Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
NEO
For the first time, my life was spiraling beyond my control. All that planning and keeping my cool got me nothing. The company was a mess, and it didn’t matter if I showed up to work or not.
Gerald blew up my phone, as well as my mother and friends, and I didn’t answer any of them.
The one person I wanted to speak to hated me.
There was still a lot left unsaid between us, but before I talked to her, I wanted—no, I needed to make sure I fixed all the things I had done to hurt her.
I might have laid the blame at Richard’s feet, but I was just as guilty as he was. He was the only one not blowing up my phone. That’s why when he sent me an email, I actually looked at it.
I wished I hadn’t done it, though.
My phone rang, and it was my mother again. I sent her to voicemail. I knew it was driving her mad. Maybe it was heartless of me to turn my back on her when her world was also crashing down. She knew damn well that Richard would never take her side, not against his daughter, and Lou basically declared war when she walked out of that meeting room.
At some point, we had to stop making excuses for shitty parents, and I was at that point.
I looked at the time, and I was fifteen minutes earlier for my lunch meeting. I almost laughed at that. How cold and fucked up was it that I had to have an appointment to finally talk to my older sister?
All my life, my siblings have wanted nothing to do with me.
I left them alone.
I might have resented them growing up, but now I didn’t really care. On a whim, I called to meet with Celest, and for some reason, she agreed to meet up with me. Maybe it was the fact that she recently lost her son that she felt more amenable to, or that she wanted to gloat about the shit show I was involved in. Whatever her reasoning was, I was grateful.
I only had to wait a few minutes for her to show up. When she came to the table, I got up and helped her to her chair, and I guess it was progress when she didn’t curse me out for it. I’m pretty sure the last time I was this close to her was the day our father passed away.
“We have the same nose,” I blurted out.
She looked at me incuriously.
“Is that what you want to talk about, Nathaniel?”
My jaw clenched at the use of that name.
“It’s Neo,” I corrected her. “That name should have never been mine.”
She didn’t have a response to that. Celest picked up her water and took a sip. I had many relatives that would never be my family. Tatum liked to joke that the reason I kept up with them was so I didn’t end up fucking one of my great-nieces.
“I’m not sure if Nathaniel told you we briefly chatted at the Whitmore ball,” I told her.
“He didn’t mention it to me,” she replied as the waiter came toward us, but she waved him off.
“He mentioned our father didn’t want…the pregnancy.”
He didn’t want me.
She took a few seconds to talk, and I sat there watching her, wondering if this would be the last time I talked to her. Would the next time I saw her be at her funeral? How fucking sad was that?
“I can see it in your eyes that you know the answer to that already…” she sighed. “Old age has made me tired. I can’t remember why I was mad at you in the first place…” I snorted, and how she looked at me made me feel like a scolded child. “Our father loved you. He might not have wanted you, but he gave you the love he could give you at that time. He was old, Neo, and he was tired. Your mother knew that. She was a dalliance. A hot trophy wife. She was a pretty possession to him, and it bit him in the ass. Our father was no saint; if he didn’t want the mess, he should have stayed a widow.”
“My mother forced his hand?”
I couldn’t even look at her as I asked that.
“She did, and it cost her. After she ended up pregnant, our father knew he couldn’t trust her. He made Nathaniel Jr. his power of attorney…” She paused, and this time she looked away. When our eyes met again, she looked remorseful. “A few years later, she tried getting pregnant again. By that point, our father was done with her. He gave you enough money to survive, and it saddened him that he couldn’t give you more without her getting her claws in your inheritance. At that point, you became a pawn for a bitter old man and an ambitious wife.”
I didn’t even know what to say. I was sure Celest could have worded this differently. She could have made it hurt. There was a word she could have called my mother, one that was ugly, and it would have been deserved.
“Thank you for meeting me,” I said as I got up. “You don’t have to worry about me bothering you again.”
Celest’s eyes got glassy for a second.
I pulled a couple of bills and left them on the table—more than enough to cover the sparking water we both drank. I took a step away from the table but stopped when Celest spoke.
“There’s a little café I like visiting on Thursdays. It’s not far from here… Just around the corner. They have the best lemon tarts in town.”
I could have walked away. A part of me wanted to be petty and do it, but I found myself saying, “And what time is the best time to get them?”
Perhaps if I wanted forgiveness, I had to forgive and forget as well.
When I got back to my condo, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see my mother waiting for me. I had never iced her out like I had these couple of days. Even when I was away, I called her often to ensure she was doing okay.
It wasn’t that I was a mama’s boy…it was that she was the only family I had.
“Mother,” I greeted her cooly.
“Where the hell have you been?” she spat at me as she paced my apartment. “Gerald has been calling you nonstop. As the new COO, you must be on top of this crisis! We need to come up with a game plan!”
I laughed.
“Oh, give it a rest, Mother. I don’t give a shit about being the COO or the CEO. I don’t fucking care right now.”
My mother stopped pacing. Her face looked like it was about to turn purple.
“You don’t fucking care?” She took a step closer to me. She was pissed. “All for that fucking little whore!”
I saw red.
All the rage I had kept inside for the last few years came rushing out. Maybe if I hadn’t seen the email Richard sent, I would have handled it better.
“The only whore here is you, Mother!”
For the second time in my life, she slapped me.
“How dare you,” she seethed. “You have no idea everything I’ve done to give you a better life!”
I snorted.
“Is that what we are calling marital rape? Or is it different because you were the one conceiving?” She was speechless for a second because this was the first time I had ever talked to her in such a manner. I kept going, my sarcastic tone making her flinch. “I can understand that I was a happy accident at seventy, but then for you to want to get pregnant again a few years later, I’m trying to understand it.”
Her eyes widened when she realized that the only reason I would know this was if I had talked to my siblings.
“Everything I did was for us,” she pleaded with me.
This time, when I spoke, my voice was cold.
“I should have known you were eavesdropping on my conversation with Richard. But to use that information, then go to the press and get Tatum involved... that's fucking despicable mother. If that's the kind of shit you do for us, then I don't want any part of it.”
“I couldn’t let you ruin everything you worked so hard for.”
“Get. Out,” I told her without bothering to look at her.
I used to believe my mother had my best intentions at heart. Ultimately, everything she did was for herself because she wasn’t content with what she had, and that sick need to always want more was her downfall.
Like hell if I would let her ambitions become mine.
I almost picked up my phone and called Lou. I wanted her. I needed her, and even though I didn’t trust myself in this state, she was all I could think about. I knew she was back at her apartment, and the only reason I stayed away was because I didn’t want her to run to that other asshole to avoid me. At least Richard was on top of the new leak that would be coming our way. It would hurt Lou the most, and I hated that my mother played a hand in that. There were some things I just couldn’t forgive anymore.
Alcohol wasn’t always needed to make you lose control. Rage, sadness, they fucked you up just the same. They made you destructive…they made you not think straight. When Wesley told me that Tatum was at the same party he was at, I didn’t think. I just got up and left.
The ruse was up. There was no reason for me to keep pretending like I gave two shits about him—especially after the shit he pulled with my mother.
Thirty minutes later, I was standing across from him. If I had been thinking rationally, I would have known everyone here would have questions. They would have known I was fucking Lou by now.
When Wesley saw me, he instantly got up and came my way, but I headed straight to Tate. He had a girl on each arm, and he was talking to some other guys.
“Neo, bro, where the hell have you been?” he asked as soon as he saw me. “Look, man, if I had known you were tapping Lou’s fine ass, I’d never have gone near her.”
I saw red.
His eyes widened as I pulled him toward me by the collar of his shirt then proceeded to shove my fist in his face. I got three punches in before I was pulled away.
“You’re a piece of shit!” I yelled at him, full of rage.
It felt good seeing him on the floor with blood pouring out of his nose.
“You’re going to let some bitch come between us?”
It was the wrong thing to say. This time when I went at him, he was ready and tried to push me off. My advantage was that I was stronger, and the asshole was drunk.
“I should have ended you back then.”
If I had, this whole mess would have never happened. Even though I knew he was also the catalyst that had pushed Lou and I together.
“Neo, man, cool it.”
Wes tried his best to hold me back. He only managed to do it because security came to help him.
That was the whole reason I had wanted to bury Tatum the way I had planned because he was the type of little bitch to press charges.