Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ainsley

Be brave.

I replace the pain and fear with rage and indifference. She's no one, I'm Ainsley Janine Colthurst-Decker. The princess and only woman who matters in his life. At least, that's who I was until I turned sixteen. Then… I'll pretend I'm the only important woman in his life.

"Where's Gabriel?" I walk around her and enter the house screaming his name. "Gabriel!"

"Wait," she calls out.

I ignore her.

"You can't just waltz into the house as if it belongs to you." Her shrill voice makes my blood boil.

I bet Hollywood Barbie doesn't know I'm the half-sister of the baby she carries. Unbelievable. He hasn't told her about us. Freaking crazy but not surprising.

"Watch me."

"Gabriel!" I yell. "Gabriel, where are you?"

As if I had said abracadabra, he appears. His blue eyes glare at me as if he's trying to reprimand me for something. Maybe barging into his new mansion?

I also see the struggle because he's dying to hug his little girl. But the mask appears soon, and he mirrors my indifference.

"Follow me," he orders, no hello or greeting involved. Before he takes a step, he looks at his new woman. "Make sure no one interrupts us, Nikki—including you."

"Is she a reporter?" She covers her belly.

I grin and pull out my phone pretending I'm snapping a picture.

"No, don't worry about her," he responds. "In fact, you never saw her."

"Did you just downgrade me to an imaginary or mythical creature?"

He doesn't respond. I continue to poke him. "You don't seem surprised to see me."

We enter a large room with wall-to-wall bookcases that span from the floor up to the ceiling. Behind a mahogany desk, there is a majestic panoramic window that faces the ocean. A familiar setting, but I'm positive that I've never been here before. Gabriel closes the door behind us and resumes the conversation.

"How would I be? The bank called earlier to inform me that Miss Colthurst spent twenty-five thousand dollars in one swipe and to confirm that I authorized the transaction."

"Huh, so it was the bank that gave me away."

He nods. "Logically, I had to find out what you were up to. I feared you'd been in the hospital and with that pride you carry… you wouldn't call. That's why I sent Mason to pick you up, I wanted him to make sure you're all right. He was in the neighborhood."

That explains Mason, but not everything else. Where are we and why is he with this little gold digger?

"There's a tabloid with a picture of you and…" I tilt my head toward the closed door. I fight with the fist-sized knot in my throat. "See, I was hoping you'd say, ‘please, Ainsley, you know better. It's all lies.' But here we are. You have a wife, a kid.

"Finally, a kid you can recognize as yours. Your first kid, the magazine highlighted that part. Congratulations are in order." I clean the dripping sarcasm from my mouth with the back of my hand.

Those wrinkles around his blue eyes shrink even more. Late fifties look different in front of the cameras, in the media, and in general.

He huffs and shakes his head. "That's what made you crawl outside your little hideout, I see."

Dad closes his eyes and takes several breaths before opening them again. "Life changed while you were gone, Ainsley. I don't think you have the right to burst into my house and make a scene."

"Of course, it's your house." I grab the edge of the desk to keep myself from getting caught in the rapids I'm swimming against. "Did he finally dump your ass?"

"So, I take it you're not here to apologize?" He dodges my question.

As I look around, I feel like I'm at home. But this isn't our old house.

"This house looks a lot like the house in Baja." I take a few steps and scan the room, avoiding his question.

Two can play this game. He wants to pretend I'm nobody and this isn't important, well, let that be the case. I learned from the best—him. If he thinks I'll ask him to forgive me, the answer is hell no. Not when he's proving that I was right. He lied to us for a long time. He only cares about his image and what the rest of the world thinks of him.

"Eight rooms upstairs," I describe our house. "The biggest facing the ocean and it's right above this library, isn't it? You never brought us here."

Babbling, faking anger, is what's keeping me standing in one piece without shedding a tear.

"Can I ask you a question? Actually, just a few things and after that, I swear I'll disappear—this time forever, just like you always wanted."

Gabriel sets his hands on his hips and stares at me before he lets a breath out. I take that as a "yes" or maybe it's a "go ahead you poor kid, let's do this one last time before I start my new family."

"What were we for you?"

He doesn't respond or move, and now I wonder if he's even breathing.

"Did we mean anything to you? Did you ever care about me?"

I place my hands behind my back and cross my fingers, hoping we meant something at some point or another.

"You said you had this great love for your family. We were what gave meaning to your life." I swallow a few times and ask the obvious question, "Was that another bunch of lies?"

Damn, I seem to always put myself through these kinds of situations.

Gabriel runs a hand through his blond hair, his sapphire eyes never leaving mine.

"Ainsley, you're real." He uses his soft but firm voice. "You and your brothers are my entire world, baby girl. I love you—the three of you—with all my heart. You were never a lie and yes, my family is what gave meaning to my life."

He shrugs and continues, "Things change, love changes, and just as I protected the four of you for years, now it's time to look after me."

He makes it sound as if he put his life on hold for us and now that we're older, it's time to get it back in gear. Protect… because putting his family in the middle of nowhere Washington is as powerful as a special shield? A dome?

"So that's it?" I say defeated. "Bye, bye to the old. Hello Twinkie wife?"

His gaze drops and I take it as a yes.

"I'm glad the farce is over, and you get to be true to yourself," I continue.

It angers me even more that he's not reacting to any of what I'm saying. I need him to crack, to at least yell at me. Something. Anything is better than having him emotionless.

"Where is the big love, the one that happens once in a lifetime? What happened to it? If you lost it just like that, then there's no hope for the rest of us, Dad."

No wonder my first relationship fell apart. At sixteen, I was a dreamer. I believed in love. And thought I had found what my fathers claimed to have. A great love that could withstand everything.

Dad doesn't speak. He has no comeback or comment to what I say. He turns around, facing the window, and stares out at the blue sea.

The silence feels eternal. I should move, but I wait. After what feels like hours, he extends his hand and curls his fingers toward me. I hesitate for a second but take a couple of steps and stand right beside him.

He puts his arm around my shoulder and hugs me tightly, kissing the top of my head. I hug my dad for the first time in years and my back relaxes. I'm home, but for how long?

"You can stay together in the name of love for only so long, Ainsley." His voice has lost all the strength.

The shields are down.

My body and soul identify with his. We can't continue. We're defeated, sad and with only so much energy left to go on. This is one of the traits we share, putting on a brave front while withering on the inside.

"Lately, I wonder if what we had warranted our relationship. It lasted so long, but was it real?"

I hate his words.

He shakes his head. "It was a fantasy we built. Once reality hit, we couldn't keep it together. It hurts. Being apart is painful—I won't lie."

Really, it hurts? Because there's a woman outside who is pregnant. I want to yell at him, my teeth grind, but I don't let my anger get the best of me.

"It was mutual, we came to the conclusion that we wanted different things, our lives were going in different directions, and now I'm trying to build something—a new life?"

The uncertainty in his voice is a gift, a speckle of light that gives me hope. The words… well, they sound like a speech they—my parents—agreed on giving us. That's the way they were while growing up, one parental front. What really happened?

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but my money is on him.

Gabriel called it off.

Why did you do it?

If I think about my childhood, this doesn't make sense. My parents drove me insane with their rules. Their crazy ideas and lies to the outside world. However, they are a match made in heaven. They are like milk and cookies; one can't go without the other.

"This is wrong." I shake my head. "You can't finish a once in a lifetime love story like this."

I cross my arms, refusing to accept that it's over.

"Each time you told the story, it didn't sound as if you made sacrifices for us. It sounded like you did it out of love. Am I wrong? Would you like to revise your story?"

He glances at me and sighs. Poor man, he looks broken.

"You should. Let's do a play-by-play," I suggest. "Maybe you can come clean and clear up all the lies you added as we grew up."

"They weren't lies," he defends himself. "Maybe we skipped a few details… not many. We couldn't disclose everything to our small children."

"Once upon a time I thought I found what you did, Dad."

My bottom lip quivers, but I continue, "But everything crumbled, and… You're proving me right; love is a shitty thing."

"It isn't," he says firmly. "I can prove you wrong."

"I'm all ears, Dad. What in the world can you say to convince me that you're right?"