31. Emily
I’d love to meet your parents…
Those were the last words I’d expected to hear from Travis Ross. Yes, he had made his feelings known to me and I believed him. Regardless, meeting my parents still felt like a gigantic leap in our new relationship.
Nonetheless, he kept asking until I called my parents and arranged a time for them to meet me and the man I still could not believe was describing himself as my boyfriend.
“Hello? Mom?” I started, my voice shaky.
“Hi my baby, how are you? It’s rare for you to call. You usually just text.”
“I’m fine mom… I wanted to come home to introduce my boyfriend to you and… dad.”
“A boyfriend?!” I pressed my lips together at my mom’s excitement. “David! Emily has a boyfriend she wants to bring home!”
“Really? That’s such great news! Finally!” I heard my stepdad’s voice.
I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. They were acting like it was a miracle that I was in a relationship. They agreed to see Travis and I pretty easily.
They knew nothing about Travis, and I wasn’t about to tell them who he was. I wondered if they’d recognize him when they saw him.
Two weeks had passed since we nearly died, and I was finally starting to feel like myself again. Most of the injuries I’d suffered had turned to barely visible bruises, and my headaches had completely disappeared. I still had to be careful how I moved my shoulder, but I was getting used to moving in ways that avoided the pain.
The small scar it left was physical proof to me of what I had survived. Every time I looked at the scar in the mirror, it reminded me of how strong I was.
Travis had been a model partner while I recovered. While the doctor had said I was good to go, Travis insisted that I got off my feet and allow him to take care of me.
I attempted to recall the last occasion when someone else had taken care of me. It had been during my childhood, before the actions of Ross senior.
For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t have any deadlines bearing down on me. It felt strange. I’d been so focused on destroying the Ross brothers, it’d become an identity for me. It had fueled me, it drove me. It gave me purpose.
Now I had Travis. I was happy. But what would I do with the rest of my life?
For now, I just focused on being happy. Travis made himself as available as he could outside of his work duties, and he made sure I had everything I could possibly want. It was both charming and annoying when he doted on me, but he looked so happy, I couldn’t possibly ask him to stop.
We spent a lot of time just talking and getting to know each other better. There were parts of him that were completely alien to me, and it was shocking to realize how much I didn’t know about him. He seemed to have the same realization about me, realizing he knew very little about my early career or my past love life.
I giggled in shock when I learned about some of his youthful escapades, when he and his rich kid friends had liked to test the limits of what they could get away with. He could spend hours talking about his plans for his foundation, and his face always lit up when he did it. He knew that he could not go back in time and change the things that his father had done. However, he intended to do his best to give those families a chance to try again.
I’d been trying to bury the man for the sins of his father. I’d been too blind to see that the man had spent his adult life fixing another man’s mess. Just like I had spent mine trying to bring the same man to justice. In a strange way, we had a lot in common.
I felt a small sadness every time I realized how close I’d come to selling him out to Jonathan and Bryce Blackwell. When I said as much to him, he casually brushed it off.
“It’s not your fault,” he”d said. “You had no reason to think better of me. And when you found out what that drive contained, you were willing to protect me with your life. That’s what I choose to see. That’s all that matters to me.”
Oh, Travis, I thought to myself, blushing, you sweet, charming man.
Finally, the big day came: time for Travis to meet my parents. I was in the bathroom of his luxurious penthouse, fidgeting with my hair, when he knocked on the door.
I turned to see Travis poking his head through. “Well, are you ready yet? We really need to get going.”
“Err, sure. Give me five minutes?”
He nodded and shut the door softly behind him. In all honesty, I’d been ready over thirty minutes ago, but I was terribly nervous. My mother had lost at least as much as I had to Travis’s father, and I couldn’t imagine her reaction upon realizing which Travis was dating her daughter. My mother, having suffered as much as I had at the hands of Travis”s father, would be shocked to discover that her daughter was dating that very Travis.
I’d told her I’d gotten injured on the job, but not that I’d been saving Travis Ross in the process. I was too afraid to explain to her who he really was.
I took a deep breath and grabbed my purse from the counter. There was no point delaying anymore, I just wanted to get the afternoon over with. The sooner I got out there, the better.
I found Travis at the foot of the stairs, hunched over his phone and wearing an annoyed frown.
“Anything wrong?” I asked over his shoulder.
He jumped and turned around to face me, smiling. “Nothing serious, just work. You look wonderful.” He looked me up and down as if he had just seen me for the first time. He held me at arm’s length and examined me, beaming.
“Thank you,” I said timidly, blushing a furious red as he inspected me.
The drive to my parents’ house passed by in a blur. One moment I was stepping out of Travis’ front door, and the next moment I was ringing the bell at my parents’.
I turned to Travis and smiled nervously as we waited for someone to answer the door. He was bursting with energy and I could feel it pumping into me like electricity. “You seem… excited.” I murmured to him.
“I am,” he admitted.
“Okay… care to tell me why?”
“You’ll find out soon enough, darling.” He smiled and kissed my forehead just as the front door swung open.
“Here they are!” My mother’s excited voice brought a smile to my face as she greeted us.
“Hi, mom.” I hugged her, wincing when she squeezed my shoulder too tight.
“Oh, dear. I’m sorry. I forgot about your injuries.” She turned to Travis. “And who is this? You look familiar…”
“Mom,” I murmured. “This is Travis. Travis… Ross.”
My mother’s mouth formed a round “o” of surprise as she put his name and face together. Mom knew exactly who the Rosses were. She had never been as vehement with her feelings and opinions as I was, but she knew that Ross Senior was responsible for the downfall of our first family.
“Oh! Well, um…Travis. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Her smile had cooled a little bit, but I could see her shoving all of her preconceptions about the Ross family out of her head. “I’ve heard… wonderful things about you.”
“The pleasure is all mine. Thank you for having me.” He smiled and accepted the tentative hug my mother offered.
“Hey, dad,” I smiled awkwardly as my stepdad walked carefully down the front steps behind my mom. “How are you doing?”
“I have good days and bad days,” he said as he hugged me. “Today is a great one.”
“Please, come inside. Where are my manners?” My mom bustled inside like a mother hen, fussing about every little thing. The way the pillows sat on the couch, the invisible dirt on the spotless coffee table, the nonexistent smudge on the wooden floor.
“Hope you came with an empty stomach! I cooked enough food to feed a small army.”
She hadn’t exaggerated. The dining table was covered with a scary amount of food. Travis clapped in delight and thanked my mom profusely. “This all smells delicious!”.
He led me to a seat and helped me into it before taking his own. He went on to stuff more food than I’d ever seen one person eat before down his throat. I watched my mother fall slowly and irrevocably in love with his innocent enthusiasm.
I watched in a daze as Travis conversed freely with my parents, making them laugh and joining in when they made jokes.
They looked like old friends at a reunion. Every time someone said something to me, I gave a delayed response, as if I wasn’t really in the room with them.
Travis held my hand the whole time, rubbing his thumb gently on the back of my hand. At the end of the meal, he offered to help my mom in the kitchen, and she had to shut the door to keep him from helping her with the dishes.
“Your parents are awesome,” he said when we returned to the living room for tea. I watched his eyes for a long moment. He really did mean it. He wasn’t just patronizing me. It felt so good I wanted to scream.
“Thank you,” I whispered. He kissed my forehead. When my parents came into join us, he stood up.
“I’d like to thank you again for your hospitality and kindness. I was hoping you could follow me for a short drive. There’s something I’d love to show you. I promise, it’s not going to take too much of your time.”
My parents exchanged a look. “Lead the way then,” my mother said, looking intrigued.
Travis held the door for them to get into the backseat of his Maserati, then helped me into the passenger’s seat. We made small talk in the car as he drove, but like me, my parents watched the streets outside, thinking the same thing. Where on Earth was he taking us?
He hadn’t mentioned anything about this to me, as was probably obvious to my parents by the confused look I gave him at the invitation.
Travis veered off the highway into a suburban neighborhood with young trees lining the streets. He parked on the street in front of a massive house with a short hedge wall.
“Here we are,” he announced delightedly. “We shouldn’t be long.” He opened the car doors for my parents and led us up to the house. He knocked and then opened the door, ushering us inside.
I gave him a curious look, wondering whose house this was. We turned in to the living room and my heart almost stopped.
On a massive banner that covered the entire wall, was written, “WELCOME HOME, MR. AND MRS. SKYE.”
My parents froze, looking up at the banner with their name on it in shock. Travis produced a file and a pen, seemingly from thin air, and held it in front of my dad.
“Congratulations. The house is fully bought and paid for in your name, and all you have to do is sign here.” He indicated with the pen. “It’s a short drive from my penthouse, so you can see your daughter whenever you want.”
I could hear Travis speaking, but his words didn’t make any sense to me. My parents were still frozen, and my stepdad’s hand shook violently as he took the proffered pen.
Travis kept speaking as if he didn’t notice that we had all lost our tongues. “The house is fully staffed, and there’s a trust set up to pay the staff so you don’t have to worry about that. The car out there in the driveway belongs to you as well. It comes with a driver, an ex-Marine. For your convenience and safety.”
My mother blinked in confusion and finally managed to speak. “We can’t accept this,” she whispered, still staring at the banner. “No, Mr. Ross. We can’t accept this. It’s… too much.”
I agreed with her. This was all too much. It was too much to swallow. Too much to process. We would feel indebted to him forever.
“It’s not,” Travis replied frankly. “I’ve done the math. If your husband’s business had succeeded.”
He looked directly at my mom, “You would probably be millionaires by now. My father took that away from you. But I’m fortunate enough to have it in my power to give it back.”
My mother looked like she needed someone to pick her jaw up off the floor.
Before any of us could speak, Travis pulled out another folder. He handed it to my stepdad. David blinked rapidly, looking from the folder to Travis and back to it again before accepting it from Travis.
“In there is a receipt for the full payment of all your outstanding medical bills. I’ve also transferred your treatment to a private hospital, and your medical bills have been fully paid for there. You’d find all the details you need in there.”
My mom started crying first. My stepdad flipped through the file in his hands slowly, still in disbelief. When he finished going through all the papers, the tears poured out of his eyes too as the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders.
He hugged my mom and together they wept. They laughed and cried at the same time, but they said no words. There were no words to be said.
In ten minutes, Travis had changed their lives forever. He’d changed all our lives. I turned to look at him and saw he was watching my parents, smiling to himself. The deed was its own reward.
I finally understood why he had set out to do all those reparations. It wasn’t just to ease his conscience as I’d initially thought. He did it because it pleased him to give back to people.
“Thank you,” I said, taking his hand. My vision blurred and I felt the tears flowing, hot on my cheeks. “This isn’t me thanking you as your girlfriend, but as a person. Thank you so much.”
“Hey, come on.” He pulled me close into a hug and wiped my face. “It’s alright… It’s alright.”
I wrapped my arms around him as the dam collapsed. The tears flowed freely and all I could say to him over and over again was “thank you.”