“You’re right. I’m struggling with the letter.”
“The one you showed your dad before?”
“Yeah. I found it in my mom’s old trunk. It was hidden with several other letters that she had written to your father. Letters that professed her love to him and revealed that she never wanted any children, much less twins.”I started to sound bitter again.
“Shit. You read that in the other letters you found?”He was angry and shocked at the same time.
“Yes, I read that she had gotten pregnant to make your father jealous. I don't know, maybe she wanted him to leave your mom. I’m not sure, but I have a funny feeling she knew more about the adoption then her letters are letting on. I think she may have been the one who told your dad that your mom was never pregnant and pretended to give birth and that she adopted you while she was away. I can’t be sure of any of this, but I think she may have known who your real parents were.”
“Rain, your mom is gone and I’m sure that secret was buried with her when she died, if she even knew at all.”
“Perhaps you’re right, but I do have one more letter to read. The one addressed to me.”I leaned over and retrieved the letter from then night table and handed it to Dominick.
Dominick examined the envelope.
“An apology letter. It appears your mom may have had some regrets. Do you want to open it? Are you sure you’re ready for whatever your mom had to say to you?”Dominick was careful with me.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, but I can’t keep running away. I can’t be afraid of her. She can’t hurt me anymore. Besides, whatever is in that letter will finish this and it may even have information on your birth parents.”
“Rain, don’t do this for me. Read it for you.”
“I’m doing it for us. So we can move forward and bury the past where it needs to stay. Except this time when I bury it, I’ll have full knowledge of exactly what my mom was all about.”
“Do you want me to leave and give you some privacy.”He said as he pulled back to get off the bed.
I grabbed his t-shirt and pulled him to me.
“Not a chance, Mr. Kane. I want you here with me. I want you to hear my mom’s so-called apology. Will you stay?”I asked in the hopes that he would.
“Baby, I’ll be wherever you want me to be. If that’s right here, right now; you’ve got me.”He kissed my forehead and wrapped his arms around me tightly.
I held on hard and didn’t move for a long time. Then I reached in between us for the letter. We both sat up and I opened it carefully as if it would break. I think I may have been stalling, yet I was anxious all of a sudden. I took the letter out of the sealed envelope and stared at the handwriting. It was definitely from my mom.
“Here goes nothing.”I read it out loud to Dominick.
Dear Rain,
I’m sure that you have many questions that need to be answered about your childhood and I hope once you get to read this letter, it will do just that. I’m assuming that you have already figured out that I was in love with Vincent Kane long before I met your dad. If you didn’t know back then, once you've read the packet of letters in the trunk, you will know much of my story and I hope this note to you will clear everything thing up even further and hopefully give you the peace and closure you deserve.
This is going to be a long story, but I will try to stick with the facts and hope when you finish this that I will have made things much brighter for you. Brighter in your mind and with any luck, in your heart.
Vincent and I met when we were kids. We were together much of the time. Similar to the relationship you and Tommy had developed over the years. I was not confined in the way I had kept you, but Vincent and I definitely were attached at the hip. Unlike you and Tommy, we dated, we had feelings of more than just friendship. And we acted on them.
As we grew older, Vincent decided to go away to law school and I decided to stay at home. I studied at one of the local colleges. On one of our college breaks, Vincent had come home, but he was not alone. He was with Elise Polla. She had been a beautiful model and an acting student at the college he attended and she caught Vincent’s attention during his school year.
They were inseparable for much of that summer. I had become very bitter. We had always been together and then it seemed like overnight he just forgot about me. I will admit she was much more sophisticated than I was, but she was also very cunning and had no problem manipulating Vincent. I was so very hurt by his actions that I started to date his friend, Victor; your dad. He was warm and very caring in the beginning. He was definitely handsome, but all I ever wanted was Vincent. I thought by dating Victor, Vincent would become jealous. Vincent was my first and I thought he felt the same way about me, as I did about him. And that we would be together for the rest of our lives. I was very wrong.
When I knew that-that wasn’t going to happen and we weren’t going to be together, I became more involved with your dad and eventually agreed to marry him. I know I did it to continue to try to make Vincent jealous, but it never did. Vincent decided to marry Elise shortly after the announcement of your dad’s proposal to me. In fact, Vincent and Elise eloped before your dad and I were married.
Once we settled down as couples, Vincent and Victor spoke of starting a law firm together. Vincent took care of the international clients and Victor handled the practice in the States. After the business was established and doing tremendously well, Elise announce that she was pregnant. Again, I was livid. I had given Vincent my virginity, my girlhood, my entire childhood for that matter and she would give him the one thing that I never could, a child.
Vincent seemed so excited at first, but then his attitude changed and he started to distance himself from Elise. He met with me secretly and we would talk over his problems. I didn’t turn him away, even though I should have. I just couldn’t do it. I enjoyed the company. Your dad was so busy in the States and I had no one out here. I suppose I could have stayed in Manhattan with him on a full time basis, but as you know, men of power barely have time for their families. So I didn’t want to sit home and wait in Manhattan when I could stay in Italy where I was always at comfortable.
Vincent expressed to me that he felt Elise had changed. That she had grown bitter, even jealous of his work. She wanted to be a film star and was actively pursuing this at the beginning of their marriage. Yet much of her time was spent socializing with his clients here in Italy, at Vincent’s insistence. Vincent felt the presence of his wife made for happy clients. I assume from what Vincent said, Elise’s bitterness was from her failed career and she basically blamed him because she was busy pleasing his clients and lost many lucrative film opportunities in Rome over the time spent away from the industry.
On that one day that he originally came to me with much excitement and explained that Elise was pregnant, my heart dropped. We finally started to connect again. Although it was purely a platonic friendship, there was a familiar closeness between us. I was so angry with him. I felt he had used me again. I also felt that she had gotten pregnant to keep him and his money. Being that her career was a failure, she had no source of income except his. He appeared to be considering a divorce when I originally spoke with him, but then her pregnancy halted all further talk about a separation between them.
Elise had the baby while away on holiday. She was visiting her family in Palermo and her water broke earlier than expected. Vincent phoned me to let me know she gave birth to his son. He seemed very excited at the time. Then once Elise returned, he vowed to work on his marriage with her, we then has lost touch for awhile. Actually we lost touch for about four years.
Then I found out that I was pregnant with you and Raven. It wasn’t planned in any way and I was very unhappy in the beginning. Your dad and I had not been together that much, so my fear was that I would be raising both of you alone.
When Vincent found out about my pregnancy, he came to Capri to see how I was doing. I have to admit I lied and told him I was very happy, but scared. I painted a pictu
re of my marriage to your dad very differently from what it really was. Again I wanted him to be jealous. To see what he missed out on, but instead he was very happy for me and told me not to be frightened. He said that Victor would make a good father. Which Victor definitely was.
Once Vincent left Capri I vowed to work harder to make my marriage with your dad better. You see Rain, your dad was a good man, but he was so driven and much of the time emotionally and physically unavailable unless it was on his terms. I suppose you may feel it was because I didn’t live with him and that could be partially true, but as I said before; he was never around, so why should I have stayed in Manhattan when I was perfectly happy here in Italy. You may also wonder why I just didn’t leave him. In my own way, I did love him. He was strong and I needed that in my life.
Now looking back on it I guess I may have been a foolish girl, full of whimsical stories of romance floating in my head. I truly believed that kind of romance existed and perhaps it does. I just don’t think that kind of romance is in the hearts of men like Victor Medici or Vincent Kane. They like power, control and to be the center of attention. All of those things take up too much time. Time that other men spend with their families, but not these men.
During my pregnancy your dad made himself very available. He even surprised me with the house in Capri. I loved this house and although I kept you very limited because of your condition, I’m pretty sure you loved the house as well. At least I hope you did.
Once I gave birth to you and your sister, we found out about your condition and we both agreed it would be too much for me to raise both of you together in Capri alone, when your dad wasn't here much of the time. We decided I would move to the States permanently. Your dad also hired Theresa, so I would have help when he was working. It turned out that he was working all the time. We had a long talk and it was then decided that I would return to Capri with you and he would stay in the duplex in New York with Raven. He called our friends Mema and Antonio to eventually move in and work for us full time, instead of just coming to watch the house in Capri when we weren’t here.
I knew that originally I didn’t want children for fear that your dad wouldn’t be around and I was right. He wasn’t here. He stayed in Manhattan and continued to work. You may think it was because our lifestyle required that kind of money, but I think it was because it kept him closer to Theresa. I will never know for sure, but I think he had been having an affair with Theresa. She was there more than me. I know I brought that on myself, because of my obsession with Vincent, so I have no one to blame, but me.
Please believe me Rain, when I say I don’t blame him. I did’t live with him and he couldn’t possibly be the man he was and not have a woman in his life, in his bed. I also didn’t have a problem with it. It allowed me to stay where I was comfortable and allowed me to care for you all of the time. You were my saving grace. You gave me a reason to feel alive. To feel like I had a purpose. I always felt your unconditional love.
So as I was saying, I originally didn’t want children, but you made me want to be the best mother that I could be. If I could make you healthier and keep you safe, then I was doing my job. Over the years, I did confine you more than you needed. This was more for me than for you. You see Rain, you were all I had. I couldn’t let you slip away like your dad. I needed you as much as you needed me. Your dad had Raven, I had to have you close to me, always.
As you had gotten older, my hold on you grew weaker. You no longer needed to be on home rest and you were blossoming into a beautiful young woman. You were so adventurous. You feared nothing. I admired you and I was relieved to know that through all the my confinement of you, that you still loved life to the fullest. I am so proud of you, Rain.
I do have to admit to you that I did exaggerate your condition in the end. It was to keep you close to me. You did have to be careful, but not to the extent that I made it out to be. I’m so sorry for that.
Once I found out that I was sick, I did see doctors and things did improve, but only for a short time. I called Vincent and I told him. He came immediately. It made me happy to see that he still cared. He was always telling me to let you do more things. He even once said that I needed to set you free. That you needed to find your wings and fly. Secretly I knew you always had your wings. No one could ever clip them. You would have never let that happen, Rain. You loved life. You were always a passionate and feisty girl. You had a sparkle in your eyes that gave life to everything around you.
Once you left for college, my sadness became worse. Vincent did stay close and we reunited in friendship only. I can honestly say that was enough for me. I was tired and all I wanted was companionship and he gave me that. We discussed our lives and how foolish we both were. He said he married Elise because I had decided to marry Victor and I told him that I had married your dad because I was jealous of his relationship with Elise. We were very stubborn people. Our behavior got us nowhere.
He explained to me that he had found out that Elise lied about her pregnancy all of those years ago. She knew that he was going to divorce her, so she told him she was pregnant. She hid the fact that she was not pregnant very well. I had a feeling that she had gotten pregnant for the reasons I mention before. This confirmed I was right, but I had no idea she wasn't really pregnant and that she created such and elaborate plan to keep Vincent as her husband.
Vincent was traveling a great deal back and forth from Europe to the States, so I guess he didn’t question the fact that the intimacy that disappear from their marriage prior to the pregnancy (or fake pregnancy, as the case may be) had not returned when she announce that she was having his child. He told me that he had decided back then that once Elise had the baby, he would try to make the marriage better.
In the beginning, I guess it did improve because as I had said I hadn’t spoken with him until I became pregnant with you and your sister. Even after your birth, Vincent’s visits were brief. Then your dad told me that Vincent and Elise separated. I was surprised, yet somewhat relieved because I never thought she was right for him in the first. Vincent said that Elise took the baby from his real parents and that she blackmailed them to keep them quiet. I don’t really know all of the details, but nevertheless he did find out and he eventually did leave her and the child.
Although he was a proud man, he still supported Elise and their son until Dominick was on his own. Vincent had told me he tried to work out the strained relationship between him and his son, but Dominick wasn’t having it. He sided with his mother. No doubt Elise poisoned Dominick’s head with lies against Vincent.
I know you always loved Mr. Kane. He never liked the fact that I controlled your life and he reminded me of that constantly. When I became sick, he told me that he was going to leave his share of Kane & Medici to you. He felt that should anything happen to him, you would honor his wishes and take care of the business in a proper manner. I may have over stepped here because I know he and your dad have all of that paperwork figured out and hidden away. I just wanted you to be aware of it. For once, I needed to be truthful.
Rain, I’ve kept many things from you and I’ve kept you from many things in life. I won’t know once I’m gone whether Vincent told you about the arrangement or if he decided to leave that to your dad should Vincent pass away. I do know one thing, though. We were very foolish and we should have just told the truth. All of our lies created what our lives had become and affected our children in the most unforgiving way. I know from what Vincent has told me, that Dominick has become bitter and is seeking revenge against him. Vincent loves his son, adopted or not; but all of the lies have torn them apart. From what I understand, Dominick doesn’t know he was ever adopted. Another hidden lie from the adults in your life.
The same goes for our family. If I just didn’t lie or be deceitful, maybe we could have worked everything out. Sure your dad and I created a loving home for you girls when we were together and we tried to create a stable atmosphere when we lived apart, but what kind of life was that. It was
wrong and we were the adults. We did nothing to improve it for our children. We just were concerned about ourselves. We were selfish and I just hope our actions haven’t tainted you in a bad way. Like the way Vincent and Elise’s actions affected Dominick. You never met Dominick because of the strain between everyone, but he’s also a brilliant attorney and a very successful one from what Vincent tells me. He is extremely proud of his son and what he has become and made of his life. Regardless of the animosity that is present in their relationship right now.
This brings me to my apology. I am so very sorry that my actions and the selfishness that was created in a not so perfect life for you. Please know that I loved you and your sister Raven from the day you were born. My obsessive behavior caused all of this darkness and now that I know my life is ending, I need you to know that I was wrong and I am truly sorry. I regret so much. I regret that I don’t get to share our life together. I held you back for too long. I want you to be free, Rain. I want you to live your life to the fullest. I hope you get to experience many new things and I hope you get to love fearlessly like I never did.
You’re my beautiful angel. I’m so sorry for the choices I made for you. I hope that your wings aren’t clipped forever from my past decisions, but that they were only temporarily tied down and that now you are finally free. My hope is that you will forgive me, Rain. I love you with all that is pure and good inside of me and although I may be gone in body, I will always watch over you and forever protect you with my soul.
Identity: …………..People aren’t always who you believe them to be (Miss Taken Identity Series Book 2) Page 18
