24. Gage #2
“He has two sisters and a brother. All younger.”
“You don’t know your aunts and uncle?”
“I know them as much as I know my half-brothers.”
The most over-the-top soap opera doesn’t measure up to this unbelievable story.
“The following school year, I was shipped to Switzerland,” she says.
“Once I graduated from boarding school, I moved to Paris to attend university. My father has an apartment in Paris, but he bought me another one because God forbid, we’d share a roof.
Someone might learn of his dirty little secret and that would be so, so bad.
Now, I live in New York, in a house my father bought me on the Upper East Side.
He lives on the Upper West Side––the opposite side of Manhattan Island. ”
I’m incredulous.
“Fisher Edgington has gone out of his way to pretend I don’t exist,” she says.
“He’s done such a smashing job of it, he forgot my twenty-first birthday.
He hasn’t been keeping score of the milestones in my life—unlike my half-brothers.
He’s so obsessed with his sons, he knows how many times a day they burp.
” The statement is coated with bitterness.
“How did Fisher meet your mom? They’re from different worlds.”
“A few months after turning eighteen, armed with a high-school degree, Mama moved to Florida with her older sister. They set their sights on Miami. They figured working at a five-star hotel—even if it was as room service staff—was the closest they’d get to living a glamorous life.”
“Your father was a guest at the hotel?”
“Yes. He was in Miami for an extended three-month business trip. He spotted Mom and he had to have her. My mother fell for him, not knowing he was married because he never told her and he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring—there wasn’t even a tan line.”
Asshole cheater.
“It’s only when she got pregnant, and told my father, she found out he was married and had another family in New York.
She was devastated. He made promises to help her out financially, but made it clear, they’d never be together.
Mama moved back home because Miami was too expensive for a single mom with insignificant job experience.
Her sister stayed behind, because she was dating this guy and things were getting serious.
Soon after returning to Alabama, Mama got another surprise after her first doctor’s appointment. She was pregnant with twins?—”
“You have a sister or a brother?”
“I had .”
Past tense. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t remember my sister. She died when we were five months old. She suffered from a birth defect. Identical twins get hit with the same health issues since we share the same DNA, but in this case, I was spared.”
Jesus. “Where was your father in all of this?”
“He was in the picture until Mama announced she was carrying twins. It became a little too real and a little too overwhelming—he stopped coming down to visit her in Alabama.”
“Your father never sent money?”
“He did for a while, but that dried up at some point.”
“Was he aware of your mom’s dire situation? After all, he knew she was a young single mom.”
“He didn’t care if I went to school on an empty stomach most days, or if Mom had bought my clothes from thrift stores because Walmart was too expensive, or if the landlord would look at me like I was a slice of chocolate cake when he’d come knock on our door, demanding the rent money that was always late.
Nope. Those were none of my father’s concerns. ”
Although not a billionaire, Fisher is extremely rich. He wouldn’t have struggled financially. Why not step up to the plate?
Fucking deadbeat dad.
“At least your father manned up after your mother passed away.”
She sneers. “Mama didn’t leave him a choice.”
“How come?”
“Mama didn’t date for most of my life. Around the time I was about to turn twelve, she met this guy.
He was good to her and to me. I was excited at the prospect of having a father figure.
He wanted to rewrite Mama’s story. On their one-year anniversary of dating, he planned a trip to Miami.
I stayed behind with Mama’s best friend and her kids.
I remember waving them off before they hit the road.
Then, a few days later, Mama’s best friend is telling me Mama would never come back…
because she was in Heaven.” Her voice breaks.
“Mom and her boyfriend died in an accident on their way back home.”
I place a hand over hers. “If it hurts too much, you don’t have to continue.”
She offers a sad smile. “That’s sweet of you to say, but it’s only a wave of melancholy. It happens when I recount my story.”
Been there. Done that.
I tuck a strand of long hair behind her ear. “Only if you’re sure.”
She nods.
“Okay,” I say.
“A couple weeks after Mama’s passing, her best friend announced I’d be moving to New York to live with my father. I assumed I’d be staying with her. I knew nothing about legal matters surrounding a parent’s death and what that meant to the child.”
“You had to deal with the death of your mother and a man who was going to step in as a father figure. On top of that, you found out you had to leave Alabama to live with a father you didn’t know. That’s a lot for a kid to handle.”
“It was.” She nods. “I asked Mama’s best friend why I couldn’t stay with her. She told me Mama made sure I’d be taken care of if anything were to happen to her. My grandfather was never in the picture and my grandma had passed away when I was a kid.”
“What about your mom’s older sister?”
“The boyfriend she stayed behind for in Miami turned out to have a side hustle for a drug lord. It’s not clear what he did to piss off the kingpin, but he ended up with a bullet between his eyes. My aunt suffered the same fate.”
My eyes widen in shock.
“Yeah, it’s pretty gruesome,” she says. “Mama made sure I had an insurance policy—one my father couldn’t dispute.”
“How did she manage that?”
“My aunt was ordinary looking, but Mom was incredibly pretty when she was young?—”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Lily blushes. “Thank you.”
“Sorry I interrupted you.”
“That’s okay. Even after he fessed up about being married, my father couldn’t stay away. He was taken with her. Mama wised up real fast. She pulled a soap opera stunt.”
“A what?”
“DNA testing. She stole his toothbrush, hairbrush… and even underwear.”
I whistle. “She wasn’t leaving anything to chance.”
“She took things one step further.”
“Blood samples?”
She laughs a little. “She took photos of my father sleeping when they were together in bed. She kept the incriminating details in a small suitcase. When she died, her best friend knew what to do. Tracking down my father wasn’t that complicated, given his status.
A couple weeks after Mom passed away, Henry, the butler, came to take me to New York. ”
“Jesus, you didn’t even know the guy.”
“I didn’t know my father either at the time. I had never met him. I only knew of him. In fact, I thought Henry was my father until he corrected me.”
I shake my head. Unbelievable.
“We flew together to Connecticut—my first time on a plane.” She continues. “I went from slumming it in a tiny apartment to living in a big, luxurious house similar to the ones I’d only seen on TV. ”
“Your father wasn’t there to greet you?” She said as much, but I can’t get over it.
“It took three months before my father came to visit.” She lets out a breath, audible and sad. “He needed time to set things in motion so he could ship me to Switzerland, undetected. That ninja move didn’t prevent his wife from finding out about me.”
“One of your father’s staff members blew the whistle?”
“I assume.”
“Unless it was your mom’s best friend.”
“She swore it wasn’t her."
I nod. “After the way Fisher has treated you, I don’t understand why you’re willing to go along with his idea of having you run a PR company you’re obviously not interested in.”
“My father pushes my half-brothers to play their part in furthering the Edgington name and fortune––”
“But you don’t even have his last name.”
She averts her gaze for a beat. “To this day, he still blames me for losing a significant chunk of his fortune in the divorce. Going along with his master plan is my way of making up for his loss.”
Un-fucking-believable.
My jaw tightens to the point my teeth are about to shatter.
Everything about her story flares the protector in me.
“Jesus Christ, Lily, did you even hear what you said?” I don’t give her time to answer. I’m irate on her behalf. “You’re willing to suffer through a career to gain your father’s acceptance? If he’s not able to appreciate the woman you’ve become, fuck him.”
She shouldn’t be bending over backwards for the approval of a man who treats her with such disrespect. Regardless of the DNA connection.
“It’s easy to say when you have both parents.”
If you only knew, sweetheart .
“If I turn my back on my father and half-brothers, I’m essentially…”––her small hands twist in her lap––“an orphan.”
“Your father and half-brothers don’t acknowledge you and they don’t respect you,” I say. “Not to burst your bubble, but I lost both my parents.”
Her surprise is broadcast upon her face.
“So, my siblings and I are orphans.”
“I’m sorry.” Guilt morphs her beautiful features.
I brush it off. “You didn’t know.”
“Did you lose them at a young age?”
“I lost my dad when I was eight––”
“You were only a boy.”
“I was,” I nod. “He died of a heart attack. I didn’t understand much about death. All I knew was Dad would no longer be sitting at the dinner table with us, help me with my homework, or doing father and son things together. He was gone.”
She places her hand against her heart.
I continue. “My father was twenty-seven years older than Mom. In fact, he was my grandfather’s best friend.”
Lily’s eyes radiate with shock. “Oh, wow.”