief poured over me at knowing my whole existence was not a lie. I was a Blackstone after all.
“H-h-how did it happen?”
“Shortly after we’d married I found out he had a lover. One of the cleaning staff, a girl named Melody Rainford—a student on a work visa from England. Yes, she was British,” she said in a tone I did not care for. But I held my tongue because I wanted her to tell me the rest. “He made her pregnant and you were born. JW was completely infatuated with her, and I am quite certain he would have left me and married her, if she hadn’t died just three weeks after you were born.”
I lifted my eyes and stared daggers at my mother—no, wait—I stabbed Madelaine with the question I dared not ask.
“No, Caleb. I am not a murderer, despite what you might be imagining right now. It was a postpartum aneurysm that killed your mother. They are a tragic complication that does happen sometimes, and the result is usually fatal. Your father was devastated to lose her, but he wouldn’t part with you. He loved you because you were his son, and he wanted you to be raised as his son in the eyes of society, with all of the benefits that would come with his name.”
I couldn’t imagine the terrible emotion my father must have experienced when my birth mother suddenly died, leaving him with a newborn to raise. I looked over at Brooke and felt the stab of fear punch right through my gut. If I ever lost her there would be nothing left of me.
“He came to me humbled and begged me to take him back. We struck a deal, your father and I. I would claim you as my child, and he would never stray again during the course of our marriage. He would also give to me certain assets that would belong only to me—so I would never be under his thumb for money again and always in control of my own personal wealth, even if he lost everything he owned. The deed to Blackwater was one such provision. Fortunes are lost every day in the oil business. I had to make sure what I was getting would stand the test of time and hold its val
ue.”
I couldn’t fault her explanation. A fortune promised in exchange for claiming me as her own. Secrets kept . . . for a price.
“He moved us to Houston for two years so our friends wouldn’t question your birth after it was announced I was expecting. Everything was arranged, even your birth certificate was altered. People were paid to forget what they’d seen, if they were even aware. Good servants understand the value of turning a blind eye and your father made sure they were well compensated. By the time we returned to Boston, you were a little boy in the care of your nanny, because I was pregnant with twins and too ill to mother you. Nobody noticed. You looked just like JW, and so your parentage was accepted without doubt. People see what we want them to see, Caleb. And what they saw was a growing, happy family with a mother and a father.
“Your father did all of that for you, Caleb. He kept his promise to me, and in spite of what you might believe, I did love him very much and our marriage grew stronger after our tumultuous beginning because of our agreement. I did my best for you—the best that I was capable of giving you. I did not interfere with your relationship with your father or with your brothers and your sisters. You loved them all unconditionally, and they you—I could see that clearly.
“He didn’t want you to know. Even on his deathbed, your father made me promise never to tell you, because he was afraid you would lose respect for him. He was afraid for all of his children to lose their respect for him. JW was not the perfect man you’ve always believed him to be. He was flawed . . . as we all are. Until right now, I have kept my promise to my husband, and I never once betrayed him or h-his w-wishes,” she stammered slightly, “and regardless of what you think, Caleb, I have always thought of myself as your mother.”
She stood up from the table with all of the poise I’d known her to have throughout my life and tilted her head in my direction as an acknowledgment. “So you know the truth, son.” She addressed the rest of the people in the room. “Please excuse me, but I must say goodnight to all of you. Thank you for dinner, Caleb and Brooke, but I find myself suddenly very tired.” Then she walked out with her head held high. We heard the front door open and close a minute later.
We are a mother and a son who are not a mother and a son.
I didn’t feel the devastation I thought I should be feeling, because it was all shades of gray, wasn’t it?
A father in a desperate situation trying to make the best he could out of it.
A wife who had been betrayed in her marriage asked to cover up her husband’s mistakes.
A child completely unaware of anything different from what he’d always known.
Because really, my childhood had been good. I’d been a happy kid. I’d felt loved. I never remember feeling like I was set apart within the family, so I couldn’t fault her for excluding me in any way that had been recognizable to me as a child. She’d sent my brothers off to boarding school when they were ten, same as me. My sisters, too, when it was their turn. So, she’d hidden her resentment well. I guess my dad had loved me enough for the both of them. I was curious about my birth mother, though. She had been a British girl like my Brooke. Melody Rainford—a pretty name. I wanted to know more about her.
As I came out of my mental fog, I felt Brooke touching me, letting me know she was still with me as she rubbed my back with one hand and held my face with the other. She tugged on my cheek so I would turn to her. “Caleb, my love, how are you?”
“I am surprisingly well.” I gave her a small smile because I really felt it. “If I have you, I am fine.”
“You have me.”
“I love you, Brooke.”
She smiled back at me and offered up her lips to kiss me sweetly. “As I love you, my darling, and I want you to look around and see the whole roomful of people who also love you without question. It is a forever love, Caleb, that they all feel for you and you don’t ever have to doubt, okay?”
I regarded each of them. Lucas and Wyatt who looked completely shell-shocked; Willow and Winter with tears leaking out of their eyes; Herman and Ellen who seemed peacefully calm; my cousins who looked about on par with my brothers; James offering his unwavering support without question. Brooke was absolutely right, though. Nothing was going to change my relationships with any of them. They were still my brothers, my sisters, my uncle, my cousins, and my friend—my family would always be my family. Even Madelaine was still my mother—she was the only one I’d ever known and ever would know. Sadly, there was no changing that fact for either one of us.
We’d both have to deal with it and go forward. In time I hoped we’d be able to meet in the middle and find some peace. I’d had no choice in any of it, but I needed to remember that she did have a choice all those years ago. She could have told my father no and yet she hadn’t. She’d taken on the role of mother to her husband’s bastard love child for better or for worse.
It was all a pretty heavy concept for me to delve into right at this moment, but at least I didn’t feel like something was missing anymore. That odd sense of feeling lost but not really. All my life I’d sensed I was just a little bit off course from the rest of my family but with no real reason to justify why I should feel that way.
Still a savage mind fucking, though.
For everyone—not just me. I couldn’t forget that.
I stood up from the table and knew it was time to share with them all the real reason I’d wanted them to come tonight.
“I realize that was a helluva lot for everyone to take in just now. Not at all what I was expecting tonight when I invited you all here to share in a new venture. So let me just get this out there first, and then we can begin the lovefest, okay?”
Someone laughed.
Lucas broke the tension with, “I’ll always be your younger and much hotter brother!” in a salute with his beer bottle from across the table, and I knew it would all be fine.
I lifted my chin to let him know I appreciated his timely interruption and then focused.
Deep breath.
“My lovely wife has helped me to find a world I was missing out on before she rescued me.” I squeezed her hand and looked down at her sitting so elegantly and beautiful in her turquoise dress with our son growing stronger inside her every day as she waited for me to share her genius idea. I could never pay back fate for the gift of her into my life. I knew I would be forever in fate’s debt, so this was just one small way in which I could begin to even the score.
Everything I needed to live was right beside me.
She whispered, “My Caleb, I love you so very much.”
“I know you do,” I told her before returning to finish what I wanted to say to the rest of them. “A world where good efforts are made helping those who desperately need it. Not many have the resources and financial blessings I was born into, so I wanted to give something back. Blackwater has been sold off, yes, but not to just anyone—and not out of this family. The silent partner on the deed is really a nonprofit we set up called the Sanctuary at Blackwater. And I’m not talking about a sanctuary for wildlife. It was recently approved for a business license from the Massachusetts Department of Health and Human Services, and will begin moving forward with operations as soon as a governing board has been appointed. That’s where you all come in.” I focused my eyes on my sister. Winter was born for this job. I hoped she would take on the position of director, but if it was her choice not to accept, then I’d be okay with that, too. This would be a labor of love from all angles and only for those who felt so inspired. I merely wanted to offer my family the first opportunity to become involved with the project before going out into the community.
“Begin operations as a place for . . . ?” Winter asked hopefully.
“Women and children who need sanctuary,” I told her.
BROOKE’S eyes never left mine when I made love to her after everyone had gone. I needed the connection to her more than ever after the news I’d gotten tonight. She grounded me in a way that I realized was necessary for m
y future survival. Whatever had happened in the past didn’t define me, and it didn’t change me as the person I’d become. Only Brooke had been able to do that.
With our bodies flush as we lay side by side, I spoke to her belly, which was now slightly rounded with our little John William growing fast inside her. “How are you doing in there, son?” I asked.
We did this daily. I spoke to him, told him about my day, read the financial reports aloud to him, and generally made a nuisance of myself with his mother.
“He says he’s very proud of his daddy for being so generous and caring to help those who need it.” Brooke always answered for Johnny, and somehow I believed her words were his words. The whole thing was ridiculously believable to me.
“That’s nice of him to say so.”
“He’s a very nice boy . . . a great deal like his father from what I can tell.”
“I love you, Brooke. And I love you, Johnny,” I called down to him in the direction of her belly. “Just think, he already is beginning to know the sound of our voices—”
Brooke raised an eyebrow in question at my abrupt pause.
“I just figured out why I fell in love with you the moment I first heard you speak to me at that cocktail party.”
“I think I know why, now,” she said.
“Tell me your theory, baby.”
“You liked my accent because your mother spoke to you in the same British accent when she was carrying you inside her for nine months. Your subconscious memories recalled that long ago someone who sounded a lot like me loved you with all of her heart.”
“Do you think that’s possible?” I asked.
“I do, Caleb—and now you have me loving you with all of my heart.”
I kissed my sweet Brooke and thanked her for saving me in as many ways as I could show her. It would take the rest of my life probably, but I was up for the challenge. I had nothing else more important to do . . . than love her.
