So, we're mixing things up here! This chapter is going to take place simultaneously in the timeline as Diego and Claire finally address their feelings for each other. But here's a twist! Heather has been pulled out of her visit with Alejandro, Shane, and Aga over dinner after receiving a mysterious call from her personal assistant Gabriella. *GASP* Lol. XD Either way, I hope you all enjoy the chapter! :)

(Heather's POV)

Well, this better be good.

My assistant gave me a call right as I was about to go home from dinner with Alejandro, Shane, and Aga and told me there was something at the studio that 'I had to see' apparently?

I didn't even waste any time as I got right through the door and walked right up to Gabriella and started, "Um, hello? Are you aware of what day it is today? Saturday, sábado, samedi. Meaning that I shouldn't be anywhere near here today. Also, we are entertaining right now at home so this better be pretty damn important to have me come here."

She stiffened up slightly as I continued to give her a hard annoyed glare, especially since she was so vague with me on the phone and wouldn't tell me anything other than 'she didn't know how to explain it' and 'I needed to see it for myself'.

Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean in this situation?

Gabriella looked nervous (as she should be for interrupting my schedule with no good reason behind it) and stuttered, "S-Sí! Sí, señora! I know! But… remember about two months ago how you tasked me with setting up a crew to go to your Tahiti estate and do a thorough clean out for renovations?"

I continued to stare her down at her repeating the obvious, "Yes… and?"

After we got back from the yearly familial 'holiday shit show' at my parents' house… I reminded myself that ever since my grandfather left me his Tahiti estate when he died that there were two things that needed to be done.

One was that Alejandro and I realized we needed to take WAY more advantage of his old property for 'getaways' and vacations after hardly ever using it.

And two was that it needed a major overhaul.

The house was old and lived in by a very old man who was born during the later part of the great depression and didn't know how to interior decorate or cared to know or give a shit and a quarter about how the interior of any house looked.

So, Alejandro and I decided to start the process of cleaning it out and 'gutting it' and making it more to our taste.

And I told Gabriella what to do, so I had no idea why this seemed so damn complicated to her just now? After all, I already took out all the things that had any value from the place anyway and left all my grandpa's 'old man clutter' with no value there and it could all just be chucked or burned for all I cared.

"Well, It wasn't without reason! The clean up crew did what you said! All the papers, clutter, and boxes had been sorted through and disposed of! But, as the crew started to gut the house walls and rip up the floors, well… they found something underneath the floorboards of your grandfather's old room and didn't know what to do with it so they sent it here. I'll show you, we put it in your dressing room." She strutted past me as I quirked up an eyebrow, still having no idea what the hell was going on?

Eventually I rolled my eyes and followed until we got to my dressing room and right in the middle of my clean rosewood floor (luckily they had the sense to put a tarp underneath it) was a dirty, beat-up, and ancient steamer trunk.

And when I said all those things, I meant it because it looked like nothing was holding this dingy and disgusting piece of crap together.

After a couple seconds I finally looked at Gabriella before just directing point blank, "Um, what the hell is this? It's a piece of crap beyond salvage. Why didn't you just tell them to throw it out?!"

She looked at me wide eyed and put her hands up before saying, "O-Oh, no Heather. It's not the trunk it's… Okay, the crew found it and realized it still had things still in it. It was locked and they couldn't find the key so they managed to wedge it open with a pry bar and saw what was in it and just thought you might want to look through things in it before they disposed of anything. But, it's yours and I'll leave you to sort through it. Lo siento for the confusion. I'll… I'll leave you to it."

After that she walked out and left me with this thing.

But after a few more seconds of annoyed contemplation I knelt down and grabbed a tissue from my purse (since there was no way in hell I was touching this moth and mold ridden thing with my bare hands) and opened it.

Look, I know I have come in contact with WAY worse things during my time on reality TV… but I'm done with disgusting health hazards at this point in my life.

As expected the lid of the trunk practically almost came off the hinges, since they were almost rusted through, as I got the trunk wide open.

At first and give the 'context clues' of them finding it under my grandpa's floor boards that it was probably going to be some kind of whiskey or bourbon stash that he didn't want anyone to know about and at first I thought it was that since I saw some older antique glass bottles filled with an amber colored liquid. But upon closer look (and smell), I saw they were bottles of perfume.

Well, very very old perfume that definitely was beyond expired and would probably put anyone in an early grave who tried to use it now since it was probably nearing a hundred years old by the looks of it and I was surprised there was any liquid still even left in the bottles.

I set them aside and then I noticed there was so much more underneath those bottles.

It looked like a random hodgepodge of anything from old letters, pictures and even… is that a dress?

Yeah, again like everything else in the box, looked beyond old and the fabric was light yellow from age from probably being white or champagne colored at one time before time took its toll on it. I stood up and held the dress up (feeling how old and flimsy the fabric was under my touch) and my eyes went wide when I saw exactly what it was.

A wedding gown.

By the look of it and judging by the cut and the style, it definitely looked like it dated probably to sometime in the mid to late 1950's. Sure it was old fashioned and WAY out of style by current standards, but it was probably the height of fashion in its time and definitely not cheap by the look of it.

As I continued to wonder why my grandpa would have a trunk with old women's perfume and a wedding dress in it, I looked down back into the box and my eyes went wide at what I saw at the bottom of the trunk.

I set the dress aside and knelt back down and picked up what looked like an old and dusty framed photo of what looked like a couple in their late teens or barely cracking their 20's at a maximum since they looked very young on their wedding day. The groom in the picture was standing with the bride on the steps of a chapel and both of them were smiling and embracing each other in an appropriate yet affectionate embrace together.

While the picture was in color and after looking at it for a few seconds, my eyes widened when I realized who I was looking at as I looked at the groom again in particular. The thin brown eyes behind a set of glasses, the light brown hair (which he had much more of in this picture) styled into a crew cut, and the tall-barrel chested (yet much more fit here) build.

My grandpa Wilson.

It was like I just needed to give my mind a few more moments to process what I was looking at since I never saw a picture of my grandpa Wilson when he was this young… or even remotely smiling.

Even in other pictures I saw of him when he was older and just generally, my grandpa always had this look like he couldn't be bothered to care that he was anywhere at all. About the only picture I had of him smiling was just a picture of him smirking in the picture we took together at my wedding (but I just assumed he was just much more drunk than usual).

Sure, he still looked like himself in many ways, but I don't think I've ever seen him actually smile like this… and definitely a lot better-looking before decades of heavy drinking took a toll on him.

After the realization wore off, shock took over me when I realized what this all meant as I looked over at the equally young bride with him in the picture, almost hearing my grandpa's voice in my head from when we 'talked' during our dance at my wedding:

"So, I was just sitting around with a drink in my hand when I made the mistake of looking across the room at a pretty brunette about my age waiting by the wall with a dance card in her hand and smiling and eyeing me…"

My mind finally put all the pieces together as my eyes somehow went wider in shock as I continued to look at 'the bride'. Attractive, long and pulled back medium brown hair in a white veil appropriate for the time period, blue-gray eyes that almost seemed to pierce right into the camera as she smiled holding her bridal bouquet in her hands, and wearing the exact (though much newer looking) white wedding gown I just found in this trunk.

If it wasn't obvious before who she was, it really was now after seeing that this was clearly my grandpa on his wedding day and 'who' he got married to.

My paternal grandmother, Catherine Wilson.

Once I finally got use of my arms back and put the wedding photo down, I eventually realized a 'common theme' with everything in here. Everything in this trunk had to do with my grandma or them as a couple.

Pictures, ornate lace handkerchiefs (probably my grandmother's), jewelry, and weirdly enough… love letters. Well for the most part they were ones that seemed mostly from my grandpa to my grandmother and hardly any from her back to him.

And after reading my grandpa write things I didn't even think he had the capability of ever saying or feeling (though I can relate to that on certain levels myself honestly once I met Alejandro), I got confused by other letters I found in the box.

All of them were mailed from 'Mr. Craig Wilson to Mrs. Catherine Wilson', and ALL of them had the same thing in common on their envelopes. Each one of them was unopened and marked with a different destination address to my grandmother that seemed to be going to her at hotel rooms all over Canada and even one from Chicago in the United States along with a big obnoxious ink stamp that read 'RETURN TO SENDER'.

Eventually, and again weirdly enough, I couldn't stop my curiosity as I started to read some of them. I read the one that seemed to be the oldest:

Dear Cate,

Where are you? You haven't been home in weeks or even bothered to telephone me. Junior keeps asking me where you are and I don't know what the hell to tell him? All I saw was your note that said you 'had to go somewhere' in my study. What happened? Did I do something? I know I haven't been home with you as much as I should be, but things are finally looking up for us now. Once I sign this new deal, I can buy you anything you like and give you anything you could possibly ask for. Just tell me what's going on or just come home, Cate.

Your husband,

Craig

It was like I no longer had self control and kept opening and reading through all the returned letters and saw my grandpa getting progressively more and more angry and frustrated in each one, almost like I could feel him getting more and more pissed off just by reading these letters and hearing his voice in my head at my grandma clearly just flat out blanking him.

It was at this point that I realized I was reading the letters that showed my grandpa that my grandmother left him for their driver.

And the final returned letter showed this more than anything since he didn't even bother writing 'Cate' or 'Catherine' at the top of the paper anymore:

Who the hell do you think you are and how much a fucking moron do you take me for? After everything and this is how you repay me! Because don't think I haven't realized by now that you and Victor weren't fucking behind my back long before he turned in his notice and you leaving two weeks later? Not to mention the paper trail you've been leaving on the ledgers at all those hotels with him like an idiotic tramp. Did you think I wasn't noticing you were using your maiden name again on those? Or what about all those times I caught you flirting with other men at those cocktail parties when you thought I didn't notice because apparently to you I'm an oblivious moron that's not good enough for you am I? Well, guess what? Fine! You enjoy your life as the cheap whore to a dickless motorist who has the nerve to take up with another man's wife. And don't you ever come crawling back to me either if you know what's good for you or I will hand you and ruin you if you ever bother to show your face to me again! Thank you for absolutely nothing you ungrateful, heartless, selfish cunt! And I hope that the image of Junior asking me where you are every damn day haunts you forever in whatever shit hole you end up in. We're through.

-C.V. Wilson

After taking a moment to process 'all of that', I slowly looked back at my grandparents' wedding photo again until my eyes eventually settled on my grandmother.

Even though this was the first and only time I ever saw my grandma Wilson at all… it's like there was something weirdly familiar. I have literally never seen her before now, but I just couldn't shake it… until I saw that 'smile'.

Just that plastered smile loaded with that fake, sickeningly sweet bullshit that I didn't even have to meet her in person to see through at this point in my life.

Despite them looking nothing like each other, that smile was pretty much a 'dead ringer' after seeing that damn smile on someone else my entire life.

Kelsey.

"Figures…" I scoffed as I immediately rolled my eyes and was about to toss the picture back in the box… until I stopped.

It was like my eyes couldn't stop from just completely phasing out my grandmother and focusing completely on my grandfather.

Just seeing him.

Not an old drunk that was destroyed by his wife or his doofus son (i.e. my dad, who I felt bad for about half a second until I remembered what he was like with me and my siblings) that ended up not doing anything in his life but mooching off his father and his success.

Just him.

I kept looking at the picture and eventually turned the frame over, taking off the backings and taking the picture out of the frame.

Looking briefly at the back of the photograph where I saw written in cursive: Craig Vincent Wilson and Catherine Marie Ulrika married November 5th,1958.

Slowly I turned the picture over in my hands and studied it for a few more seconds before I eventually folded the picture in half lengthwise until my grandmother was not even in the picture and all that was left was my grandfather. Just him smiling in his set of tails at the time.

I put the picture back in the frame and luckily the black velvet background behind the picture still perfectly framed the half of a picture I made just now of my grandpa as I put it back in the frame it came from.

Eventually I took the picture frame and stood it on the corner of my vanity in my dressing room.

I sat in my usual chair and just looked at it until I couldn't stop my mouth from curling up into a slight smile as I kept looking at the picture.

Looks like Heather found this to be a good use of her time in the end, eh? But, really I just wanted to put more focus back on Alejandro and Heather at this point in their lives currently. While here it was mostly Heather focused, I do hope you enjoyed the 'lore crafting' I did here regardless for Heather's grandfather (and an unexpected fan favorite of my OC's in this fic series) Craig Vincent Wilson Senior. As you all may recall, the last we saw Craig was a VERY long time ago in this series when he was dancing with Heather at her wedding and divulging information to Heather about his estranged, runaway wife and Heather's paternal grandmother Catherine Wilson. So, I wanted to work in some more Wilson family lore via Heather coming in contact with pieces of her grandfather's past that she never knew existed since it seemed Craig Senior wanted to hide this old trunk underneath his floorboards of all his wife's things before she left him to avoid being reminded of them or her. Because while Craig himself admitted he was never a 'lovey dovey' kinda guy and had a bit of a temper and tough exterior much like Heather, he was if nothing else a devoted partner to his wife and loved her very much and would do anything for her for those reasons. Unfortunately for Craig Senior though (and showing how the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree), Catherine was much more like Kelsey in how she 'handled herself'. She enjoyed men's company and had no shame showing it with Craig Senior being one of her few exceptions of men who held her attention (much like José to Kelsey) since she met him as this broody, handsome, rough around the edges steel mill worker and found him very interesting and exciting. As the years went on though, Craig took on a more businessman role and tried to use his new position and higher salary to spoil his wife to make up for not being around as much as he used to and because he wanted his wife to be treated like a queen and be surrounded with only the best. But Catherine really didn't care since she had already lost interest in her husband. Because while Kelsey does care A LOT about money and her reputation (at least to some degree depending on the circumstance), Catherine didn't at all. She realized she really didn't want to be a 'rich man's wife' and rather than be honest with Craig about how she was feeling to try and give some closure, instead decided to burn every bridge she had by leaving her husband and young son unannounced via running off with the Wilson's family driver, Victor (with whom she was already having an affair with before she even left as Craig figured out in his 'venting letters' to her). And we got to see Craig's progression through his early stages of grief with his wife leaving him from denial to anger in his returned letters Heather read before he eventually accepted it in the most unhealthy way possible by becoming a high functioning alcoholic to 'cope' with his unhappiness and hurt from the love of his life leaving him in the one of the coldest ways possible. Yikes! But, I do hope you all enjoyed the lore through Heather's eyes and I promise more Aleheather, NataliexFelix, and DiegoxClaire now that we are getting down toward the end of the main line of mini-arcs in this series. Thank you all so much for taking time to read and constructive feedback is always MUCH appreciated.

Stay classy and beautiful everyone!

Dexter1995