Ashton
The light blinds me and I hear gentle whispers all around. I’m lying on something soft and somebody is stroking my hair away from my face. It feels comforting and sweet. Tyler! I knew he would come for me. Then it all comes back, and the pain hits me like a truck. The tears fall from my closed lids and a sound unlike any I have ever heard before wrenches from my soul.
Suddenly, I am pulled to a hard chest and strong arms fold around me as the deep husky voice of my husband soothes me with his words.
“It’s ok, Ashton. It’s Ryder. Your daddy’s gone and isn’t coming back.”
I say in a broken voice, “Tyler, Oh my god, Tyler!”
He whispers. “Tyler’s fine, Angel. Your daddy was wrong. Tyler isn’t dead.”
Just for a moment, his words don’t register and I blink and pull back. I say huskily, “What do you mean? He told me, Tyler is… dead.”
I struggle with the last word but Ryder kisses my tears away and whispers, “Tyler wants your father to think he is. I can’t say any more than that because he isn’t ready yet. He’s working on setting you both free, Angel. Just stay strong and everything will be ok.”
I sink back into his arms and just let my mind catch up. What just happened?
Later that night Ryder fills me in when I’m stronger.
As soon as I fainted Ryder sprang into action. Snake was ordered to remove my father and persuade him never to return. Bonnie followed Ryder who carried me home, and they waited until I came round.
I shiver as I remember the look in my father’s eye as he told me what had happened to Tyler. Ryder sits beside me and presses a brandy into my hand. “Drink up, darlin’ and I’ll tell you a story.”
He holds me close as he tells me the story I was never meant to hear.
“Years ago, before you were born your daddy had worked his way up in the oil company he worked for. He worked for Marshall Emmerson’s father and he soon drew the attention of the big man himself. Unlike his own son, your father had a knack for the business and was soon promoted over Marshall. This didn’t go down well and there was lots of trouble. Then one-day Marshall turned up with his new girlfriend. She was a real beauty and turned many heads, your fathers included. Marshall was a bit of a playboy and liked to play the field. Because of this, his father wanted him to settle down and provide the next generation. They were married in the biggest wedding Texas had ever seen. However, it didn’t take long for Marshall to revert back to his old ways and his wife left him. The trouble was, she left him for the man he hated the most—your father. Despite still being married to Marshall she soon became pregnant with your father’s baby. Tyler. The scandal hit the headlines and your father was sacked on the spot for bringing the company into disrepute. Alice stayed with him though and soon became pregnant with you. Your father had no contacts who would touch him for fear of the powerful Emmerson family and had to take what work he could. They were hard times, and it was only when Emmerson Senior died that things changed.”
I look at Ryder with an intensity I have never experienced before. This is powerful stuff. He has my past, present, and future in his hand and I almost stop breathing as the anticipation grows. He smiles reassuringly and carries on.
“Your daddy had begun to drink and grew depressed. It was hard on them as a family, to have so much and then nothing. Then one-day Marshall Emmerson came to visit. Tyler must have been 4 years old by then and you were just under 2. Marshall made a deal with your father. He would reinstate him at the oil company and set him up with his own division. To everyone else it would be your father’s company and he would reap the rewards as such. Marshall wasn’t the businessman your father was and recognized that if he carried on the way he was going, he would be left with nothing. Your father was desperate and had only one thing Marshall wanted in return—you.”
I catch my breath and feel the tears welling in my eyes. Ryder kisses my lips softly and squeezes me hard. “It’s ok, darlin’, it’s hard to hear but you need to know.”
He carries on in a low voice.
“You were to be kept for Marshall until you were 21 and then offered to him as his wife. You had to be a virgin, and it was only if both criteria were in place, Marshall would sign the contract making your father an equal partner with him. If not, he would be fired and left with nothing and nowhere to go. Nobody would touch him and he would be destroyed.”
I begin to shake and have to ask the question burning in my heart. “What happened to my mother?”
He shakes his head. “She wouldn’t agree to the deal. She wanted no part in it and threatened to take you far away where nobody knew you. She became a problem that needed solving and nothing was going to stand in the way of the two men’s dreams.”
I choke. “What happened to her?”
Ryder looks down. “They planted drugs on her and informed the authorities. They didn’t stop there. They discredited her among her friends and spread vicious rumors about her sanity. Gradually, she was fed drugs into her food and she became addicted. Your father wasted no time in becoming the poor struggling husband and father who had tried everything. He had your mother committed to a sanitarium where she died of an overdose two years later.”
From nowhere the tears come. This is too much, too raw and too painful. I can’t remember my mother and yet it’s as if I have just lost her.
The sobs wrack my body as I cry for the woman who didn’t deserve what life dealt her. I am crying for the lost childhood and the two men who determined my fate while I was still in diapers. But most of all, I cry for the part of me that died today. The part that carried hope in her heart of finding my mother one day. The dream has been ripped from my future with the harsh brutality of knowledge.
It’s all gone.
The person I was and the person I aspired to be.
I am crying for the death of who I am and I need to mourn the past before I can build a better future with the man holding me so tenderly in his arms.