This Kiss

Chapter 130

Natalia squeezed Olivia's hand and took a deep breath before opening the office door and stepping inside. Louis's head whipped around as he heard the door open and a look of disappointment passed over his features before he schooled them into a look of indifference as he study the child turned woman he hadn't seen in two decades.

Ignoring the fact that her father was so displeased with seeing her, Natalia walked to the far side of the desk and took a seat in Olivia's chair with Olivia standing behind her, a hand on her shoulder in support. "Papa." She said, more as a statement then as a greeting.

"Natalia." The man replied as if he were bored.

Natalia looked down at her hands folded on the desk for a moment. Summoning the courage to tell the man across from her what she needed to say. She closed her eyes and allowed the image of a pregnant sixteen-year-old stepping from the family car without so much as a goodbye from her father to wash over her and bring forth the hurt and anger she would need to get through this.

"I hold no delusions about what this meeting will bring. I know you have no desire to see me and wish to continue on as if I don't exist, as if I never was your daughter." She began, buying herself just a little more time and hoping maybe she was wrong and he might actually hold even the slightest of interest in her.

"Then why are we here?" He growled. "I see no point in this meeting other than getting Isabel back home where she belongs."

Betrayal, that was all Natalia could think as she glared at the man who used to be her father. He had betrayed her all those years ago and the way he dismissed her as if she meant nothing, as if she wasn't a child of his own seed hurt, and it felt very much like he was betraying her all over again. White hot rage washed over her as she realized that she really did mean nothing to the man. A look of utter distain painted her features as words began to pour from her mouth without thought.

"We are here Louis" Her words dripped with venom as they spilled from her lips, "because I have a few things I wish to say to you. You think you did the right thing all those years ago, that you honored your god by betraying and abandoning your own child, but you didn't. You forsake him. The god I know, the god I believe in, he would never condone a father banishing his own child from the only home she had ever known. He would never see fit for a parent to condemn his own child to a life of loneliness and misery just because she made a mistake."

Pausing for a breath, she let the pain she felt all those years ago continue to fuel her. "You thought my own child would be better off with someone else, but he wouldn't have. I am his mother and I am always what is best for him. Unlike you, I would do and give anything for my children. I would gladly go without to provide for them, which I did. I went without a family, without friends, without love, without food at times, without whatever was necessary to care and provide him with the things he needed."

"You think I didn't make those same sacrifices for you." Louis screamed.

"I know you didn't." She hollered back. "All you ever cared about was yourself and your image. You molded Javier, Isabel, and me into the people you wanted us to be. You didn't care a lick for what we wanted, for what would make us happy. All you cared about was what you wanted, what you thought was right. You didn't even care about what mama wanted. You made her obedient by fear. She was afraid of what you would do should she ever speak out against you. So, she never did, not even when you took her daughter from her.

You thought you could break me by casting me out of your house, out of your family. Well, you didn't. All you did was make me more determined to stand on my own and fight for what I believed to be true and right. Maybe I really should be thanking you. Without your self-righteous act of kicking me out because I wouldn't give up my child, I wouldn't be where I am today. You thought I would be nothing more than a poor, welfare mom for the rest of my life, well, let me set the record straight for you."