Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Robin
I’m a little shaky by the time I round the corner into the reception hall. Taking the elevator would have been quicker, but I needed the walking time to mentally prepare.
I’m about to meet one of my parents for the first time at the age of twenty-six.
It’s a huge deal, and it’s not something I ever thought would happen.
With my mother dying when I was young, and Colleen telling me she had no idea who my father was, I thought I was going to live my entire life without parents.
Now, my father has sought me out and I’m only a few steps away from being in the same room as him. It’s kind of surreal. I’m not sure I’m ready for this.
Stopping outside Lana’s office door, I chew on my bottom lip.
It’s my last chance to turn around and back out.
Glancing out into the reception area, I catch Erika’s eye behind the front desk.
The cheerful Omega waves at me. “Hey, Robin.”
I wave back a little more awkwardly. “Hi, Erika.”
I probably should have asked her to let Lana know I was here, but I was too preoccupied to think about what the proper procedure might be.
Now, I feel like a dumbass.
Raising my fist, I knock on the door anyway.
I’m here. I might as well see what my father looks like in person.
A second later, and the door is opened by Lana’s mate, Owen.
He steps back silently to give me room to walk past him.
I nod my thanks as I come into the office.
Lana is sitting down on the couch closest to her desk.
My father is positioned across from her.
He looks up as I move into the room, stopping and standing next to the coffee table that sits between the sofas. I look back at him, and all I can think is that he looks just like his picture.
I hear Owen close the door and I turn my gaze to Lana.
She stands up, and gestures to the seat next to her.
“I’m here at your request to supervise this visitation, Robin. That means I’ll be here with you the whole time. You can ask me to leave if you’d like a moment alone, and it’s up to you to indicate when this meeting ends. Do we all understand?”
I nod, and when I glance at my dad, I see he’s doing the same.
“Good,” Lana says. “Take a seat, Robin.”
She sits back down on the left side, leaving half of the sofa free.
I sit down beside her, not comfortable enough to lean back. I perch closer to the edge than the back, trying not to slouch.
To say I’m nervous would be an understatement.
I clasp my hands together as I let my gaze drift to the man sitting across from us.
“Robin, this is Steve Barrister,” Lana introduces him. “Steve, this is Robin Yates.”
“You look nothing like Scarlett,” he murmurs, laughing lightly. “I don’t know what I expected. I didn’t think you’d look like a Barrister, but here we are.”
He’s not wrong, but I knew we looked alike when I saw his picture.
It makes me wonder again about my mother, only this time I’m sitting right across from one person who might be able to tell me about her.
“What did my mother look like?” I ask, wishing I’d been old enough to remember her before she was gone. The single real memory I have is of her singing voice, and I only unlocked that one thanks to Dr. Morgan’s rare gifts as a Zeta.
He smiles wistfully. “She was the most alluring woman I’ve ever seen in my life.
My heart stopped when I laid eyes on her.
I doubted my chances, but she seemed to enjoy talking with me.
She had the brightest green eyes I’d ever seen, and her hair was like spun gold, but that smile …
That showed her true beauty. I wish I had taken a picture.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get more than a single night together. ”
The warmth in his voice feels genuine. It’s enough to make my eyes feel a little misty.
He was besotted with my mother, even if he didn’t know her for very long.
That much is obvious.
“Why didn’t you get to meet her again?” I ask, trying to ignore the compulsion to just believe him. I should be questioning everything. I don’t know yet if I can trust him.
He sighs. “Foolish circumstance, I’m afraid. I ran late for work the morning after and all I could do was leave her my number and hope that she would call. When she didn’t, I assumed it was because she wasn’t interested.”
I nod slowly as I take in the information.
It’s hard to know what else to ask.
So much about the story he told doesn’t make any sense.
If my mother was a captive, why would she have been at a party, acting as if she was a guest?
Would she really have been allowed to mingle freely with the other guests if she was there with the man who bought her?
Did she have to sneak off to go with him?
Why would she even want to do that?
It’s so frustrating. He can’t give me those answers.
Only my mother could, and she’s not around anymore to ask.
Colleen might know something about that night, I guess.
I’m just not sure she’d appreciate me looking her up to find out.
“I know this must be strange for you,” Steve says.
“It was a shock to hear your name on the news, but as soon as I saw what the story was, I started to understand why your mother never called me. She spoke about running away together, but I didn’t take her seriously.
I wish I’d known. I wish she could have told me the truth. Maybe then …”
He shakes his head. “Dwelling on the past never makes anything better.”
He’s right, it doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean I can just accept his story.
“My surname isn’t uncommon,” I start, seeing his expression turn from earnest to wry.
“I know. Every time a client came along with that name I asked if they were any relation to Scarlett. There was never any resemblance or connection, but the moment I heard your name, I knew instinctively that it was connected. Then, when I looked into the story, and found out your age, the dots started to connect.” He sighs.
“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. It must have been harrowing.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” I admit, shocking him visibly.
I suppose he doesn’t know I wasn’t treated the same way my mother was.
I know the others who were rescued were Omegas like her.
They would have had an entirely different experience.
Being born a Beta saved me a lot of suffering.
“I didn’t go through the same things as the others who were rescued,” I enlighten him.
“I don’t remember much from my early childhood, but I worked with the housekeeper while I lived in Ivan Hamilton’s house.
I cooked and cleaned and kept the gardens looking pretty.
I wasn’t harmed the way I would have been if I’d been an Omega. ”
He sighs deeply and closes his eyes.
When he opens them again, they look watery.
“I’m so glad to hear that. The guilt I felt when I realized who you were … I wish I’d known about you, Robin. I should have looked harder for Scarlett. The last twenty-six years could have been so different for all three of us.” He swallows audibly and turns his head to wipe under his eye.
It feels like he means every word, and it makes my heart start to hurt.
Is that all it would have taken?
For this man who loved my mother to find us when we needed him most?
What would it have taken for him to find out my mom was a captive?
Maybe if he’d figured it out, I could have had a normal life, raised by two parents in a real family.
That sounds a bit too much like a fairy tale to me but seeing this man’s pain leak out so starkly in front of me, I can’t help but wonder if it would have made a difference.
Clearly, he cares. About my mother, and about me, too.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, as he turns back to face us. “I’m doing okay.”
“She’s doing okay, now,” Lana says, inserting a gentle reminder into the conversation. “It doesn’t mean she didn’t go through a lot.”
“My life wasn’t normal,” I admit, though I can’t bring myself to complain when I know now what I was kept safe from. “But I didn’t know I was a captive. It wasn’t torture. I thought … I had a job. I worked and I spent time in the gardens. That’s all.”
He frowns, and his gaze moves to Lana. “I don’t understand. Wasn’t Robin hospitalised?”
Lana sighs softly beside me. “Robin had to be treated for malnutrition when she got here. She spent the majority of the last few weeks in our hospital ward until she reached a healthy weight and her vitals were normal. The housekeeper who looked after her had some strange ideas on how to keep Robin from looking like an attractive prospect to the man who bought her mother.”
I shrug when he looks back at me. The pure horror in his eyes is enough to make me glance down. Colleen didn’t know she was hurting me. She was trying to keep me safe.
I guess anyone who wasn’t there wouldn’t know what it was like.
“It worked. I was never sold or whatever.”
I can’t erase what happened to me, but I don’t need to hold onto the pain.
I won’t blame Colleen for how close I came to death.
I didn’t die, and I won’t let myself fixate on what could have happened.
That would only allow the man who bought my mother to continue to hurt me.
Ivan Hamilton has no hold over me now. He can’t get to me here.
“I’m so, so sorry.” Steve reaches across the coffee table, hand coming close to mine.
I unclasp my hands and move them forward, allowing him to take my hand in his.
He seems relieved once his warm hand is holding mine.
It feels strange to me, but I don’t want to pull back.
I’m not used to physical contact, but I can’t say I hate it.
Just like having Katie braid my hair, having his hand clasp mine feels good.
Small touches like this were never a part of my life in the past.
I have vague memories of Colleen holding me as a young girl, but she didn’t keep that warmth as I grew older. I learned to soothe myself when I was upset or in pain, and that became the norm for me.
This is better. It’s so much better. I’ve missed this.
“You never should have had to grow up in that house,” he tells me. “You should have had me and your mother. We should have been a family.”
“I would have liked that.”
He gives me a smile, and I give him one in return.
I have a father. He had feelings for my mother, and he cares about me, too.
Right here in this moment, I couldn’t ask for anything more.