Chapter Eighty
Tristan’s POV:
I could not believe all that Veronica had just said.
There was indeed a time in the land when rumors circulated about an illegitimate child. When news had it that the heir had been abducted from the mansion, we had felt all that was not true until we were sent out on a mission to go and bring back the rival.
The rival was the heir!
Considering all that Veronica just said, I could say that we have been misled all this way. This could have been the reason why we found it impossible to be able to look into her since we came to this part of the world.
I did not know what to say to her or Fiona or the rest of us. My head had just gone blank from more of the information I just had.
I decided to go over to where James was to see if I could get to talk as he had this look of confusion written all over his face.
Who knows? Maybe, this could be the perfect timing for me and him to try to get along as everyone was too busy and engaged in his or her thoughts. It was not the best idea but, there was no harm in trying.
I moved over to where he sat and he had turned to see who it was and when he saw me, he seemed to have softened. He did not give me the look he had always given me; you know that look that said, “I don’t want you here, I don’t want you around here I don’t want you around anyone I care about.”
But something had changed, something was different. It was like Veronica had worked magic on all of us with her story.
“Hello, James. I don’t know if this is the right time for us to talk about you and me,” I had said, confused as to why I was here in the first place.
“Are you sure you are just here to talk?” he had asked and said that so sarcastically that we both forgot about our beef for a moment there and laughed.
I like to think that we would have gone quite well if I had not appeared the way.
Perhaps, if I were a normal human being, we could have been friends because I think that we both feel that we have a responsibility to those we care about, to love and protect them with our all, with or without their permission.
That was something that we had very much in common.
“I feel like you could have been my younger brother in another life,” I said trying to lighten the mood.
“Very funny, not funny actually,” he said to me.
He confessed that he seriously did not understand most of the things that were happening around here, and I told him not to worry as he would get used to that very soon.
Drew must have been surprised that Gold and I had decided to squash our beef and decided to come over and join us in whatever it was that made us laugh so much.
Molly and Jesse too had seemed surprised.
“I do hope you know what you are up against,” Drew had said to James.
“I am not sure I do but I think I am beginning to grasp the things,” he admitted.
“Good luck grasping all of them, brother,” Drew had said to him.
I swear these two would likely pass for brothers. I envied how Drew and Gold got along very naturally together like they had known each other throughout their lifetimes or were in another life, best friends, or something. I had to focus on the situation at hand I thought.
Fiona’s POV:
I do not know what to do with all of this information I am getting now. Do you know what it feels like? To find yourself in a situation where you just feel like your whole life has been a lie. That was the situation I found myself in right now. Turns out my “mom” was not my mom.
You know, it was easier to understand the princess stuff and other things, but I never thought, I never imagined that my mother would be dead. I did not get the opportunity to know her, and she was dead.
It was a pain I could not bear and a burden too heavy to carry. God, I was too young for all the things happening to me.
Was it too much to wish that it would just go away soon?
I wanted to hate Veronica; I swear I wanted to. But I thought that perhaps I could have done the same thing if I found myself in her shoes besides, I have to let all of this go.
It would be hard, but I had to just pretend like this was over until it was not. The major thing now was finding Thomas and Alex.
Imagine my surprise to find out that Thomas all this while was my half-sister. What a world! It is indeed a small place.
Veronica’s POV:
I did not wish for any of this to happen so soon but as it turns out, fate always has different plans from the plans we have envisaged for ourselves.
If and only if I had my way, I had planned and wished that I would introduce myself probably in the later years of the girls’ lives.
I wanted Thomas and Fiona to be more mature and grown before I could explain to them all that happened. I had thought there was enough time for all of that, but I guess I was wrong.
“I cannot be this way, you know,” I thought to myself. It hurts me more to think that Thomas might hear this from someone else and not from the woman who had raised her.
God, I have failed in the promise that I made to Annabelle, and I have failed in my vows to protect her, nothing else needed to be said.
It was so much pain for me, and it was why I found it very hard to speak.
I could not even tell Thomas that I was not his mother, I wish that I knew or had thought of a better way.