Chapter One #2
I refused to believe this was just a casual lunch to “catch up”.
Malcolm Rich didn’t do casual. If he was reaching out, it was because there was something in it for him.
Honestly, I didn’t have the energy to deal with him––especially not today.
Today was already heavy enough. It was my late husband’s birthday, and I still needed to check in on my mother-in-law.
She’d lost her son two years ago, and just last month, she buried her husband.
Raphael Sterling was quiet, stoic, and a man of few words––but his love for his family ran deep. He showed me the fatherly affection I’d been missing all my life.
Placing a hand on my chest, I sighed. I could still hear his deep laugh and feel the way he would pull me into a hug, kissing both my cheeks before teasingly asking, “Bella, are you alright? My son has given you the world, hmm?”
Raphael Sterling was Black, and Carlotta was Italian.
Despite being Black, he spoke fluent Italian with his wife.
The Sterlings only had one child, Karim, but they had always hoped to give him a sister.
That wish never came true––until I married into the family.
Raphael cherished me as if I were his own flesh and blood.
To him, I was the daughter he never had.
The driver opened the door, and I grabbed my purse from the seat before exiting and walking around the truck. Yaya was right beside me as we entered the restaurant. I didn’t need to give my name because the staff recognized me immediately.
“Mrs. Sterling, how are you this afternoon?” the hostess asked nervously, which probably meant my father was somewhere inside acting like a tyrant.
I smiled. “Hi, Lucy. I’m doing great. How are you and the baby?”
Unlike my father, I enjoyed connecting with the people who worked and served me. I picked up this trait from Raphael, who treated everyone with the same respect––whether it was a janitor or the CEO of a corporation. In his eyes, respect was respect. It didn’t matter what position you held.
She quickly pulled out her phone and showed me a picture of the adorable blue-eyed baby.
“She’s three months old now and can hold her head up. I asked the doctor if that was normal,” she rambled on, proud of her creation.
“Nazira started holding her head up around the same age. These babies are more advanced than we were. She’s beautiful, Lucy.”
“Thank you, and thank you so much for the stroller. I really appreciate it, Mrs. Sterling.”
“Tatiana,” I replied, touching her arm. “I think I can find my father. I know he has to be seated near the largest window.”
She nodded. “Let me know if you need anything.”
I watched as she quickly put her phone down and went to greet the next patron. Yaya and I proceeded further into the restaurant, and as expected, I spotted my father sitting at a table near the biggest bay window, with a perfect view of the small harbor.
His head was down and his brows were furrowed as he looked at his phone, like he had received bad news through an email or text.
I cleared my throat, and that’s when he finally looked up.
Malcolm Rich was fifty-six but didn’t look a day over forty.
He had a rich brown complexion, salt-and-pepper beard, light brown, hardened eyes, and a forehead that some might mistake for laugh lines, but they were lines from scowling––never wearing a smile, always stressed about something he couldn’t control.
“Tatiana.” He stood, greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, and gave me a tight hug before letting go.
“How are you, Yaya?” he asked, smiling at her before pulling out both of our chairs.
“Doing great, Mr. Rich,” she replied as we settled into our seats. “Can’t complain. And you?”
He chuckled while lowering himself into his chair. “Ah, I’d like to complain, but I can’t. Getting old is no excuse.”
She laughed and immediately began scanning the menu. My eyes caught my father as he used a napkin to wipe his forehead before picking up his drink. When he noticed me watching, he smiled and leaned back.
“How’s my granddaughter?” he asked.
I unfolded the cloth napkin and placed it across my lap. “She’s doing great––smart, beautiful, and dare I say dramatic, too. Maybe you should visit her more. Mom isn’t always around.”
He sucked his teeth and looked away. “Business has been demanding. You don’t think I’d rather spend my time watching my only grandchild grow?”
“Business that you can pay anyone to handle, Daddy,” I shot back. “I’ll never understand your obsession with money. We’re more than blessed, but you always want more.”
Karim always spoke about how my father and greed went together in the same sentence. Nothing ever satisfied Malcolm. The homes, the villas in other countries, the jets, and the cars––none of it was enough. He always desired more.
He threw back the rest of his drink and looked at me with those piercing eyes. “With the alimony I’m currently paying your mother, I’ll be working until I’m even older and grayer.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is it really about Mom––or the fact that your new girlfriend is only a year younger than me?”
Children usually struggle with accepting their parents’ divorce, but not me.
A year after Karim’s death, my mother told me that she was divorcing my father.
She wasn’t happy and refused to stay miserable with a man who refused to change.
Waiting for Malcolm Rich to change was like expecting the Statue of Liberty to be moved to Mexico––it would never happen.
She grew tired of waiting for him to make her happy and love her like he promised.
Even though it was an arranged marriage, I believe my mother fell in love with my father over time, just as I fell in love with Karim.
She married my father, gave birth to his child, and made sure I was raised with lots of love.
She dedicated her life to being there whenever he needed her.
In return, she was left feeling lonely, unappreciated, and irrelevant.
My mother was never a priority, so I was glad when she finally chose herself and left him.
Not even six months after their divorce, my father popped out with a younger woman, leading me to believe she had always been around.
Now that he was no longer married to my mother, he could bring her out of the shadows.
He needed someone on his arm, and she filled that role just like my mother once did.
I don’t know if he intended to marry her.
All I knew was that he started referring to her as the future Mrs. Rich.
For all I knew, he might have already stupidly married her.
He snapped his fingers rudely, signaling for the server to bring him another drink. “Portia has nothing to do with what your mother and I have going on. Has she mentioned her new boyfriend to you? Heard he’s into stocks and has a ton of money. What the hell does she need mine for?”
“Yes, she’s told me about Wyatt. I actually like him.” I smiled, genuinely happy that my mother was finally being loved the right way. “But how do you know about him? She’s been very discreet with their relationship.”
He waved me off, knowing that I knew he had his ways of prying into my mother’s life.
Men could be so weird. When he had her, he never poured back into her as her husband.
Hell, he barely acknowledged her. Now that she had finally chosen herself and walked away, he suddenly wanted to keep tabs on her.
“I wanted to meet with you to discuss our families and the businesses we have together. With Raphael gone, everything falls on your shoulders, Tatiana. Carlotta’s no help because when I spoke to her, all she did was give me her lawyer’s number.”
“She just lost her husband, Dad. Why would you expect her to discuss business right now?”
He looked at me as he polished off his second drink. “Because business doesn’t stop when someone dies. Death is part of life, and we have to learn how to navigate it and keep going.”
I stared at him in shock. I could tell by Yaya’s expression that she was also taken aback by his cold response.
Carlotta and Raphael had been married for years before Karim was even conceived.
Until his last days, the love they shared was loud and bright.
It was one of the things I admired most about Karim and his parents.
He had been raised in love––a love so powerful that it enveloped you as soon as you entered their home.
I knew what love felt like from my mother.
But with my father, I always felt like I was just an accomplishment on his to-do list, never experiencing that familiar feeling of being a daddy’s girl or being able to run to him when I needed something.
He wasn’t my first love or my first hero.
Nazir was.
As I sat across from him on my late husband’s birthday and after losing my father-in-law not too long ago, he showed no concern other than the business he wanted to discuss.
It was foolish of me to think he invited me to lunch to ask how I was holding up or how I was managing to be the strength for the family that he forced me to marry into.
“I spoke with our family’s lawyer, and we have a meeting soon to go over things. The family is mourning right now, and we shouldn’t be worrying about business when we’ve lost someone we loved so much.”
“He was—” my father blurted, then composed himself, straightening his suit jacket and glancing at Yaya, who was focused on the menu.
“Raphael is no longer here, and he isn’t coming back.
That’s the reality. You and Carlotta aren’t equipped to handle the magnitude of business that Raphael managed daily. ”
“Dad, he was your friend. Don’t you feel anything about his passing? Is business all you care about?”
I could tell he was getting frustrated because he was being put on the spot. Malcolm Rich was the one who put others on the spot, not the other way around.