36. Jane
CHAPTER 36
JANE
I stand there, speechless and fighting the urge to simply run away because there’s a limit to what a woman can handle in such a short amount of time, and I was past said limit long before this bombshell.
Could he be lying?
I dart a glance at my mom. She’s pale and not even denying it. Which means it’s the truth.
This stranger is my father.
But is he really?
Gritting my teeth, I examine Tristan’s face the same way he’s been doing to me all this time.
Hell’s bells. We have features in common, so it could actually be true. But…
“How?” I ask, not sure whom. I’m feeling an odd numbness at this point, like someone else is speaking for me.
“It was as I told you. We met at a nightclub,” Mom says.
“And it was just that once,” Tristan says, sounding a bit defensive.
“The number of times wouldn’t have made you any less married,” Mom says to him. Turning to me, she adds, “And he had his own baby on the way as well.”
His own baby. I clutch my chest as my overwhelmed brain finally makes the connection.
Tristan is Sydney’s father too—so she is the baby he had on the way. If this is all true, this makes Sydney my half-sister. And we do share amber eyes, black hair, and small faces—I noticed that when I met her, but I didn’t realize the significance, of course.
How Jerry Springer. A guy has come between me and my half-sister. So much for sisters before misters.
Then another thing hits me. This makes Piper my half-niece.
I like this realization. A lot. It even explains a few things, like why she felt like my flesh and blood the moment I met her. Because she is. We share twelve-and-a-half percent of our DNA.
Then again, she’s such a sweetie I would’ve loved her regardless.
“—swear I didn’t know she was underage,” I hear Tristan say, and that tidbit drags me back to the conversation. “She told me she was eighteen.”
“All women lie about their age,” Mom says defensively. “And you could’ve checked.”
He nods. “I could’ve done a lot of things differently back then.”
“You can say that again,” Mom snaps. She turns to me. “When I told him I was pregnant, he gave me money—for silence and an abortion.”
“Hold on.” I struggle to catch my breath. “You always said you never saw my father after the one-night stand. That you didn’t know his name.” Tristan winces at this last one, but I continue. “You couldn’t have known you were pregnant the morning after the one-night stand.”
Mom glares at Tristan. “This is why I wanted to talk to her first.” Turning to me, she says, “I’m sorry I lied. Between him being married and pushing the abortion, I thought you'd be better off without him.”
Tristan looks at me earnestly. “I didn’t push, I merely suggested it as an option, and I’m very sorry about that. With Georgiana being a minor, I was afraid I’d end up in jail—and as we’ve already discussed, I had a baby on the way.”
I rub my throbbing temples. “So… until today, you thought I didn’t exist?”
Not that this would make me forgive him, but?—
He grimaces. “I felt guilty about the way I acted toward your mother, so I tracked her down a couple of years later to apologize.”
“More like to make sure I’d keep quiet,” Mom mutters.
“Which is when I learned that she decided to keep you,” Tristan continues. “So I offered to help in any way I could, but she told me she didn’t want me in your life—and I decided to respect her wishes.”
“More like he decided to let sleeping dogs lie,” Mom corrects.
Tristan sighs. “Maybe that’s true, but as time went on, I regretted it, more and more with every passing year.”
I shake off the daze gripping me. “Clearly not enough to find me or speak with me.” I point toward the courtroom. “If you want to know how a father should act, just look at the lengths Adrian is going to in order to be in his daughter’s life.”
Tristan takes a step back. “I wasn’t sure what I’d even say if I approached you.”
“How about, ‘Hi, I’m the sperm donor,’” I grit out.
Tristan slowly blinks. “I guess I deserve that moniker. And you’re right. It doesn’t matter what I would’ve said. Just reaching out was important, and I blew it. I was a coward, and I’m sorry for that too. But when I saw you today—and realized that I’ve already met you—I couldn’t hold it in anymore.”
My chest tightens. “And here we are.”
Mom catches my gaze. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole truth about him. Please don’t hate me. I thought what I did was for the best.”
“I’d never hate you,” I say, even though at this moment I am pretty mad at her. Grudgingly, I admit, “I’m not sure how I would’ve acted in your shoes.”
“Moot point,” Mom says proudly. “You did not get pregnant as a teen.”
“I hope you don’t hate me either,” Tristan says. “And that you’d consider getting to know me… in any way you’re comfortable with.”
Has someone cranked up the heat outside? “I’ll have to think about it,” I manage to say.
“Thank you,” he says so earnestly I feel a pang of something he doesn’t deserve.
“On one condition,” I add, surprising even myself.
“Name it,” he says.
“Make it so that I get to be in Piper’s life, regardless of how things go in there.” I gesture at the courtroom.
If I get to see Piper again, my heart would hurt a little bit less.
Tristan only hesitates for a heartbeat before he says, “I’ll do everything in my power to make that happen. But it would have to be only you. If things don’t go Adrian’s way, I don’t think Sydney would let him?—”
I gasp as a terrible realization occurs to me. “Once Adrian learns Sydney and I are related, he’ll think I helped her—especially if I get to see Piper and he can’t.”
“I doubt he’ll think that,” Mom says.
She thinks too highly of her fake son-in-law.
I turn to Tristan. “Do you know how Sydney got that stupid document?”
He hesitates longer this time. “Even if I tell you, and you run back in there and tell them, it won’t change the outcome,” he finally says.
“Obviously,” I say. “The djinni is out now.”
He shifts from foot to foot. “The help came from a disgruntled security guard who used to work in Adrian’s building. The guard claims she helped because she and her husband had to start over at a new workplace because of you, but I think she was money hungry and rationalizing. In any case, she gave Sydney the password you set to access the building and suggested that you’re not careful with passwords in general. The hope was that you’d used the same password with the app Adrian likes to use for all his legal documents—andthat turned out to be the case.”
Oh. Damn. It was Susan. She even chastised me for using recognizable words in said password—but I didn’t change my ways at all and went ahead and used the exact same password for that stupid app. I also completely forgot that Susan had to get a new job because I made a big deal about seeing a naked statue of her in Adrian’s gallery.
“Please bear in mind this all happened before I knew who you were,” Tristan says. “And that Sydney is just trying to do what she thinks is best for her child.”
Is he comparing my mom’s actions to those of Sydney? No, that would mean he disapproves of his own daughter. Unless?—
“This is all too much,” I say, mostly to myself.
“Here.” Tristan hands me his business card, and it takes me what feels like ten minutes to decide if I should stick it in one of my pockets or in my purse—that’s how overwhelmed I am at this point.
“Can we talk?” Mom says.
I shake my head. “I need to be alone.” And not just because of the man standing next to us. The one back in the courtroom is a far bigger culprit.
Mom grimaces. “I understand. I’m here if you need me.”
I swallow, my eyes burning, and run for the nearest yellow cab.
When the cabbie asks where to go, I tell him to take me home.
“And where is home?” he asks, his voice a mixture of kindness and exasperation.
“Just take me to the Staten Island Ferry,” I say.
After I take the ferry, I’ll take a bus since I don’t have millions in my bank account yet, and now I probably never will.
But I don’t care about the money. I’d give it all to undo this clusterfuck of a day. And here is what bothers me the most about this whole thing.
The person I desperately want to discuss all this with is Adrian.