Silent, unforgiving and strikingly gorgeous, Rylan Parker is a cold-hearted businessman. An intimidating CEO, perfectly fitted in tailored suits and with a soft side reserved only for his little daughter.
He can't afford to fall for anyone and defin...
"I want to meet our daughter." Immediately I felt the anger rising in me. "Excuse me?" I shot up from my seat, ready to throw her out of my office. "There is no such thing as 'our daughter'." I gritted out, causing her to stand up as well. "You can't deny that I'm her mother." I looked incredulously at her before chuckling humorlessly. She was calling herself Ava's mother after everything. Some nerve she had! "I can. Since the moment you left, you lost all rights to claim yourself as her mother. So, Ava is my daughter, not ours." I was confused if I was imagining things but I felt like I saw hurt flash in her eyes. She clenched her eyes shut and exhaled. "I told you I'm sorry for—" "Don't give me that crap, Lily!" I snapped causing her to flinch. She looked alarmed at my outburst. "You think I would believe that after all those years of abandoning my daughter, now you suddenly feel remorse?" I was honestly done with her bullshit. "You think I wanted to leave!?" I clicked my tongue in annoyance and looked away. "This wasn't easy for me either!" I turned my eyes back to her and stared with a blank expression. "Dad never liked our friendship because you had quite the reputation in school. You know that when we started dating, I kept it a secret from my family." Yeah, well I had my share of fun in highschool but nothing too crazy. I wasn't some manwhore who went about sleeping with half of the girls in school but my friend circle, playing in the football team and coming from a rich background framed my image just fine. Besides, her father was our business rival back then. Though now it doesn't even stand close. His company was left far behind by ours years ago. "When I fell pregnant with Ava, Dad was furious. He wanted me to abort it." My forehead creased in confusion. "But you didn't. You said there were some complications with the pregnancy." I asked, observing her face, looking for lies. "He put forward a condition." I felt like I knew where this thing was going and I could sense that I wasn't going to like it. "He threatened to cut all ties with me if I would not break up with you." I inhaled sharply at that. I wasn't sure if I should believe her but I could definitely picture her father doing that. "So you…..you said all those—" I cut myself off, realising where we were standing right now and maybe it was wrong of me but I didn't want to believe any of it. I wanted things to be just as they were. Everything would be easier that way. "He asked me to choose between you and my family."
Fuck! I clenched my eyes shut and when I opened them, she was staring at me, obviously waiting for some response. "Well you had the option to choose Ava but you didn't." Her eyes welled up at my words. "I was just twenty and pregnant and—confused! My mother was sick. I was scared and I didn't think I could just leave my family like that." I clenched my jaws and looked away. Honestly, I didn't know what to think anymore. "I made a mistake and given a chance now, I would have made a different choice but you need to—understand. I wasn't mentally prepared to just throw away everything. I was only a student!" Her voice was breaking while she looked at me with a pleading stare. Pleading for what? Forgiveness? Understanding? I didn't fucking know what she was expecting from me! "I knew you would take good care of our—of your daughter." Strangely, a small part of me still felt a little bad for her and I absolutely hated feeling this way.
ELENA
When I had asked Rylan what was wrong, I hadn't expected this. I mean—I didn't even know what I should mean! After narrating everything, he was silent and I knew it was when I had to say something. But what, I wasn’t sure.
"And now she wants to meet Ava?" Well, Sherlock that was what this all was about! I couldn't have probably asked a question more dumb than that one. However he nodded and stared expectantly at my face.
"Elena, say something." My thoughts were all jumbled up but the thing I could make out was that he looked pretty nervous.
"What do you want me to say?" I mumbled, slightly sinking back in my place. I couldn't name this weird feeling in my stomach.
"Anything, like what do you have to say about this?" The things I picked up from all this was that Liliana was Rylan's best friend and then the girl he loved, she was Ava's biological Mom and if we take Liliana's words to be the truth, then she wasn't even the villain in the story! So, yeah I wanted someone to tell me what to say about this.
"Hey, look, if you're not okay with her coming here, I can just tell her—" I cut him off mid sentence.
"No, no. It's your house. Why will I not be okay with her coming here?" That bloody came out wrong! I wasn't even thinking properly and I completely sounded like a petty insecure bitch. A frown fell upon his lips at my words.
"It's your house too." He said gently grazing his knuckles against my cheek. I sighed before nodding.
"Look, she made a mistake but...yeah, I think she should get to meet Ava." This was the right thing to do, even for Ava. She had the right to meet her mother.
"You sure?" Rylan was staring right into my eyes and I gave a firm nod. Finally assured, he smiled at me.
"Come here." I moved closer and he wrapped his arms around me while I snuggled into his chest.
Well….I was exhausted!
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