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Anything is possible when you have all the right people there to support you.
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Max was undoubtedly eligible for an Oscar with his acting skills.
He was so calm and collected that no one would have been able to guess what was really going on.
"When we both started going out, Adina hated me." I could hear some girls giggle as this story was starting out to be the textbook highschool romance. "I wasn't the best boyfriend. Heck, I wasn't even the best person. But a lot of things changed me."
My heart was pounding.
Oh dear God, let nothing go wrong.
"I became the guy that took her to places closest to my heart." He was talking about the night I got drunk. "I became the guy who had a drink with her best friend because I needed her trust me." This story, I didn't know. "And I became the guy who helped her friend's mom, so he could trust me." Again, I had no idea what he was talking about.
"But what I didn't know was that this 'friend' was just as connected to me as he was to Adi here." He let go of my hand and dug into his pocket. "It's funny how someone who I never thought I'd have anything to do with, suddenly becomes a very big part of my life."
He had helped Damien's mother? How? When?
My eyes scanned the crowd and landed on Jerry Walker. He looked slightly uncomfortable and he was fiddling with his tie.
Good.
My mother was right beside him with the same look on her face.
"So Ladies and Gentlemen, this is our big announcement." He pushed a button on the projector remote he was holding and images appeared on the wall above the TV.
The pictures I had sent to Damien were on the wall.
And then pictures of Damien as a baby with his mother and Max's father.
The collective gasps that came from the small crowd in my living room made me smile.
"Your eyes are working perfectly." I said. "That's Jerry Walker with a woman who's most definitely not Max's mom."
"What does this prove? Everyone makes mistakes." My mother said from wherever she was.
She had just called Damien a mistake. I knew I was boiling.
"He's a person and the brother I've wanted to have for years, don't you dare call him a mistake." Max countered with the same intensity I would have countered.
"And besides, Jerry Walker didn't just make a mistake." The picture on the screen changed to the pictures of the DNA test results and a newspaper article calling Antoinette a mentally unstable woman for claiming to have Jerry's baby. "He was a horrible person." Max's face was as lifeless as some stone as he said this.
Before I could blink, people had their phones out, taking pictures.
"All of these are baseless accusations really, there's no proof. All these pictures could be fake, photoshopped." My mother was frantic now. I almost felt bad for her.
"What other proof do you think we need, Michelle?" One of the guests, who I could barely recognize, asked my mom.
"It's okay, I knew you'd need more proof." Max said after texting someone on his phone.
In the middle of all the commotion, Damien walked in.
No tux, no tie.
Just a pair of pants and a t-shirt.
In no time, he was standing next to Max and for the first time I saw that they had the same eye color. Their cheekbones were defined almost identically and it made sense that they were brothers.
The crowd gasped again and the picture taking continued. Who needed paparazzi when we had people with smartphones.
"Hello, Dad." Damien said, looking directly at Jerry who looked very terrified. "I have been waiting to meet you, all my life."
•••
The silence in the room was deafening.
Jerry got up and started taking slow steps towards Damien.
"Damien?" He looked like he was in a trance. "Is this really you?"
"In the flesh." Damien smiled and shrugged, hands in pocket.
Despite his remarkable ability to keep it all together, I knew he wasn't doing so good on the inside.
"Jerry, don't let them get to you. This is just a plan to bring us down and destroy all we've worked for." My mother was beside Jerry, her arm linked with his.
"'We'?" My father asked from a corner of the room. "What do you mean 'we'?
The look on his face broke my heart.
"I am really sorry, Mr. Powers." Max said as the picture on the wall changed to one of my mother and Jerry checking into a resort together. The next picture was of them kissing on the beach on some island.
My father didn't look surprised. He just looked hurt and like he felt disrespected.
"Dad..." I started walking to him.
"No, Princess. I am fine." He wasn't. "You need to finish what you started. I'll be in my room when all this is over." He took a deep breath and looked at my mom. "My lawyer will be calling you first thing tomorrow morning." And with that he walked away.
Tears were threatening to run down my face.
"I got this." Loren mouthed to me from across the room with a thumbs up and disappeared with my father.
Jerry also stormed out of the house with my mother sadly following at his heel.
Damien turned to me and smiled. His eyes held mine for a few seconds and he reluctantly looked away from me to the guests.
"Sorry for crashing your party and even though I highly doubt that you will, enjoy the rest of the it." Damien finished with a cheeky grin on his face and walked out the front door.
Max held my hand and squeezed it reassuringly.
"So without further Ado, we'd like to announce that we're not getting married. And from Monday, meetings will be held to discuss the future of Mr. Jerry Walker as president of J. Walker's Tech."
"It's been fun but the party's over." I said. "Thank you so much for coming. Have a Merry Christmas and a goodnight."
In less than five minutes, the house was empty.
My father came down the stairs with Loren and I ran into his arms.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Powers." Max apologised again, like he felt responsible for all the hurt his father had caused my family.
"It's okay, Max." My father let me go and walked over to Max. "You're a good kid."
"Mr. Powers doesn't think you should stay here tonight. You know, because of your mom." Loren said.
"Yes." My father reached into his pocket and brought out a card. "This hotel is just a few minutes drive from here. You can go with your friends." How did my dad know about my friends? I had never introduced them to him. "Loren told me about them." He laughed, reading my mind.
"I see you both have been talking a lot." I smirked at Loren and she blushed.
How cute.
"Uh... I think you should get going now. It's getting dark." Loren said, sounding flustered. My dad just looked worried.
"I brought my car." Max offered. "But if you don't want to-"
"I'd love to." I quickly interrupted. "I'll go pack up a few clothes and be down in a flash. Please call Morgan and Damien."
I ran upstairs with Loren behind me as I heard Max and Dad talk business behind us.
•••
ERIC POWERS
I sat on the couch in my room with a bottle of scotch in my hand.
I had no idea that my life would have turned out like this.
If anyone had told me that giving up my happiness for family's sake was going to be this hard, I didn't think I would have done it.
It wasn't just me anymore, it was my daughter.
I felt like I could do nothing for her.
If I wasn't out of town so much I would have known she almost killed herself.
When she finally told me before the party, it took all I had not break in her presence.
I had looked into my company's finances and a lot of things didn't seem right.
After weeks of investigating, I found out that my company was doing perfectly well.
Michelle forged numbers to make it look like we were going bankrupt, like we needed to merge with Jerry's company.
So I looked into Jerry's company and found out that his company was going under.
It all made sense. My company was going to revive his.
I was never one to be greedy or want what others had. But I protected the people I loved. Even though I wasn't always like that, my daughter had changed me.
So I convinced about 5 out of 16 of his shareholders to sell their shares to me.
I was going to make Jerry and Michelle pay for hurting my daughter.
"Mr. Powers?" Loren slowly opened the door. "Are you in here?"
"Yeah." I held up my glass of Scotch. "I think I really need a drinking buddy right now."
She laughed and grabbed a glass from the mini bar and poured herself some wine.
As she got closer my breath hitched.
Her eyes were not the same and her hair wasn't either. The Loren I knew had blonde hair and blue eyes but this woman walking towards me had the most beautiful black hair and mesmerizing green eyes.
Same green eyes that drove me crazy twenty years ago.
"That's why I wore a hat earlier." She just stood there with the glass of wine in her hand, effortlessly reading my mind. "This may sound crazy but I swear I'm not stalking you." She laughed with the slightest hint of sadness in her voice and put the glass on the table in front of me, still standing.
"Robin?" My head was definitely spinning.
"It's been a while, Eric." She smiled as one tear slid down her face.
"It's been twenty years, Robin." I got up.
The woman in front of me was the love of my life. Childhood sweethearts. The whole world thought we would get married.
We thought we would get married.
Then Michelle happened.
Twenty years ago, I thought I had no choice. I had a family legacy to protect, a family business to grow and my happiness was nothing but a luxury I could not afford.
I always thought that every bad thing that happened to me was punishment for hurting her. For leaving her. For choosing Michelle.
"You know my family has never really been well to do. So it's no surprise that I have to do this kind of job to take care of my father." She shrugged.
"What happened to your mother?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"Cancer." I couldn't stop myself from crying. "She died a month after you got married."
"Robin, I'm so sorry."
"I know you are." She replied, her voice barely above a whisper.
"So when I got a call from my agency that there was a job in this part of New York, I just had to take it. I knew the pay would be good but I had no idea I would be seeing you again."
"Robin, I-" She wrapped her arms around me.
"I missed you so much, Eric." She said, her voice making it obvious she was crying.
I instinctively wrapped my arms around her.
That was why I was comfortable around her, that was why her warmth felt familiar.
"I couldn't stop thinking about you for twenty years." She sobbed.
"Twenty years, 7 months, 2 weeks and 5 days." I breathed out.
She pulled back and looked at me with the dorky smile I could never get over.
"I am so sorry for leaving you, Robin." I sighed, still crying and pushing her hair from her face. "I am-"
"You have to stop saying you're sorry, Eric." She smiled. "I still have all the apology letters you sent to me during the first year of your marriage. One letter, every week. I still have all fifty-two of them."
"Really?" I smiled through the tears and she nodded childishly. How could I have given this up for anything?
"I know that this may make me sound selfish or greedy but I want you, Eric. I have all my life. When I saw you and your wife when I first started working here, I lost sleep for a week. I cried so hard I thought I was going to fall sick." She wiped the tears from my face with her small fingers.
"But I was going to let you go if you were happy. And at first I thought you were. But when I became your drinking buddy, I know I could never quit you." She took a deep, shaky breath. "I love you, Eric."
I closed the distance between us and kissed her. It felt like my life had become whole again.
I didn't care what the press would say or what my employees would think of me.
I lost Robin once, worrying about how other people felt. I was never going to let that happen again.
When we pulled apart, her green eyes stared into my soul.
"I love you, Robin."
Hey, everyone!
How are we doing?
So... The truth is finally out and I must say it felt good to write this chapter.
I loved it when Jerry's cool and confident demeanor cracked.
And yay for Eric, right?
He finally got his freedom.
I added his POV because I needed to write about being with people we don't love out of a sense of duty and it's consequences...
And I thought it wouldn't hurt to add a little back story.
So please tell me what you think in the comments.
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Love, Deezay1.