A Billionaire's Secret Baby - Chapter 22

Iwas dreaming. Dreaming of the apartment in Philly, the matted, tangled hair of the man as he slipped out of the door. I was calling to him, waiting for him to stop. “Don’t go,” I cried. “Don’t go, dad!”

Then, my eyes opened, and I heard the cry from outside: “Hey!” It was faint, but the voice was unmistakable. It was a voice I’d know anywhere.

It was Lola.

I’d had that dream a hundred times, but, I reflected, I hadn’t had it in some time. I got up and looked out through the window.

Lola must be at the southern end of the house. I slipped on my sweater and some pants, and put on a pair of shoes. I took the car keys, just in case we’d need to leave in a hurry. Had they found us?

I went down the stairs and through the living room. The house was quiet and still.

Where was Lola?

I went into the kitchen, and was about to leave when something caught my eye through the window. I stepped forward.

I peered down towards the lake, and rubbed my eyes which were bleary with sleep. I could see Lola, standing down the bank through the trees, by the lake. Her fiery red hair blowing behind her in the wind.

But who was she talking to? Far away, in the distance, I could hear voices. And ahead of Lola in the moonlight, I could see a tall, scraggly shape of a man, limping up the shore of the lake and sitting on a rock.

I watched them for a moment. Lola was talking to him. Who was he?

The back door was open. Stealthily, I stole down through it. But rather than heading down the bank, I made my way to the right, through the trees. As I drew close, I could hear voices.

The old man’s voice was hoarse as he spoke.

“I’m here to see him, or try to,” he said sullenly.

“And how did you know he was here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’ve been following you. Well, following him, that is.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere I could find. After that bastard Desilva got to me, I didn’t really know what to do. I knew I had to see him. I knew that I had to look at the face of the son I abandoned.”

I felt a chill creeping through my bones, and in the darkness, I peered at the face of the stranger. It was the old man I’d seen outside The Blue Orchid, the one who’d been following us in the diner. Deep-set face, sharp cheekbones, and a pair of blue eyes.

The eyes. I’d never thought about it before. But now that I did, I realized those eyes had burned themselves into my memory for a reason.

I’d seen them before.

The man was my father.

“Why did you do it?” said Lola, and I heard the curiosity in her voice. Lola, my Lola. What was she doing out here by the shore of the lake, talking to my father? Talking to him in secret, without me? Had they been meeting? Did they know each other?

Had Lola betrayed me?

I could feel a steady, slow fuse burning to its base in my stomach. I was all anger and unhappiness, and I could feel myself paling as I looked at the woman I thought meant everything to me. The woman I wanted to take care of, to keep safe, and watched her talking to the man who’d left me. The man whose thin, lanky frame I’d seen most nights in my dreams for the last three decades. The man who’d walked out on me and my mom when I was just a little boy.

“Let’s just say, I wasn’t around much. And when I was, I was normally drunk—or high,” the stranger muttered. A sickly feeling of disgust ran through my body.

“When I left him, I thought I was doing the best I could,” added the stranger pitifully. Is that what you think, Dad? I stepped out of the trees, behind Lola. I couldn’t see her face.

“Where have you been all these years?” she said, in desperation.

“What does it matter?” I snarled.

Lola turned, and as she did, I saw her shoulder slump in despair. I could see the look in her eyes, green orbs in the night, as the moon lit one side of her face while the other lay in shadow. Who was she? Friend or foe?

“You,” I growled, and the old man stood up.

“Yeah,” he said, slowly, and I saw the hopelessness in his gaze. The man in front of me—if he was Max Lowe, if he was my father—seemed resigned to whatever I had to say.

“You know him, Lola?” I said, stepping to the right. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but one part of me wanted to leap on the stranger, to hit him and keep hitting him.

“Alex, no, no,” she said in desperation, but I wasn’t really listening. My questions weren’t real questions. They were accusations.

“It’s true, Alex,” said the old man. He was looking straight at me now, and I couldn’t help but feel like an idiot for not noticing him before. The man in front of me had been battered and bruised by the years, but he bore an unmistakable likeness to me. “It was Luca who found me. He paid me to forge your birth certificate. At the time, I thought I was doing you a favor—”

“A favor,” I said, my voice somehow deader and colder in my ears. I wasn’t feeling anything anymore. It was as if I’d been throwing myself against a wall of pure rage, and it had finally numbed me. “You really thought that when he put the cash in your hands?”

“I’m not proud of myself, son,” said Max.

“Don’t call me that,” I said.

“Very well. I’m not proud of myself, Alex. But I’ve told you now.”

“Yeah, I guess you have.”

There was silence between us.

“So what now?” said Lola.

I looked at her, and I laughed. I chuckled with the absurdity of it all. Lola Ryder, and my father. Here, on the shore of my lake house, talking about me. I lifted a finger, and pointed it at my dad, hoping for a brief and vengeful moment that a gun would appear in my hand.

“You,” I said, “can get out of my sight. And you,” I said, turning to look at Lola, dropping my hand to my side, and staring at her.

“I’m not sure I care what you do,” I said, and turned. I began to walk up the hill.

“Alex,” said Lola, and I heard her stumbling after me. But I ignored her. Just like the rest, I thought to myself. I’d thought that I could change, that I could trust her. But I knew better than that, didn’t I?

People don’t change. And that man, down there on the shore, was still the same deadbeat that he’d always been. And Lola Ryder was no friend to me.

People like me don’t have friends.

“Alex!” said Lola again. “Wait! Don’t you see! We can go to the police with this!”

“Yeah,” I said. “You do that.”

“Where are you going?” she said. By this time, I’d climbed the hill, and I turned to look down on her as she scrabbled up the bank after me.

“I’m going back to New York,” I said. “Alone.”

Lola froze, and looked up at me.

“No,” she said. “You can’t. We need you. I need you. Alex, that’s your dad down there.”

“I don’t have a dad,” I said, and turned around.

I went into my car, and started the engine. I drove away, hearing shouts and cries in the night. Lola, calling for help. But she was better off alone. As was I.