Golden Lies - Barbara Freethy [134]
"Can I come in?" he asked tentatively.
She nodded, her throat still too tight for words. She took a step back as he entered the apartment, dimly aware of him greeting her mother.
"Alyssa, shut the door," Jasmine instructed.
She hesitated. This might be her last chance to run. But she forced herself to shut the door, to look at the man who had fathered her. He was tall, almost six feet. He still had a bandage on his forehead, but it was obvious he was almost back to normal.
"You look like your mother," he said. "As beautiful as she is."
"I'm afraid I look more like you," she said, speaking for the first time. "Ma has always said I have your nose."
"And the Hathaway freckle," he said idly. "Paige is the only one who doesn't have it." He paused. "You met Paige, I heard."
"Yes. She's nicer than I expected:"
"She chastised me for abandoning you."
"Is that why you've come now?"
"No. She only said what I have known for a long time. I want to apologize. I can't make up for what happened. But I want you to know that I do care about you, Alyssa."
"Why should I believe you?"
"I guess there's no reason," he said wearily.
"Why didn't you want to see me before?"
He sent Jasmine a desperate look, as if hoping she'd throw him a lifeline. Her mother remained stonily silent, letting him answer the question for himself.
"Ma already gave me the reasons she could think of," Alyssa told him. "I'd like to hear yours."
"It was never you I didn't want to see, it was myself. Looking at you would have been like looking at a mirror that showed all my flaws, all the bad things I've done in my life—cheating on my wife and hurting your mother. And it was also because of Elizabeth, my oldest daughter. She was my heart. I loved her so much. I wanted to die when she died. It was the end of everything good. For those few years in my life that I had Elizabeth, I was happy." He took a deep breath. "I had lost a mother and a sister when I was a child. For the next twenty years I was searching for something good. Elizabeth gave me back the joyous feeling. And then that was gone, too." He took a breath and continued. "When your mother and I got together, I knew it was wrong, but I did it, anyway. When she became pregnant with you, I felt as if my sin was being held up for the world to see. Everyone would think I was trying to replace Elizabeth with you. It felt like betrayal. I couldn't bear it."
It hurt to hear how much he had loved her half sister. And she couldn't help noticing that Paige's name hadn't been mentioned throughout any of it. Hadn't Paige told her that their father had always loved Elizabeth the most? She wondered how Paige had felt growing up in a house with a favorite daughter, and how she'd felt afterward when she was the only one left, but not the child he really wanted.
"I can't change the past," he added. "I hope you'll give me a chance in the future to get to know you."
"Do you really want to? Or is this gesture just because you've been found out?"
"I want to," he said with surprise in his voice.
"Does your wife feel the same way?"
"No. In fact, she wants me to offer you a financial settlement to stay out of our lives."
Another stinging rejection. Alyssa didn't know why she hadn't expected it. The Hathaways weren't going to want her in their family any more than her own family did. "No, thank you," she said. "I don't need anything from you. In fact, I'm going to start repaying the money I owe you for my college education. It might take awhile, but I can do it," she said proudly.
"I don't want your money, Alyssa. And I'm not offering you a payoff. I'm done with hiding. I almost lost my life cutting through a dark alley." He smiled at Jasmine. "And I hope someday you'll forgive me, too, for not supporting you when you needed it the most."
"I always knew what I was getting," Jasmine said. "You never lied to me, David. Maybe to everyone else, but not to me."
Alyssa followed the look