“You’re not proud of being smart?”
“No, I’m not proud of hating who I was, trying to be like everyone else. I gave up on the books and forced myself into the war games that the other kids were playing. It was hard, but in the end it made life easier.” He turns his focused eyes to mine. “I thought I was doing the same for you.”
“You could’ve just sat me down, had a man-to-man.”
He drops his salt-n-pepper eyebrows over a steely glare. “Would you have listened to me?”
Fuck, probably not. I hated being told what to do, hated who my dad had become, hid my secret for so long it shoved a wedge between us in a major way.
My non-answer is my answer.
“By that time I was moving up in the ranks, I was powerful, and”—he chuckles—“well, none of that matters. Look at me now.” He waves a hand down his once powerful body, which is now still and exhausted. “Dying gives a man a lot of time to think on his mistakes. I don’t have a lot of time, but what time I have I want to spend making this up to you.”
One wet drop escapes my eye, but I swipe at it before it moves down my cheek. “Make it up to me by fighting. Do whatever it takes to earn us more time. I can’t put all these years behind us with only a few months.”
“All the treatments take energy, and I’m. . .” A long breath falls from his lips, and he almost seems to shrink in size. “I’m tired, Blake.”
How do I argue that? I’ve heard cancer treatment is horrific and without hope of survival it would be a daunting prospect. “Will you at least consider it?”
He places his hand on the bed closer to me. It’s the nearest he’s gotten to physically comforting me, and although he’s not even touching me, I feel it. “If anything has ever made me want to fight, it’s this moment, the chance to earn your forgiveness. That’s worth fighting for.”
“Fuckin’ A, Dad . . .” I rub my eyes and marvel at the change of events.
So this whole time I’ve been pissed at The General for fucking up my life, but if he hadn’t done what he did, where would I be today?
My stomach hollows out with the realization. He gave me my fight, lit a fire so deep in my gut that I’d crawl through hell if it meant holding on to something I love. My career, Layla, Axelle, everything I have I had to fight to keep. Holy shit! A wave of gratefulness surges in my chest.
“So.” He clears his throat. “Tell me all about Layla, Axelle, and my grandbaby.”
Right then it all makes sense.
Everything life throws affects who we become. Different experiences wouldn’t have brought me to where I am today. I owe everything I have to the fact that my dad didn’t make things easy on me.
Rather than give him my forgiveness, he deserves my gratitude.
Sixteen
Layla
It’s D-Day. Time to hear Trip’s side of the story so that I can put my curiosity to rest and end all this before Blake gets back. The phone calls, probing into Axelle’s birth records, all of it needs to stop.
I scan my surroundings and try to act casually as I people watch from the small Italian café at The Venetian Hotel. Few Vegas locals hang out at the casinos, which makes this the perfect place to meet without getting caught. The coffee shop is public enough for safety, but I chose a table off in the corner to allow us some privacy.
A warm cup of herbal tea between my hands fights off the chill that I can’t seem to shake. It’s not lost on me that my hands were cold the last time I saw Trip. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just as nervous to see Trip today as I was back then, although this time for totally different reasons.
As I wait for the blast from my past to show his face, my thoughts return to Blake. I can’t imagine how he must be feeling, and the sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can get to my man and get on with my life. I have every intention of telling Blake about my meeting with Trip, but he’s dealing with enough now, and the more I can handle behind his back the better.
He’ll be upset, possibly even furious, and insist that these things are his job to handle for me, but he wasn’t around the night Axelle was conceived or the nine months afterward when I was treated like a high-school leper. He didn’t live with me through sixteen years of abuse and the constant fear that my choices were going to end up destroying my daughter. Nope, that was all me.
Blake was dragged neck deep into my past when Stew showed up at my door. I watched helplessly as he was drugged and jailed all for the sake of loving me. No way I’ll risk bringing him down with this shit again.
This has to be the end now, and I won’t walk away until I’m convinced it’s finally over.