The Chase, Volume 4

by Jessica Wood

  “I…” He blinked. “She kissed me, but I didn’t kiss her back. It all happened so fast, I was shocked when it happened.”

  Waves of confusion crashed through me as I tried to make sense of what he was telling me. I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t try to rationalize what you just did. The two of you kissed. That shit just doesn’t happen!”

  He flinched at my words and his face feel into a sunken despair. “No, you’re right. This doesn’t just happen. There is a reason it had happened, and it’s something I’ve wanted to tell you since that night you brought Katherine over to my place.”

  His words were more than I could take. He had just admitted there was indeed something going on. I felt sick to my stomach as the image of Dean and Katherine kissing replayed in my head. Suddenly the room began to sway back and form. I braced my hand against the wall as the room spun around me. “Oh God,” I moaned, “I need to throw up.”

  “Blair?” Dean’s alarmed voice came rushing toward me.

  “Don’t touch me!” I screamed as I pushed him and stumbled toward the bathroom.

  “Blair, you look sick. Please let me take care of you.” Dean’s face twisted in agony as he reached for my arms.

  “What the fuck, Dean! What the fuck!” I screamed as my hands pounded against his chest as I felt myself spiral deeper and deeper into a state of crazed frenzy.

  Just then Katherine walked up to us and I saw a triumphant smile spread across her face. “For the record, little sister, I didn’t steal Dean away from you. You’re simply having some fun with my leftovers. So if there was any sort of ‘sister code’ for dating, I’d say you’re the one that broke it.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Katherine,” Dean interjected. “Haven’t you done enough damage? She’s your sister! Do you have no compassion!”

  Their words and Dean’s angry expression sent my world into a tailspin. Her leftovers? I broke the sister code? I looked at Katherine, unable to response. I then turned to Dean, searching his face for answers. I saw the guilt, betrayal, and fear splashed across his face and knew Katherine was telling the truth.

  “Blair, please let me explain,” he plead as he approached me.

  It was then that all my crazed anger gave way to intense unbearable pain. I pushed past Dean and Katherine and ran as fast as I could toward the bathroom. Dean raced after me but he was too late. I slammed the bathroom door right on his face and immediately locked the door.

  My heart ached and I gasped for air. I felt everything inside me shatter into a million little pieces, with each shard of my being seemed cutting against my insides, causing an overwhelming intensity of pain that my body began to feel numb and detached.

  How had things turned out like this? In a matter of minutes, my lost-long older sister had become more of a stranger to me than she was the second we had met over a week ago.

  “Blair, please can we talk?” came Dean’s voice from the other side of the door.

  “Please just go home, Dean. I want to be alone.”

  “Josh and Katherine are gone now. Please let’s just sit down and talk about this. I need to explain this to you. Baby, this is a misunderstanding.”

  "How is any of this a misunderstanding?” I spat, feeling the anger take over my every thought. “Are you telling me nothing has ever happened between you two!"

  “Blair, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “Answer my fucking question, Dean! For once in your life, can you tell me the complete truth? It’s a simple yes or no question. Do you two have a history?”

  “Yes,” he mumbled. “I was going to tell you everything, Blair.”

  I scoffed in disbelief. “Right, and when exactly were you planning on dropping this bomb? It’s been over a week! And this entire time, I thought I had done something wrong to upset you, that it was my fault things were so awkward the night I introduce you two.”

  “Please, Blair. I fucked up. I wanted to tell you the day you brought Katherine to my place, but she twisted things around and I…I was afraid if I said anything at the wrong time, I’d lose you forever.”

  “I don’t even know how to respond right now, Dean. I feel so betrayed and hurt. You just broke my heart.”

  “I am going to tell you everything, Blair, and I’m going to tell you now.”

  I didn’t respond, but waited for him to continue. For the next half hour, Dean told me about his past with Katherine over a decade ago, about how she was his first love and pattern, about how he had flew to LA to propose to her, about how he found out she had cheated on him, and about how he had transformed into the anti-relationship playboy.

  After he finished his story, I no longer felt anger toward him. While I was upset that he hadn’t told me sooner, my anger was directed toward Katherine and fate for putting us into this situation.

  I finally opened the door to the bathroom and saw Dean stumped against the other side of it. He nearly fell backwards as the door opened.

  He got up immediately and grabbed my hands. “Blair, I’m so sorry. I fucked up. I should have told you sooner. I…I just didn’t want to lose you. You had just met your long-lost sister, someone you’re connected to by blood. I guess…I guess I was worried that at the end of the day, you’d pick her over me.”

  “Dean,” I began softly. “I want to be honest with you…”

  I saw his body tense at my words.

  “I really need time to think through all this. My head is spinning at everything I found out tonight. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  I met his gaze and saw the pain on his face—it was the same pain I had in my heart. How had everything between us gone so wrong? How was it possible that my long lost sister was Dean’s ex-girlfriend, the one that had broke his heart years ago.

  “Blair,” he begged. “This changes nothing about how I feel about you. I want you in my life, not her. I’ll do anything to make it right. Please.”

  I shook my head as tears streamed down my face. “That’s just it, Dean. There’s nothing you can do to change things. There are some hard, cold facts that we have to face. Katherine is my biological sister and will probably be around in my life. Katherine was your first love, the one you were going to propose to, and the one that had broke your heart. You can’t deny the fact that you hadn’t dated anyone since her. She had hurt you that much. I…” I looked away from him and whispered, “I don’t know how to reconcile these two faucets of my life. I don’t know how we can coexist.”

  “But how can you think about letting her into your life after what I’ve told you about her?” Confused and pain fought for space upon his face.

  I sighed. “I’m not ready to give up on her yet. She’s my sister, my real sister. Everything she’d done that hurt you is in the past and that was over ten years ago, Dean. People grow up. People change.”

  “She hasn’t changed!” he cut in.

  “You don’t know that. When you look at her, all you see is the person that hurt you the most in life. I remember the day I met her, she mentioned you during lunch. She told me you were the love of her life, and she had taken you for granted. She told me that she was young and stupid, and letting you go was the biggest mistake of her life. And from what she told me, after things ended with you two, she had a pretty rough life.” Tears cascaded down my cheeks as I tried to imagine how it would have been like to have to go through everything Katherine had.

  Dean shook his head. “You’re too kind and forgiving of a person, baby. She doesn’t deserve that from you.”

  “Dean, she’s my sister. She doesn’t just deserve it, but I owe it to her.”

  “Baby, don’t think like that.”

  “Stop,” I raised my hand to motion for him to stop talking. “Dean I’m really tired. I have a lot to think about.” I paused. “I don’t think we should see each other right now.” My heart lurched as I heard the words come out of my mouth.

  Dean didn’t say a word, but simply looked at me in shock. The torment a
nd despair across his face was more than I could bear.

  I walked him to my door and hugged him goodbye.

  “Can I call you?”

  “I don’t know.” I looked away, trying to hide the tears in my eyes.

  “Please.” There was an unnerving desperation in his voice that broke my heart all over again.

  I finally nodded, but added, “But if I’m not ready to talk, I might not pick up. I hope you can forgive me if that happens.”

  “I’ll really miss you, Blair.” He hugged me.

  “Me too,” I managed to choke out.

  As soon as I closed the door behind him, I slide down to the cold, hard floor. I grabbed my knees tightly and hugged myself, trying to somehow numb out the ache I felt in my heart.

  I wasn’t sure how long I had stayed in that position, but at some point, I had cried myself to sleep. I didn’t get up from that floor until the next morning when my phone buzzed to life in my pocket. I jolted awake, half-hoping that it was Dean who was calling me.

  But it wasn’t.

  “Hi, Trent. What time is it?”

  “Hey, Blair. I’m sorry, it’s 8:15 AM. Did I wake you?”

  “No it’s fine. What’s up?”

  “I need you to come over as soon as possible.”

  “Why?” I sat up in full alert. I could hear a sense of urgency in his voice. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m at Dad’s house right now.”

  Fear washed over me. “Is Dad okay?”

  “Yes, he’s fine. I didn’t mean to startle you. I have good news. He seems to have retained a large part of his mobility and speech ability in the past two weeks.”

  “Oh my God, that’s great news, Trent!” I beamed at the news and for that moment, I had forgotten about Dean and Katherine’s betrayal.

  “Yeah. So Blair, I think it’s time we told him about me and Katherine.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Trent

  “Looks like I missed a lot recently.” Bill looked between me and Blair as we sat on adjacent couches in the living room.

  We had spent the last hour recounting everything that’d happened recently. Blair had tried to sugar-coat through the part where I tried to sabotage her position at Parker, Inc., but I hadn’t felt right about it. As much as I wanted to be a part of Parker, Inc., I couldn’t find any glory in being reaccepted as a part of the family, or even a part of Parker, Inc., if the man who I once thought was my father—the man who I looked up to, the man who I worked so hard to impress—didn’t know the whole truth of what had happened and the grave errors in judgment I’d made along the way.

  “Dad, we really wanted to tell you sooner, but we wanted to make sure you were in good health and could voice your thoughts and opinions once you knew everything.”

  “That was very thoughtful of you, Blair.”

  I watched Bill look at his daughter with pride and love, and a dull ache inside my chest reminded me of what I did have, and what I will never have—a father who’d look at me in that same way.

  “Trent played an instrumental part too,” Blair tried to add to share some of the credit. This was something she’d often done when we were growing up. While I appreciated it, I always wished that she would just take complete ownership over something great she’d done.

  “Don’t listen to Blair, Bill. I probably did more harm than good.”

  Bill looked at me and smiled. “Son, you know I never thought it was polite to call your old man by his first name.”

  What was implied in his words stung me to a halt, and the word “son” rang in my ears like a beautiful melody.

  “Sorry, Dad.” We shared a knowing look and I saw Blair beam at us from the corner of my eyes.

  “So I’m glad you guys decided to tell me about what you recently discovered about Trent and Katherine because there’s something that I’ve been waiting for a long time to tell you.”

  “What is it?” My eyes grew wide as I looked at Bill. Blair and I exchanged a quick glance before we looked back to Bill.

  “I knew about Katherine before you guys told me today.”

  I heard Blair let out an audible gasp, mirroring the same surprise I felt inside. This revelation was the last thing I’d expected from Bill. If he already knew, why did he keep me around?

  “When? How? Why didn’t you say anything?” I heard myself ask in quick intervals.

  Bill chuckled. “Slow down, Son. I’m going to tell you everything.”

  “Dad, you must know this is quite a shock for both me and Trent.” The shocked expression hadn’t left Blair’s face. “Can you start from the beginning?”

  “So when you were about ten, Trent, I had my tax account do an audit of all my financial accounts. It was when I was thinking of taking Parker, Inc. public and I wanted to make sure all my financial records and transactions would pass scrutiny by the SEC. Anyway my accountant notified me that in the bank account I had set up for you and your mother, there was a monthly check payment for a substantial amount of money that went back as far as three years. The accountant knew that I’d paid for your mother’s house and car, so the monthly payments to a random individual I’ve never heard of raised some red flags. I had it looked into and found out that your mother was sending money to a family on a monthly basis. I confronted her and that was when she told me what she had discovered three years earlier—that you were accidentally switched at birth with our biological daughter. Your mother told me that she couldn’t bear to give you up so she started paying them off monthly to keep quiet.”

  “But,” I couldn’t help but to interrupt his story, “My mom said in one of her letters that what happened was a secret and you didn’t know. Why would she tell me that if it wasn’t true?”

  “Your mother and I disagreed on whether or not to tell you. She went back and forth on whether or not to tell you. At the time, I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell you. I thought it’d affect you and your relationship with your mom, Blair, and me. I had told your mother that if she wanted to continue to pay the monthly payments to the other family, she couldn’t get me involved or tell anyone that I knew about the payoffs. I didn’t want this to cause legal issues for the company if it was discovered that the CEO was not only involved in the scandal but used the company profit’s to fund the monthly payoffs.”

  “Oh.”

  “But now that you know a lot of what happened, there’s no longer a reason to keep it from you.”

  “What do you mean ‘a lot of what happened?’ What else is there?”

  “That’s the part I wanted to tell you today. A few years after I discovered the secret your mother was hiding, I talked with your mother and we made a decision.”

  “What was it?” Blair’s eager voice cut in. I could tell she was just as eager to find out everything as I was.

  “Your mother and I decided to legally adopt you, and the other family had legally adopted Katherine. We had promised that they would continue receiving their monthly payments for the rest of their lives. I also created a separate living trust for Katherine so that she would be well provided for once she reached the age of twenty-five. However, she would not have entitlement to Parker, Inc.”

  “A living trust?” Blair’s voice piped up again. “So she’d get monthly payments sent directly to her, not her parents, when she reached twenty-five?”

  “Exactly. Even though she wasn’t a part of my life, she was still my fresh and blood. I set a multi-million trust fund for her and made sure she received a sizable monthly allowance so that she could live comfortably even if she never worked a day in her life.”

  “But?”

  I saw the confusion on Blair’s face and wondered what she thinking. But before I could ask, her expression changed and she dropped her question.

  “Dad?” I looked at Bill, my mind full of questions I’d like to ask him.

  “Yes, Son?”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “Why did you and mom decide to adopt me?”

  �
�Son, what are you getting at?” He furrowed his brows in confusion.

  “What I mean is, when you found out Katherine was your biological child, why didn’t you use the money you probably had to use on the formal adoption to get her back? You wouldn’t have to create that trust fund for her and all those monthly payments to her parents would have stopped.”

  “Oh, Trent. You still don’t get it, do you? After all these years, I thought you’d eventually understand.”

  “Understand what?” I glanced at Blair for answers, who shrugged in response.

  “You’re my son, not Katherine.”

  I stared at him blankly.

  He shook his head. “I was the one that suggested to your mother that we should legally adopt you. We talked and both agreed that, to be fair to everyone involved, we can only pick one child between the two of you to call our own, and to love unconditionally as our own.”

  I felt a swarm of emotions evade me as I took in his words. “And you picked me?”

  He smiled and nodded.

  Tears welled up in my eyes. “But…I thought you never cared for me.”

  “And why would you think that?”

  I saw the genuine hurt on his face in response to my words and I was shamed by a wave of guilt. “You were always so tough on me. Blair seemed to be the perfect child in your eyes, but you never really acknowledged any of my accomplishments. I grew up trying so hard to make you proud of me.” I blinked violently as tears fell from my eyes.

  “Son,” he beamed at me, “I wish you wouldn’t be so hard on yourself. I wish you could see what I see. I’ve always loved you like you were my own. I was always tough on you because I wanted to cultivate you into the future CEO of Parker, Inc. when I officially step down. I am proud of you, so much so that I feel so confident leaving you in charge of our family company.”

  I looked into his eyes and even though he gave me the same look he’d always gave, it looked different now. For the first time in my life, I saw the same look of pride and love that I’d always seen him give to Blair—that same look that I’d craved my entire life. It wasn’t until now that I realized my father had always looked at me that way. It was me who had been the one to shut him out.