Chapter 1 #4
Her father had been totally against it and had told her not to be an idiot, that absolutely no way he would allow her to be a part of the family business if she continued with that foolishness.
And she hadn’t been dealing with that foolishness.
Back then her sister and her drama broke Gail’s heart.
Debbie had gone on to marry her boyfriend—her child’s true biological father, as Gail found out later.
Meanwhile, Debbie had been promptly cut off from the family, from the family business.
She might have even been removed from the will, as far as Gail knew.
It seemed strange to even think that was possible, but, after all the shit her sister had brought down on the family, Gail understood her father a little bit more. He was all about saving face, and he had gone to town to make sure Riley paid for what he had supposedly done.
And so had Gail.
She winced at those very ugly memories, so hurt and betrayed by her sister that Debbie could do nothing to make it up to Gail, even at this point, years later.
Gail sighed as she kept driving, wondering when all the guilt would stop.
It was hard. God, it was hard. She loved her father dearly, but he had not been the easiest to live with, particularly at that point in time.
And, when they’d all realized just how wrong everything ended up being and how harsh Father had been on Riley, who hadn’t even deserved it, well, her father had no desire to back down.
He had never backed down in his whole damn life, and he sure as hell hadn’t been prepared to back down then, not when the man who Gail loved and had planned on marrying had hurt her so. More important, her father didn’t want her to marry Riley.
Even now, she could clearly see the manipulation, but it was so hard to accept her own role in this.
Gail also found it hard to see her own father as not infallible—to see him as conniving, condescending, someone who felt superior to all others.
He then manipulated the world to do what he wanted it to do.
He also wasn’t afraid to make everybody get on board with his plan, regardless of the consequences, particularly his wife and children.
Gail made her way back to her apartment. It would only be her apartment for a little while longer. She would be moving in with Peter soon. Right now, that thought caused a certain amount of disquiet in her heart.
Back then, after breaking up with Riley, she had decided that she couldn’t trust men—when, in reality, she couldn’t trust her sister.
When all this had gone down, when more facts surfaced, her sister had apologized profusely, but Debbie had broken something very elemental between the sisters, between her family, something likely never to be repaired.
Even though Gail now better understood why her sister had done this, Gail just wasn’t in a space where she could ever see herself forgiving Debbie for blowing up Gail’s life on a whim, just to protect Debbie’s own partner.
She understood that to some degree, but not the part where Debbie had deliberately chosen to blow up her own sister’s life.
By making that choice, among all Debbie’s options, was something unforgivable.
Debbie always explained that, because Daddy loved Gail more, she would get over this.
How Debbie couldn’t fix it herself because she was not the cherished one.
It was a hard truth, but it was also something that had made Gail take a closer look at her own life, at her father, and at everything that had happened. It was tough. It was damn tough, but she was past it now, and she was moving into a smoother time period.
Only her mind then immediately glommed onto the fact that Riley was in town.
Why the hell was he here, and why had he come now?
It was the last thing she needed before her upcoming wedding, yet nobody cared.
Nobody ever gave a damn about her. Her sister blew up Gail’s life on a whim, and her father had just taken it and run with it, exploiting it because the result served his purpose too. He finally got rid of Riley.
So, what was your excuse? she asked herself in the back of her own mind.
Because you let them blow it up. You let it all go to pieces based on your own lack of trust because you hadn’t trusted him, not for one second after hearing Debbie’s announcement.
Not after Debbie had named him as the father of her child, and then their father had proclaimed that Gail and Riley were not getting married—or he would cut them off.
Her father would make sure they paid for what they had done.
Riley protested vehemently, and it hadn’t mattered one bit. Nobody believed him, and Gail winced. Neither did I. She knew in that moment, if nothing else happened but clearing her own conscience, she needed to find a way to come to terms and to find closure to that whole chapter.
If that meant seeing Riley, she needed to make it happen, though just the thought sent both a shudder of delight and some dread rolling down her spine.
Otherwise she was walking into a marriage that would not be fair to yet another person, an innocent person.
That was another hard thing for her to accept. She needed to be better than that.
She’d messed up very badly once before. She just couldn’t be the kind of person who would allow that to happen again.