Page 60 of Revealing Mark

“I do.” He reached inside the pocket of his suit and produced a folded document and gave it to me.

Nervously I opened it up and began to read it. It looked like legal adoption papers. My father had legally adopted me. There was no disputing I was Robert Westwood’s daughter and Sebastian was my half-brother. What hit me the hardest was my father had known.

“How long have you known?” I asked, still holding the document.

“For a while.”

I felt a sadness for the person I wouldn’t be able to meet or get to know, but that was mixed with the anger that he had given me up. Had there been something wrong with me?

“Did your mom know about it when it happened?”

He nodded. “It had been a difficult time in their marriage when the affair took place. And it took a lot of counseling to get them back on track after you were born.”

I nodded, still struggling not to feel like a reminder of something the participants wanted to forget. Had I been a daily reminder to my parents of my mother’s infidelity?

“Can I keep this?” I asked hoarsely. He nodded.

The waiter returned with our drinks and I sipped some water.

“What was he like?” I found myself asking. I wanted something about him that resonated with my traits. Was he absent-minded like me, because my mother was the most organized person I knew. Did I inherit my creativeness from him?

He sat back in his chair and sighed. “He was a good father. There wasn’t a time in my life when I couldn’t depend on him. He always had the best advice and had a way at looking at things in a different way, which made it easier to see the best solution.”

“This must be hard for you to talk about him,” I sympathized, knowing he had died recently.

He smiled. “Some days I’m sad but he told me he didn’t want me to waste time grieving. He told me he had a good life and three beautiful children. His only regret was…giving you up.”

I let out a shaky breath, noting how crowded the bar was becoming and not wanting anyone to eavesdrop on a personal conversation. “Would you mind if we continued this in my room?”

“Sure.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Back in my room, we talked for another hour. I asked him to tell me more about himself and Cole. They were both highly successful, which made me feel more like a failure compared to them. Sebastian ran a lucrative company in the financial field, or something like that. Cole was in IT.

While we talked, I struggled to grasp something he said as something I could connect with, but there wasn’t anything. This felt like another family where I would feel like an outsider.

“What’s Cole like?” I asked.

“A stubborn workaholic,” he said affectionately.

I smiled.

There was a knock at the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone but thought it might be housekeeping.

“I’ll just be a moment,” I said when I went to answer it and was not at all prepared to open it to an angry Mark.

I tried to shut the door but he pushed it open. I was no match for his strength.

“Where is the guy?” he asked, his voice raised. I put a hand to his chest to keep him back.

“What are you doing here?” I managed to get out.

“Do you know this guy?” Sebastian asked from behind me.

“Who the fuck are you?” Mark exploded in a way I had never seen before. I had to put myself between him and Sebastian, putting both my hands on him to hold him off.

“You want me to handle this?” Sebastian offered a little more diplomatically than Mark, but I shook my head. I didn’t want this to escalate into a physical fight.