AN: Final chapter from Teddy's visit in Seattle. Someone has pointed out that there are a few spelling mistakes throughout the chapters. (sorry I didn't get back to you, I will as soon as I get a chance). I do apologize for any such errors. They are of the type a spellcheck won't catch and since my proof reader, who used to kindly point out stuff like ' You can't begin with a temporal adverb clause and continue with unintroduced past progressive. It's just madness!'- has migrated to the land of higher education I am left to my own devices. Please believe me when I say that it is not out of carelessness and I'll try to figure out a solution. In the mean time I hope you will enjoy this chapter.
The picture they are debating is on Pinterest (and on google...) and is indeed to be found at the MET, but AFAIK the MET owns it. The interpretation for what it means is my own impression of it, not necessarily what an art critic will see/believe, but the artist is indeed rumoured to not have been aware of the legend.
Finally: revised chapters 4 and 5 are up.
Beta characters: Hanna was Teddy's girlfriend in college
Ch 47 Consequences
When they finally made it back to Medina around eight that evening, Christian, Teddy and Samantha all headed to the large open space that served as a living room, but almost immediately Samantha excused herself. With the promise to be back for a snack before the end of the evening, she openly gave Teddy and Christian time to catch up. Christian barely had time to enquire as to whether Teddy would like something to drink when an obviously pained McKenzie appeared in the arched entrance. With a 'make yourself comfortable, I won't be long' from Christian, the two men disappeared, although, Teddy noted, not towards Christian's office but towards the kitchen.
Sat on the same couch where earlier in the day he had heard the story behind Christian's second marriage, he let his gaze roam about the room, relishing the moment of solitude.
Ava had joined them in the middle of the afternoon and while her personality seemed similar to her mother's, she also seemed very fond of all the other family members. Although she had teased him about his looks she had never gone too far, and the couple of times she had gotten close to subjects that might have proven awkward, she had had enough insight to back down. She had however shattered through all their careful tiptoeing around each other on one point: she was his cousin Ava and he was her cousin Teddy.
That is how far he had come into acknowledging the family connections out loud. Perhaps it was easier because he didn't have other cousins, and so it was just a word, a descriptive, not evoking any particular connection. There was another word that did mean something, which he had found himself tentatively rolling through his mind, although he had not dared speak it out loud. The girls were calling Grace Grey 'Gran'. The quasi regal figure he had first met had slowly revealed itself to be mostly a figment of his imagination. He had already started to suspect that underneath her impeccable manners and reserved demeanour she was a kind and thoughtful person, when the occasion had presented itself for a moment shared just between the two of them.
"This is just a copy; Christian would never part with the original. I hope he explained why there aren't more pictures of you in here."
"Yes, he has," he replied once he managed to push the memory of that first handshake out of his immediate thoughts.
"Gran, Teddy, will you excuse me for a moment? I just remembered something." Samantha broke the silence and without really waiting for permission sent a smile their way then was gone before either of them could ask for details.
With only a brief glance in Samantha's direction, Grace returned her attention to him and offered: "I think we will be more comfortable outside. They will find us there."
Her hand once again lightly touching his arm, she stirred him away from the picture and led him back to the sitting area on the terrace. Once they were seated in neighbouring armchairs, Grace leaned back and seemed to just relax. In the quiet, intimate moment, she kept her voice low and soft to enquire: "Do you know that all three of my children are adopted?"
At his nod she continued: "Elliot was two and Mia was a new born baby so all they have ever known is their life as a Grey. Christian however was four and he could still remember his life before we adopted him. It took him a while to accept us as family. So I understand, we all do, that this is not easy for you. I also know that Christian is not easy to get to know and can be difficult to get along with."
"It can be…confusing at times, but I think we're getting there," he dared admit.
"Obviously I know your mother," Grace continued after a moment, "but very little about the rest of your family."
Under Grace's gentle prodding, he had found himself talking about Emma and Nick and Dan without the impulse to apologize for his feelings towards them. As she listened and smiled, asked and nodded and gently laughed at some tale of childhood pranks, he began to understand why Christian always spoke so highly, almost reverently, of his mother. With a few words she had not only validated his struggle to fit in, but also let him know Christian would understand. What used to put a strain on their relationship had been turned into a kind of common ground.
After a while first Sam, then Elliot and Christian reappeared and eventually Ava had arrived, but by then he knew without a doubt that Grace Grey was someone he truly wanted in his life. Initially for her sake, he had made an effort to engage more actively with the others and by the end of the evening some invisible barrier was definitely…blurred.
His eyes settled onto the large abstract painting on the opposite wall. He had been too preoccupied to pay much attention to it since he had first glimpsed it, but now he stood to get a better look. Abstract art was not really his thing; this was more Hannah's domain. She had attempted to teach him to relax his mind and allow the swirl of colours to evoke impressions, emotions…with mixed results.
"Do you like it?"
"Uh, I don't know. The colours work well together, it has a happy feeling, but it is also... confusing. This was more Hanna's thing," he replied honestly, one look at Christian confirming he didn't have to explain who Hanna was. "Who is the artist?"
"Jackson Pollock. The painting is called Pasiphae but it is alleged he didn't know the legend so the title is probably not relevant. I agree with your impression."
Teddy turned his head to wait for an explanation and so Christian elaborated: "The only recognizable figure is the man in the corner. The middle of the painting is like a bubble on which the rest encroaches. This seemed to be a good day so the colours are mostly warm, but the sharp straight lines are pulling the object of his attention apart until it is no longer recognizable. Lives the impression of a world which is not necessarily bad but confusing and distracting, altering his perception or perhaps even preventing him from making sense of what is in front of him."
With another glance at the painting Christian changed tracks: "I brought beers."
His mind still preoccupied by the impromptu art lesson, Teddy sat on the couch. The mundane act of reaching for a bottle of beer reminded him of similar moments when Hanna would share some of her passion for the art. She was not an artist and her major, at her parent's insistence, had been in mathematics and engineering, but had she been free to choose she would have liked to study art and art history. He had mercilessly teased her over the ridiculously high price people were willing to pay for scratches on a canvas…
"Is that an original?" he blurted before he could stop himself.
Christian send a side glance his way and having filled his own glass put his beer bottle down.
"No. The original is at the MET, on indefinite loan."
Teddy's relief only lasted until about a second after Christian finished speaking.
"They are only things Teddy," Christian indirectly confirmed his suspicion. "Valuable, nice to look at, but ultimately not what really matters."
There it was, the elephant in the room, looming large enough it was getting hard to ignore. It was a testimony to how far they had come that the reminder did not feel threatening, just…there. And for the second time that day Christian reached the decision that it was time to address things with his son.
"I have considered giving it all up. When I found you, one of the obvious options was to walk away from all of this, trade it for a chance to be a part of your life."
The rational part of Teddy's mind had one word to say to that: 'preposterous'. But also part of him was a boy who had grown up with an absent father, and logical or not, he wanted to hear this. The little boy did not dare meet Christian's eyes and so it was with bowed head and his eyes glued to the beer bottles on the table that he silently waited for whatever was coming next.
"I would have had to step away from GEH, permanently, but even if I had to retire I would have remained financially comfortable for the rest of my life. Once I no longer was an active player, the media would have soon lost interest, especially if I moved out of Seattle and away from the west coast. The only person I had discussed this with convinced me to go for a month's trial before I permanently committed to this course of action."
Disbelief finally prompted Teddy to raise his head and search Christian's face for any sign that he was not actually being serious. When they had met in Charlotte, he had heard the man speak about his company and his work and only earlier tonight he had described the birth of a new business venture. There was no doubt about how passionate he was on both those counts.
"GEH was at the time about a tenth of what it is now, so finding a place where I wouldn't immediately be recognized was less difficult. I spent a month in Colorado Springs. The anonymity was a relief although I did have to keep a low profile, so there were some trade-offs, but nothing I had not already considered and there was also a lot of satisfaction and none of the burden of responsibility I was used to carry. I had been thinking about sharing some of my knowledge and experience of the business world and putting that in writing was going to keep me occupied, at least to begin with. By the end of the first week I already had a form of routine doing research in the morning, attending to various necessities in the middle of the day, putting my thoughts on paper in the afternoons and spending the late evenings walking around and discovering the neighbourhood, watching news on TV, making plans for things I wanted to see or do for which I had never had time before.
"Part of my bid to integrate myself into a more domestic lifestyle was to read a local newspaper every day. Being a passive observer, unable do more than shake my head at some of the problems or perhaps consider a small donation to some local charity or social enterprise was a new experience. A little into the second half of this experiment the local headlines were about a commercial development that was about to be shut down, citing a change in economic prospects for the area. Small bits and pieces of information from the previous three weeks and my own observations started to nag at me and I spent that evening looking into the whole thing. The building was part of a rejuvenation plan for that part of the town and the intention was to create additional jobs and an influx of cash from neighbouring communities. The catalogue of bad decisions and mismanagement from several parties was staggering and, at least to me, it was obvious that the current predicament was something both local government and the party who had gained the contract for the development should have been able to anticipate."
Even the distant echo of his frustration had been more than Christian could bear sitting still, so Teddy watched him pace back and forth, although the movement didn't seem to be doing much to dissipate the tension. He finally stopped pacing but remained standing, his spine ramrod straight, shoulders thrown back and his face a mask of determination. Then he drew a breath and let his shoulders fall and his face relax a fraction: "The whole project was about to fall through. I couldn't pretend I didn't see the consequences and I couldn't pretend I didn't know how to prevent or how to fix it. To be forced to stand by and watch the train wreck for that particular project and for a swell of other problems was making me angry, frustrated, bitter… Not the person I wanted to be. Maybe with time I could have forced myself to let all of that go and turn a blind eye, but I wouldn't have liked that person very much either. It was more likely I would have eventually intervened. If not then or the next time, then the time after that, and it would have been game over for pretending I was anybody else than who I am."
Stood in front of Teddy was now the man he had seen at graduation: feet slightly apart, his body erect and his head held high, confident and determined, neither apologizing nor asking for permission to be who he was.
"This was about four months after I had found you. I had enough measures in place to ensure I will never lose track of you again. Where you were, you were free to come and go, to do whatever you wanted. You wouldn't have all the comforts and luxuries I could provide, but I could ensure you didn't really want for anything. I had observed you and you seemed happy. I could always step in if that were to change. For you there was a choice, and I chose to remain in the background."
He had heard this before, but he had not then known this man the way he did now, and so Teddy only considered for a couple of seconds before he asked: "A few years ago dad was worried about his job, but…Marty's Service and Repair was never in any real danger, was it?"
"No, it wasn't."
"Why? I mean, I had already moved on to college and I am about to move even further away. It's not as if my future depended on him keeping his job."
"Perhaps not, but they are your family."
He will never know how his life would have been had Christian come forward sooner, but he had had a good life. Right or wrong, he had come to accept that Christian's decision had at least come from good intentions. 'It is what it is'. It was time to let this go.
"Elliot mentioned he was going to be on the East coast in a couple of weeks. He offered to take me around Boston if I could take the time off."
Christian nodded: "He told me. Are you going to take him up on the offer?"
"I told him I'll let him know."
"You two seemed to get along well. Is there something specific that makes you hesitate?"
Light with the weight of the decision finally lifted from his shoulders, Teddy admitted: "He's not my father."
xXx
A short drive away Grace Trevelyan Grey was getting ready to call it a day. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she reached out and picked up the framed portrait of her husband from the night stand, to once again stare into the gaze of the man who had shared her life, her dreams, her hopes, her worries, the heartaches and the joys, the good times and the troubled ones.
"God, Carry, where do I begin? Meeting Teddy was…" Grace took a deep breath. "Too many things to put into words just yet," she admitted, "but it was also so much like seeing Christian struggle with all his feelings again. The boy is torn and puts a very brave face on it. Christian was watching him like a hawk. I think Elliot pulled him to the side a few times to give Teddy some space. I never thought Elliot would be the one to help make this day easier, but he was just what everybody needed. Even his silly jokes and constantly aggravating Christian helped.
"Seeing Anastasia yesterday and Teddy today… To hear her side of the story, it does sound like Christian might have been right in some of what he has always maintained about her. I told her I would think about it, and I do, but I don't know if I can ever truly forgive her, not for taking Teddy from all of us and especially from Christian. I can't talk to Christian about it without getting upset or upsetting him, and now Elliot won't talk to me about her and Christian either.
"Teddy must have seen her pictures at Christian's. Christian is not making any mystery of how he feels about her. His favourite colour is blue and there was no doubt in anybody's mind at that table why that was so. The last thing that young man needs is to have to deal with whatever is still going on between those two. I'm not a fool. I know that he still loves her and she could barely speak his name, but whether they like it or not, she is married to another man and Teddy is already torn between Dan and Christian, between the family he knows and this one.
"Katherine was not here today. I have not seen her since she practically ran out of the house on Christian's birthday. I wondered then and I have been wondering more since I heard Ana's story. How could she not know we wanted to talk to her when Katherine was visiting her and speaking with her? Granted it was a difficult time in Katherine's life as well with the pregnancy and her father and having to take over running the company, but I can't believe she never mentioned how worried we were, how much we wanted to speak with Ana and see Teddy.
"Christian must know this as well, Carry. We never told him why we couldn't believe him when he defended Ana and now I'm glad we didn't. If Christian figures out Katherine was part of what kept him and Ana apart…"
Grace remained silent for a long moment. If her suspicions ever turned out to be true, Christian' wrath might not be the worst Elliot's wife would have to endure. Despite the effort to get herself back under control, her voice was still humming with tension when she again voiced her thoughts:
"Mia was beside herself that she couldn't be here to meet Teddy and she has no idea about most of this. When she finds out we have all known about the boy for all these years and never told her, I don't know what she'll do. Christian said he spoke with her before coming here, but I doubt he told her everything. There are too many secrets, too much we don't know about each other, too much we don't dare share with each other. This family needs to heal, Carry. And Teddy needs his parents. All three of them."
xXx
Once Ava got out of the car and shut the door without as much as a glance in his direction, Elliot found himself driving around Seattle with no real destination in mind. He was not ready to go home and face Kate and drinking was not the solution. When he realized he had mechanically driven to Grey Constructions, he parked in his reserved spot and made his way to his office.
"I have a son. You have a brother I have kept from you and your mother. His name is Matthew and he is fourteen."
He had made his daughter cry and she had shut him out and asked him to take her to a friend's house.
"I'll talk to you when I talk to you, all right?"
She was angry and hurt and had rejected him and he had no choice but to give her some time and space. Theirs however was one relationship he was not going to give up on, if he had to crawl on his hands and knees to open up the dialogue between them again. Or put up with her anger and her disappointment in him.
"So, he…what? Was happy to see you once a month? Does he know about me and mom?"
She had barely listened to his attempt to reply and just asked him to deposit her somewhere where she didn't have to be with him. Ava couldn't face coming home tonight and it was all on him.
But it was finally out. Kate knew and Ava knew. It wasn't music he was going to have to face, it was a deafening cacophony of painful accusations, but it was high time for him to face that: their accusations and his own guilty feelings, towards them and towards Matt.
Kate was five months pregnant and forced to adapt to the fact that there was a life growing inside of her. Her wardrobe had changed and their social life was reduced to obligations, as she could neither drink nor dance. She was still working but had started to work from home a little more, leaving later in the mornings or coming home earlier in the evenings. And then their world took a tumble from which they never really recovered.
He had returned home after a few days on a business trip to an endless stream of questions from an obviously worried Grace. Ana was in Montesano and not replying to anybody's messages and Christian, who had said he was going on a weeklong business trip, was apparently living at Escala and only communicating with them via Taylor. Tired and exasperated he had turned to Kate for an explanation. His 'What the fuck is going on with Ana and my brother?' was met with a 'Perhaps you should ask your brother.' That had been one of many fights they had had about Christian. Kate had consistently refused to share with him, or his parents, whatever she knew about what had caused Ana to pull away from all of them. 'She needs some time and space and doesn't want to talk to anybody right now.'
Neither of them could quite believe that of the Ana they knew and so Grace and Carrick had gone to Montesano, only to be turned away by Ray who confirmed what Kate had already told them.
Somewhere in the middle of that month Donald had announced that he was taking a leave of absence from Kavanagh Media. First privately and then officially he had admitted to a drug addiction and committed himself to rehab. And Kate had stepped up to cover for her father.
That had been a major fight and he had regretted the way he had handled that situation ever since. Kate and him had only been together for a little over three years and he was one of the few people who had been allowed a glimpse underneath the hard, self-assured, devil-may-dare, tough exterior she presented to the world. He knew about her fears and her insecurities, yet not even he knew how she dealt with heartache and grief. Kate had closed herself off to him and poured herself into running the business. Ignoring his pleas and only paying lip service to the doctor's advice, despite her advancing pregnancy she was working 12 hour days, five, sometimes six days a week. To make everything worse each time Christian and Ana came up she was dropping hints about Christian's behaviour and passionately defending her friend.
By early December he was so pissed at her he had not even considered questioning Carrick when he asked that he didn't share with Kate the truth about Christian's whereabouts. The combination of her dedication to her work despite her husband's wishes and medical advice and her open dislike of Christian had alienated her from the family. To this day Kate had no idea that far from being on an extended vacation, Christian had spent three months in a mental institution, or that Carrick's distant attitude in the months surrounding Ava's birthday had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the fact that he had lost half a billion of Christian's money while trying to manage GEH.
At the first major hurdle in their marriage he had sided with his family.
Grace had walked into that room at Escala the same week Ava was born. While she came to terms with what she now knew of her younger son's private life, she had embraced her cool, professional attitude and kept all of them at arm's length. The most he had been able to tell Kate to explain his parents' apparent frostiness towards her and their new born daughter was some vague reassurance that it was not about her, that they were worried about Christian. Not an explanation that would endear them to her.
Despite the fact that once he had become aware of Christian's predilection for BDSM, he had privately had to admit that Kate's instincts about his brother had been right, he had again chosen to keep his brother's confidence.
They did have a few good months, when things had seemed to settle down. Kate was actively avoiding Christian and Christian was avoiding all of them. When he was attending the occasional dinner at Bellevue it was at Grace's insistence and he never stayed beyond the meal. Out of the blue at the end of May they all got invited at Escala to meet Marlene and to be told that they had gotten married. The only other time they met his new wife before Samantha's birth was at his mandatory birthday dinner at Bellevue.
By then he and Kate were once again facing their own problems. Despite Ava only being four months old, Kate had informed him she was going back to work and had to go on a business trip. If he had to choose one point at which their marriage had taken an irreversible turn for the worse it was that trip. If before Ava's birth Kate had the excuse of the trauma of her father's revelations and the need to take care of the Kavanagh business to ignore his wishes, in the months that followed he had started to feel as if he was just not important enough in her life. Between her work, spending time with Ava and her mother, and their social obligations, Kate and Elliot time had been relegated to stolen moments here and there.
Kate was still smarting from both the older Greys having been too distracted by their worry over Christian to shower her and Ava with the same level of attention Ana and Teddy had received, and her returning to work didn't improve the situation: where Ana had been easy going and always available whenever any of them wanted to spend time with Teddy, Kate was busy and expected them to make time on her own schedule, much the same as she expected from him.
Samantha's birth made things even worse. Both with Marlene and with Samantha Christian was polite, effective, attentive to their needs, but remained distant and…cold. Worried about the apparent lack of interest Christian showed for his daughter, Grace was jumping on any opportunity to see Samantha, even if only for a few minutes and sometimes that meant choosing her youngest granddaughter over Ava. Trying to explain to Kate that this was motivated by worry, not by a difference in how much she lived her granddaughters, proved futile.
In September they had planned a trip to Europe. To see Mia, but also to have some time for themselves, to try and find their way back to each other. That trip had gone well. Once they had established that Kate was not willing to discuss anything Ana or Christian related, she and Mia spent time together and with Mia positively gushing over Ava, it seemed that Kate had at least one friend in the Grey clan.
Once they returned to Seattle they gradually settled in the routine that was going to become the norm in his and Kate's marriage. They were both busy, but while he could come home after his work day and just enjoy a few hours of home life, her position required her to have a presence on the social circuit. Charity dinners, galas, journalistic conventions, he had accompanied her to a string of events while increasingly feeling he was no more than an accessory on her arm. It was on one of those evenings he had met Trish. He was bored out of his mind, tired and frustrated and she provided some entertainment by shamelessly flirting with him. At first he had ignored her efforts but as Kate spent the evening networking, he started to respond. They bumped into each other a week later at another social event and…He knew even then that to give in to that temptation was weak and pathetic, but God damn, it had felt good to feel wanted, desired, to hear someone tell him how good he had made them feel. That was the only time he and Trish they had been together. But there had been other women. Most of them chance encounters leading to one night stands, a few had lasted a little longer.
He had been completely sincere in telling Kate that none of them had meant anything to him. Not even Mary.
Although the attraction for each other had been instant and the project they were working on had forced them into many long hours of closely working together, he had not given into that particular temptation for several months. Their second time together had ended with him spending the night at her apartment, but two days later Mary had informed him in no uncertain terms that what they had done was wrong and had to end. She had left Seattle soon after their break up and cut all contact with him. He knew her departure was because Mary had feelings for him, a warning that somebody was going to eventually get hurt if he continued on that particular path. He might have heeded the warning had it not been for that lunch meeting at GEH in December.
In the years since Marlene had left him and Samantha, Christian had grown into his role as a father for his daughter and had obviously dealt with many of his previous issues, resumed engaging with the rest of the family, had been dating for the past eighteen months or so, even had those scars removed. But now Leah, the one woman with whom Christian had seemed to have more than a passing relationship, had also left Seattle and December was a rough month for him anyway, so the family made sure they stayed in contact whether he wanted it or not.
That day they were meant to discuss the new formal building Christian wanted at the side of the house. With plans of the property spread over Christian's desk, they were debating some detail or other when he had lifted his gaze from the drawings and frozen mid question, eyes glued to the wall art framing the door to his brother's office.
The space that had remained empty for the past five years, ever since Carrick had taken down Ana's pictures while he was at GEH, had now been restored to its former appearance. In the few seconds he had spent gaping at the woman's smiling face, Christian had put on the impassive expression he made whenever he was being stubborn about something and was nailing him with an unnervingly intense stare. 'Not up for discussion, Elliot', he had warned.
Obviously they had once again been wrong about Christian, although none of them could understand how he could ever want to see Ana again, let alone stare at her face all day.
That had been the beginning of two, almost three years, in which he had taken his frustration out on the female population of Seattle. While until then he had mostly been a passive recipient of other's attention, he had now taken it upon himself to prove that…In all honesty he was not sure what he had tried to prove: that none of it mattered, that it was all a game, that lust could be used as a weapon…
Ava's fifth birthday two months after Ana's pictures had made a reappearance gave them a sort of explanation for the wall art in Christian's office and for another one of his odd behaviours.
When Luke Sawyer had handed in his resignation a year after Ana's disappearance and Christian had fired the whole team assigned to finding her and Teddy, he had assured Carrick that he would never give up on finding them, but since then whenever the subject came up he would simply leave the room. They had assumed it was because the subject was too difficult for him to discuss.
That weekend however, Grace had been so upset over the lack of news about Teddy that Christian had caved and admitted he had found him. While he had indeed initially avoided the subject because it was too difficult to discuss, for the past few years he had simply not wanted to have to lie to them. The admission had started a fight between him and his parents that had threatened to rival the one they had had when he had left Harvard. Christian had not only defended Ana's decision to leave Seattle but had presented them with an ultimatum: since grandma Trevelyan was no longer with them, Theo Trevelyan, Grace, Carrick and Eliot were to remain the only ones privy to the secret or he would cut off the stream of information. His relationship with Kate had not improved over the years and they had had to reluctantly agree that Mia would never leave well enough alone. Out of consideration for Christian there were already no pictures of Ana and Teddy on display and he had asked that this remains the case, this time to not revive the questions and curiosity about his son's whereabouts. As to the new pictures, they were welcome to see them at his house any time they wished, but none of them could keep any for themselves.
Knowing Christian, none of them doubted his resolve, but it didn't stop in particular Carrick and Theo from constantly hounding him about getting his son back. A few months later, during one of those interventions, was the only time he was aware of, that Christian had raised his voice or used a swear word in front of his grandfather. 'He has a family. He is happy. I am not interfering with that and I am not bringing my shit to his door step.'
In September that same year Samantha's attempted kidnapping by her own security detail got the family to relent somewhat, then Theo Trevelyan passed away. Christian got his wish to keep Teddy's location a secret and Mia and Kate were never made aware he had found his son.
He could add this to the ever increasing amounts of secrets he had been keeping from Kate.
Three years later Christian got shot. Between his well-honed reflexes and the quick reaction of his security guy the shooter was down and disarmed in seconds and for security reasons the fact that Christian was actually hit was kept quiet. Kate had clearly been affected by the attempt on Christian's life and had gone out of her way to help keep the media in the dark. He had interpreted this to mean that Kate could see beyond her dislike for Christian and was able to close ranks with the family in times of need. That had finally put a stop to his affairs and for a few years he had really tried to work on their marriage.
Perhaps it was too little too late, perhaps fate just had other plans for them, or perhaps it was to be his punishment for all the women he had wronged and all the secrets he had kept from his wife, but Kate had been alternating between hot and cold, between making an effort herself and then pulling away.
Learning about Matt's existence had shaken him to the core. Mary had only reluctantly accepted financial help from him and had insisted that to make their connection public would only subject Matthew to negative comments. For all the times he had tried to convince Christian to allow the family to have contact with Teddy, he ended up making the same choice and kept Matt's existence a secret…until Grace happened to overhear him talking to Matt the previous Christmas Day.
Unlike Christian he was a part of his son's life… sort of. He visited him every month, he tried to be there for his birthdays and various milestones, had taken him and Mary on short vacations, called him in between visits… And he had Kate followed. He had never found a shred of evidence that she had been unfaithful to him. What he did find were Ana and Teddy.
That was eight years ago. He had never told Kate about Matt or about knowing she was visiting Ana until Matt and Christian had more or less forced his hand.
Kate and him had allowed a heap of secrets and half-truths to replace trust with increasingly longer moments of silence. Now that he had broken the silence, the words that should have been spoken long ago were like the ripples of an earthquake threatening the foundation on which they had built their lives. A life time of experience with building things had taught him that if the foundation wasn't strong enough, whatever stood on top of it was going to collapse. The choice was between waiting for the inevitable to happen or bringing the construction down in a controlled manner. The first option would leave him with the task of picking through the rubble for anything that might still be salvaged. The second one meant deliberately sacrificing some parts so that others would stand a better chance to remain standing. Either way, there was no guarantee as to the end result until the earthquake passed and the ripples settled.
AN: There will be a chapter next week, but I will be mostly out of touch until Sunday evening, so if I don't reply to you reviews, please bear with me a couple of days.
