35. Byron
35
BYRON
D uring my brief fifteen-minute breaks from Empire business, I found myself engaged in a rather dubious activity, and that was stalking Meg online.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy. Meg had every social platform under lock and key. And who could blame her? Just thinking of the creepy, twisted souls lurking out there trying their luck with Meg and worming their way into her life caused a spark of fury to ignite inside.
Me, I went about things differently and considered myself a man of diplomacy. Well, sort of.
Texting Marcella to thank her for the lasagna and tiramisu was a rather clever move on my part, I thought. It was the perfect olive branch to soothe the flames of animosity between the Belmonts and the Belfiores.
It was like a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, dancing on eggs to unite the Montagues and Capulets. Minus the poison, of course. I had no intention of Meg and me ending up like the tragic lovers of Verona. Not at all.
And gifting Marcella and her husband the all-inclusive weekend at the Belmont Hotel was simply because no one deserved it more than she did.
Not only was Marcella a delight to converse with, being witty and gracious, but she was also an exceptional cook. And lest we forget, she also earned Mother of the Year award for raising a daughter like Meg, who was smart, fierce, and undoubtedly had to be a few handfuls from the day she was born.
And, since I had the means to give a little joy, why the hell not?
Meg’s father was a different story. It would probably take more than congeniality to change his mind. But what would the sweet taste of eventual victory be if there were no challenges along the way?
In any event, it just made sense to get along with the mother of the woman who now haunted my every waking thought.
Earlier, I’d popped into Roman’s office to try to drag him out for some fast food, but I found him napping on the Chesterfield couch instead. From which he’d apparently watched huge-screen tv cycling through a slideshow of Isabel until exhaustion claimed him.
The whole scene twisted a knife in my gut, deepening my worry for my brother. I wished there was some magic way to ease his pain.
Sprinkled into the slideshow were photos of the two of them together. And in those frozen moments of time, I saw a side of Roman I hadn’t known existed, a part of him that slipped through the cracks of our history together.
It was a side of him I wanted to connect with, to find a way back to the brothers we were, two decades ago, before life and my stupidity got in the way.
There was no doubt that Isabel was the key to that version of Roman. She’d unlocked something inside of him, and bringing Isabel back into Roman’s world was essential.
I knew that Meg would go to war for her best friend. And if her friend’s happiness was with Roman, who better to help make it happen? And with my father recovering, it would be amazing for us all to be one big happy family.
The Belmonts could use some of the hope, joy and love the Belfiores had.
It wasn’t all that improbable, if only I could get Meg to play along. Talk about challenges. It was on par with that posed by the man who held all the cards to changing this family into a happier one. My father, Henry.
A man who, even though he didn’t see me as anything but the spare to the heir, still held a special place in my heart. The popular thought was that I hated him, that all I wanted was my slice of the fortune and to be done with this family. But nothing could be farther from the truth.
What I truly wanted, more than anything, was a dad…and a family. Like the one I saw in Meg’s pictures on her desk.
Although Emily tried her best to make my childhood as happy as she could, there was simply no substitute for the absence of a father’s love. And I couldn’t help but wonder what today would be like if things had been different back then.
What if my father had stepped away from the suffocating grip of the business and put family first? Or if he’d taken the time to show his sons the love they so desperately wanted from him as a dad?
Suddenly, it became important to try and undo this path and consider new possibilities.
Being so close to death had to shift something in my father, making him see things differently now. It had become my new mission that when my father came back to Belmont Manor, I would show him that what truly mattered in life was family.
I draped the throw over Roman, his body stretched out on the Chesterfield in a fitful sleep.
The future, whatever it held, was a conversation for my father and me, no one else. Until my father had a change of heart, it would be unnecessary to burden Roman with ideas that weren’t yet real. So, I let him be.
As I wandered through the halls of Belmont Manor, I chuckled to myself. Look at me, daydreaming about family reunions and happy endings, my mind swaddled in warm and fuzzy thoughts.
I went back to my office, ready to dive back into the grind. And since Meg was the key to my plan of Isabel returning to Belmont Manor, I needed her to talk to me again, and pronto.
In the midst of my stalking her online, luck smiled on me. I stumbled upon a few stray pictures of her where she was tagged on Facebook profiles that were less private than hers.
In one candid shot, I happened to make out the name of a cocktail bar: The Pig’s Tail . Which I would use in my little ruse to convince her that we’d met before.
My private safe held a couple of phones not registered under the Belmont name. They were part of my old life, and I had no need for them anymore. Until tonight.
I grabbed one and turned it on. The first thing I did was delete my past. Every picture, every text, and every number I had in my contacts. This was a fresh start.
I punched in Meg’s number and typed a quick text. My finger hovered over the send button for a second longer than necessary before I pressed.
Only when the text was sent did I realize that in my eagerness, I forgot to replace the profile picture I used in messages from this phone: No face, thank God, but my initials, BB.
A clusterfuck of a mistake if ever there was one.
Just as I scrambled to delete the text, it was read. All I could do was wait and brace for whatever happened next.