"There must be some mistake," Dev announced to the lawyer as he entered his office dumping the files on his table along with his huge body on the chair opposite.
Jeremy Miller stared at him for a second, before lifting the documents he'd flung on his table and presenting them towards him. "No mistake, young man. Anastasia specifically sent over the two transfer papers in guise of compensation for your family's loss."
Her selfless act only served to fuel his anger. How dared she undermine what they had shared by paying him off like a vulgar gigolo? How dared she?
"Really? How is she going to pay back for the other things we've suffered?" he inquired with sufficient amount of sarcasm to make the lawyer sit back in his chair and give him undivided attention. Trying not to squirm under the scrutiny, Dev frowned furiously to give more credulence to his anger. "You tell Ana that she will never be able to atone what her father did to my family."
Miller still stared at him with fascination, making him feel uncomfortable under that scrutiny which increased his wrath. Was he being subjected to another judgmental opinion?
"What her father did," the lawyer reiterated after a few minutes of silence, his voice calm as he continued to peruse him with undisguised interest. His comment left Dev completely blank even if the man seemed to be conveying an important message. There was no need for words as his bafflement must have been visible on his expression for the lawyer added. "I am stressing on the last part deliberately. What her father did. Why should she pay for his sins?"
He still failed to get it. "What do you mean?" Devin exploded in an outraged tone. "I am obviously not asking her to pay for his sins," he defended hotly, ignoring the measuring look the lawyer sent his way. "She's trying to compensate for the past with money but it's too late for such a thing. How can she still side with that man no matter how beloved she was to her father?"
"Beloved?" scoffed Miller sitting up in his seat and removed his reading glasses which seemed on the bridge of falling from his nose. "That's where you're mistaken Mr. Crighton."
Completely out of sorts, Dev could only stare back at the man after that astounding revelation, his hypoxic face a flagrant display of his nonplus. Never in the past had Ana given him a single clue about anything strained in the relationship with her father, so there was no big secret to be revealed now, was there? Was there?
Even before he got his answer, he felt something clench in his chest with the desolate smile Miller bestowed upon him, and he automatically braced himself for the worst.
"You've targeted her from the beginning, avenging Alastair through her never even sparing a thought about what she went through." The reproaches flew from his mouth and he stopped abruptly sighing with resignation. "Do you even know her mother?"
"Elizabeth Richmond?" Dev managed to infer, glad that his voice did not waver when he spoke.
"Wrong," the lawyer corrected with emphasis. "Her mother is Elizabeth Richmond Forrester. They got secretly married in 1986 but kept it divulged from the world because he had somehow managed to convince her not to compromise her career."
Disconcerted, Dev could only stare at the man who'd just revealed such an important information, his mind reeling back to the past digging for such a possibility. And found none. "Are you sure? Does Ana even know about it? From what I had gathered, she'd always assumed to be the result of an affair."
There was a moment of loaded silence. "She knows," he finally revealed, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was trying to cast off something evil. "But she never lied to you. She got to know the truth on the day you left her."
Flabbergasted, Dev jumped in his seat a terrible distress settling over his heart. "On our wedding day?" he queried for confirmation, unable to imagine how her father could have inflicted the worst pain to her on such a horrific day.
The lawyer managed a stealthy nod, and Dev felt the air whoosh out of his body like a deflated balloon. He shuddered to think of the cruelties they had inflicted on her, surely it must have been worse? His question remained unvoiced as Miller went on. "Alastair only took Ana in because he was having legal problems with one of his ex-wife, and Ana was his – you could say Aunt Sally. Adopting her was his only salvation, the only way he had to save himself from disgrace. I won't go into the details but you can imagine just how beloved she was in that household."
There was not a modicum amount of sarcasm in the way he delivered that last sentence, but the impact had as much effect if it would have been the case. Finally, he admitted to himself in defeat that such information could never be extracted from a P.I. He could not imagine how she must have felt on their doomed wedding day, to discover the truth about her mother and feel so unwanted. It must have broken her heart.
No matter she was no longer the sweet Ana he'd known, the one who wore her heart on her sleeves, ready to come to anyone's aid. But hadn't he discovered that deep inside, she remained that altruist person, serving orphanage children and helping the destitute, even to the extent of sacrificing her inheritance for his salvation?
While he had been the complete opposite? How could he have thought to achieve his goals by destroying her? How could he have become so ruthless in his quest for justice for his mother? How could he have replicated the past to another victim, inflicting the worst kind of betrayal to her, and almost destroying her in the process?
"What about her mother?" he managed to ask feebly, his head still rolling with the recent discoveries. "How could she allow Forrester to adopt her knowing his nature?"
"She wasn't left with much choice. Every penny she'd earned had been stolen from her and her father disinheriting her had not helped matters. She'd gone begging to William to forgive her in vain. Alastair had threatened to drag her to court if she protested against his sole custody of the child and destitute as she'd been she'd no ammunitions against her husband's atrocities. However, before she could file a case against him, she died tragically."
Closing his eyes in anguish, Dev recalled having read a scandal about Elizabeth Richmond's fall from grace, dying in a shabby apartment while in a relationship with a drunkard. After having masterfully screwed up her life, Alastair must have ensured that the woman should be left powerless to fight for her only child. The odds of gaining custody of Ana were next to null, considering the opposite party's status quo – a well-settled rich man with a family.
"So, what happened to your mother happened to hers as well. Who is going to compensate Ana for her loss?"
Dev winced as the crude words pierced his heart, leaving him unable to draw a normal breath. Indeed, who was going to compensate Ana for her horrendous past? Certainly not him. Instead of being a panacea to her already scourged life, he had poetically destroyed the faintest hope that his presence in her life could have brought.
Reality was suddenly more vicious than a snake bite, where he found unable to face such a harsh reality check. He'd allowed his ignorance and strong opinions to cloud his judgement about Ana, feeling like he'd just awaken from a deep slumber.
"On top of that, she knew nothing about your mother while she was your fiancée, I personally told her the truth about your mother's suicide the day after her father died. She was devastated."
A repressed moan of distress escaped him although he was quite aware of that fact. Nothing about Ana was facetious, she would never dupe him or lie to him like he'd always believed. What had he done? What had he done? How could he have targeted her as his victim for so many years when she'd been such an angel to him? Even during their relationship, when sometimes he'd allowed anger to get the better of him, she'd never questioned his bitterness. Ana had been ready to forgive his every spite, his every cruelty, loving him unconditionally.
And he'd lost that.
Aghast, he allowed tears of remorse to flow, uncaring of his presence in the man's office, restlessness gnawing at him that he lost the track of reality.
"You love her."
It was a statement, a reality as obvious as the sun which enlightened his somber existence. Yes, he loved her. But what good had that brought her?
Still, he nodded willing that truth to become a miracle instead of a punishment. Miller nodded back in acknowledgement, having already known the fact for what it was. Wiping the tears with his thumb, Dev awkwardly faced his ally again, his eyes pleading for a solution when there was no hope for forgiveness.
"She will never forgive me," he blurted out without thinking. "If you know her as much as I do, you should know the kind of person she is. She hates even more passionately than she loves."
Did he even deserved to be forgiven? How could she forgive him when he could hardly look at himself in the mirror?
"So, what now? You walk out of her life without taking the trouble to face her wrath? After inflicting so much pain to her?" Miller asked pragmatically.
Putting it like that, it made him look even more selfish than what he'd considered the most altruistic option. Dev sighed wearily, unable to believe that he was confiding about his love problems with an old man, someone he didn't even know minutes before, but which left him to ponder about the fact that he had no one else to turn to.
Wasn't that the way he'd deliberately led his life? Emotionless? Without commitments? Lonely? Pathetic? Without purpose, he stood up nodding with disdain towards the documents still lying on the table. "Keep them," he muttered, making a move to leave.
What he thought would bring him peace now were blazes of fire scorching his skin if he ever laid a finger on them. To think that he'd achieved his objectives by making Ana's heart bleed made him nauseatic enough to vomit out his whole heart.
"Listen, son," he lawyer stopped him at the door. "I so wish I could tell you to wipe away the past and start looking towards the future but I'm going to be blunt. It's really difficult for Ana to move on with you, especially after you've treated her. But if there's one thing I know, she's never going to heal if you leave her now. For the past five years, there's been not a single boyfriend in her social life, nothing to make me believe that there was hope for her."
It was just what he needed. A germ of hope started to form inside his chest, and he was afraid that if he allowed leeway it would blossom into a flower too soon. After a long long time, he felt like a man from the desert being allowed one drop of water, and he was so thirsty.
"Besides, what more you've got to lose?"
As parting shot, it was equivalent to triggering life into a CHF patient, boosting his previously numb mind into activity. Nodding in the direction of the old man, he took the papers he offered with gratitude, and made his way towards life with burgeoning hope for the first time inside him. It was a heady feeling, the lure towards happiness, the thought that eventually things might work out.
But even in his optimism, he didn't kid himself into believing that it was going to be an easy task. Ahead laid obstacles worthy of mountains he would have to conquer to prove his sincerity. But one thing was certain. Anastasia Hazel Forrester was his. He would prove or die doing so.
Being a man of great devise, he set out several strategies, exploring different scenarios but ultimately realized that things didn't quite worked systematically in the matters of hearts. Finally defeated, Devin found himself doing the only thing he'd promised himself he wouldn't succumb to – phoning the aggressive Aimee McKenzie.
Days later, he found himself surrounded by celebrities, their famous faces flashing before him with fleeting familiarity without him able to place a finger on every one of them. Like last time, he'd managed to give the red carpet a miss, slithering his way behind another celebrity. That first time, he'd wanted to have the upper hand with the surprise effect on Ana, and this time he wanted to avoid unwarranted attention to his presence.
Thanks to his connection with a prominent member of the staff, he'd been allocated a seat on the front row, his gaze grazing dispassionately around the crowd catching on a few snide remarks about fashion faux-pas and similar facetious topics.
Any onlooker would interpret his casual demeanor as an insignificant appearance while deep down, restless anticipation filled him that it required quite an effort from him not to fidget. The plan was quick getaway to a romantic location, which was why he'd needed the association of her friend to arrange entrance to Ana's headquarters without any fuss. It had not been easy to convince that harridan McKenzie of his sincerity; she had railroaded him so much that he had to ultimately beg for her cooperation.
"You don't have to like me," he'd arrogantly announced the moment she'd arrived at the restaurant after several persistent calls.
"You have better come up with a good explanation right now!" she'd retorted back, her fury and loyalty to her best friend obvious in the hostility she bore him. It had taken him almost sixteen minutes only to persuade her to sit on the same table, and when she'd acquiesced with flagrant reluctance, he'd known then that there was no getting around that shrew except with the truth.
"I love her, okay?" That had got her undivided attention.
Frowning at him with hostility, she sat facing him her eyebrows raised in skepticism like she was some queen looking down upon an offender. "You do? Prove it."
Immediately on the defensive, Dev raked through his mind to find a rational way to show evidence of his feelings, resenting the fact that he was being mistrusted. All his life he'd prided himself for never resorting to lies, except that in the particular case he could not hold a grudge to the woman in front of him for questioning his credibility. She was testing him, and had they been in interchanged places, he would have done exactly the same thing.
Then, a brilliant idea struck him. It had never been about money, right?
"I'll give her back the Ashford mansion and her shares."
From the way she gaped at him open-mouthed in blatant shock, Dev could guess that he had her where he wanted - her back to the wall.
Narrowing her gaze suspiciously at him, she glared for a few seconds seeming to weigh his words before her eyes got to their normal size. "You got back your mansion? How the hell had she managed the impossible?"
"Never mind that," he'd more than barked, feeling irritated about the truth. How could he possibly divulge how his Ana had sacrificed herself for a SOB like him? It wasn't a fact that he was proud of, so he opted for skipping the explanation. His baffled exasperation mingled with guilt must have conveyed some pity in the heart of that Medusa for the level of frost seemed to fade. "Wow! You must really count for her."
"You think so?" Dev could not help asking eagerly. Mr. Miller had also given him the impression that he believed Ana to care for him more than she should. At that point, eh was beyond caring that it was selfish from him – he could at least perceive a silver lining in the darkest clouds.
With the same bout of optimism, his attention resumed to the present, as he watched with disinterest when the models started to make their rehearsed appearances, glittering with the excess make-up, showing off their bodies to the maximum.
Queerly enough, not one of them seemed to arouse his interest but when Ana made her appearance, it had the same effect of the sun coming out of the murky clouds. She literally lit up his dark existence, her altruist nature acting like a balm to his wounded soul. It had finally dawned on him that he'd chosen the wrong path, while she was the one who had persevered through every obstacle in her life.
From the tidbit pieces he'd been able to extract from Aimee, he'd discovered that Ana donated all the profits from the show to charitable organization – a commendable act but also so typical of her. It shamed him to realize that whilst she had chosen to weave her past into the betterment of disfavored children, he'd taken to the path of revenge – one filled with so much hatred and pain that he'd almost destroyed himself in the process. It made her so much a better person than he could ever aspire to be.
The thought of having chosen another person for his bogus marriage made him shudder with distaste. He could barely imagine the soulless life he would have led with another cynical as himself, the probability of him being healed from his everlasting depression seemed inexistent. It was only because of Ana's exceptional nature that he had been able to see the truth for what it was.
Never had he believed that his hardened heart would unlock in such a way, curing him of the anguish he'd experienced in the past. How to stop his heart from loving someone like Ana? It was unthinkable. He just wished he was strong enough to offer more than he'd taken from her now. But it was clear that he was not ready to give up on her.
With a new purpose, he watched her perform her craft the intent shining in his eyes as he stared at her with a blurred and dreamy look. Gorgeous was too weak a word to describe her. With her hair swept up in a chic bun, make-up heavy enough to create a flawless illusion, but making her look completely different from the Ana he knew. The white overcoat with a rounded color and matching white skirt made her look scrawnier, but her perfect legs shone in the dim light as she stood in complete calm and poise.
At first, he presumed that she had not seen him yet for there was nothing in her demeanor to indicate that she was aware of his presence, not even a flicker of shock like last time Then, as her appearances piled up, she still managed to ignore him completely, without any sign that she'd spotted him in the crowd, and it irked him terribly to be so royally snubbed.
Restless anticipation ran through him, and he could feel his blood pumping fiercely in his veins as the need for her overwhelmed him, feeling a sense of déjà-vu. In dichotomy, she seemed completely immune to him, calmly performing her catwalk, without even a fleeting glance in his direction. Hating the ambivalence which seized him, he waited with breathless hope until her eyes would meet his with any reaction. Surprise. Shock. Pleasure. Hatred.
None came.
It deflated his male ego like someone had popped an inflated balloon, but most importantly it dashed the remnant of hope that had stemmed inside his heart. Indifference, he discovered was far far worse than hate. And it didn't sit quite well with him.
Even as the idea stemmed his subconscious reckoned it was a terrible one, but once planted in his mind, he felt fidgety enough to allow his heart to cloud his judgement. When she appeared that time, she was wearing a long black chiffon dress, the cloth looking as soft as muslin paper, with the gown flaring at her feet in pools of black. Her chignon, cherry red lipstick and dark Smokey eyes gave her a chic look but what really had the audience hooked was the way she carried off the look. With panache.
On an impulse he wasn't usually known for, he bounced off his seat in one dexterous movement and mounted the ramp with one huge leap like a sleek panther. The consensus gasp of the audience was distinct, almost like it had been orchestrated in one synchronous symphony. Dev felt every eyes on him, but he was beyond caring. The only person who mattered to him had stilled in obvious reaction but was still not meeting his eyes.
Still, he advanced towards her in slow and sure strides like he would have done with a wounded cat, and there was a public uproar when he reached her side. Only Aimee who stood at the far end of the backstage was sending him frantic signals which he could capture out of the corner of his eyes – the rest probably believed that his dramatic appearance was staged.
Time stood still as he stared down at her, waiting patiently for her to connect with him, on any level. Waiting for her to show any sign at all that he was affecting her. Her eyes remained stubbornly averted, during which his breath caught in his throat, and time stood still until the few seconds which tickled seemed like an eternity.
Then, finally, she glanced up at him in one swift uplift of her long eyelashes.
And the breath he'd been holding whooshed out of him when cold blue eyes stared emotionlessly at him, so translucent that he felt he would drown in the depths. There was no place for words – he was looking at her with such devotion, portraying his every emotion in one feral look, certain that his eyes had taken a completely dark green hue.
Defiance was what he faced, blue eyes homing into his while he stood his ground without betraying any other emotion apart from his feelings for her. Even the audience who seemed to catch up on the tension remained silent enough to hear a pin drop. The background faded and time seemed to stop as they stared into each other's eyes, enveloping them in a cocoon where only the two of them existed in one deep eye-lock.
Until he found what he'd been waiting for. A shade of sky blue appeared in the eyes he was fixated upon, and he could finally read something there. Passion. Desire. For him.
Elated beyond words, he bent to bodily pick her up in his arms before making a heroic exit.