Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 71003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Nodding, I walk to the front of his desk and plop my ass down in one of the leather chairs. Placing my hands in my lap, I slowly drag my eyes up to meet his dark ones.
“Before you tell me about the business, I was actually wondering if you could tell me anything about… my mother? What was she like? Why didn’t she try and find you after she escaped her husband? What made you fall in love with her? Anything, really. I don’t even know her name...”
Easing back into the chair, Matteo drums his fingers on the wooden desk. “Your mother was special. She was looking for love since her husband was more concerned with making a name for himself than being the man she needed. We met at a charity event. I saw her from across the room and knew I had to have her.”
“So, you knew she was married when you met her, and you still approached her?”
Matteo nods. “I did, but it’s very common in our world to be in a loveless marriage. Women are promised to men and seen as a joining of two families into one. It’s more about power than anything. I didn’t care that your mother was married. All I wanted was a taste.”
The way he talks about my mother almost annoys me. Like she was nothing more than a piece of arm candy, or meat for him. I can tell from the tone in his voice and the use of the word taste, that she wasn’t important to him. There is no love in his voice, only a sense of accomplishment. I don’t know her, and I’ll never get the chance to, but she’s still my mother, and that fact alone means she deserves a little bit of respect.
Matteo must know I’m disgusted with him because he starts to talk again.
“Your mother’s name was Raven. She told me she was going to leave her husband and wanted to be with me. Given that she was still married and divorces rarely happen, I wasn’t sure we would ever be together. Then she told me she was pregnant with you. I promised her I would care for you and her if she actually decided to get away from her husband.” He pauses, and I don’t know if it’s for dramatics or because he’s reliving the day in his mind. “Then, one night, she did just that. News travels fast, her husband had men everywhere, searching high and low for her. My men came to me and told me that she had left her husband in the middle of the night, without a single trace. No one knew where she went. I waited for her, I thought for sure since she was pregnant that she would contact me, but she never did.”
I can’t help but feel a little sad inside. All my mother wanted was to be loved, and this viciously dark world took that chance from her.
“Where do you think she went? And why did she not call you?”
“I can’t answer either of those questions. To be honest, at the time, I thought she was already dead. I was sure that her husband had caught her trying to escape and killed her. I figured he made up the whole she ran away and sent his men out on a search party so no one would look into her death.”
“Then how and when did you realize I was alive, and she wasn’t dead?”
Matteo’s eyes twinkled with, no it couldn’t be admiration, there was no way a man of his nature would feel such an emotion. “I may seem heartless, Dove, but I’m not. You are my daughter, and I do love you. At the end of the day, I still hung on to the sliver of hope that she had truly escaped. I hired a private investigator to keep looking for her. I told him I didn’t care how long it took, months, or years, I didn’t want him to stop looking for you two. Then, out of the blue, he called me. Told me that a woman fitting your mother’s description was found dead in a hotel room. There was a mention of a child, a little girl. I tried to find you then, but you were already in the system, and no one would give me any information.”
“Oh…” I nod as if I understand, but on the inside, I am nothing but suspicious. All the pieces of information he’s given me just don’t add up. I wasn’t adopted until my teenage years.
I was in the system most of my life because no one ever claimed me as their family member. If he would’ve made himself known as my father, why wouldn’t they have given me to him? The state would have been glad to have one less kid to take care of.