Page 27 of The Stipulation
“I do not blame Tracey,” he says quietly. “I cannot. She acted to protect herself in the only way she understood. But it is my hope that you now know the truth. That you understand, finally, that your absence from my life was not a reflection of you, or my love for you, but of painful circumstances out of my control.”
I rest my forehead against my hands, and the room spins slightly. The anger is still there, but so is a strange tenderness. I want to cry, scream, and hug someone all at once. The revelation about my parentage is overwhelming, and I don’t really know how to process the emotions surging through me because I have never felt anything like this before.
“I hope you like the paintings. I bought them for you based on the artists you loved and admired the most.”
I stare at his pain-worn face almost in disbelief. Can it really be possible that this stranger loved me that much and I never knew?
“I love you, Jo. I always have and always will. Even when I am no more, I will always be with you. Whenever you see a fluffycloud in the sky, it could be me sitting there watching you, your very own guardian spirit.”
Just like that, the video ends, and the screen goes black, leaving me in silence among the paintings. I feel hollow, yet strangely full at the same time. I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. The truth is undeniable. My mother lied. She kept me from my father, from knowing him, not because she feared him, but to punish him for not loving her. She did it for me, she says, but I don’t think that’s the truth. And the betrayal of that, well, it cuts deep.
My first instinct is to call my mum and have this out with her, but I decide that some distance is necessary. I need to process this trauma without her. Without the weight of her presence and her justifications clouding my thoughts. Forgiveness will come later, when I am ready, but first, I need to breathe, to reconcile, and to understand. I need to adjust to this new information before involving someone else’s emotions too.
For now, I don’t want to think about it. I stand and walk slowly among the paintings once again, letting my fingers hover over canvas, feeling the subtle, almost electrical vibrations of the paint pigments, the varnish, the history trapped in each brush stroke. My father is absent, but in his collection, in the care he took of his legacy, I feel a tangible connection.
He wasn’t a perfect human being. One doesn’t become a billionaire by being a saint. Yes, he had been constrained and bound by my mother’s threat. His fall from grace would have been great, indeed if my mother had carried on with her threat to utterly destroy his reputation. And yet, I wish he had come and explained his situation to me sooner, perhaps when I was eighteen, or even once I graduated from college. I sense his pride in me, though, and that fills a space that has been empty for far too long. His quiet, persistent joy in knowing who I would become is evident in this vault.
I sink into the chair at the workstation. Strange, but already some of the tension in my shoulders has begun to ease. The vault is silent except for the faint hum of the air regulatory system and the soft whirl of my laptop’s fan. My father’s words echo in my head, and I realize that, for the first time, I feel fully seen. Not by my mother, not by strangers, but by the man who seeded me into this world, and wanted nothing more than to be able to love me, even from afar, even never having the love returned.
It is a strange thing, and yet it is enough. It comforts me.
I glance around at the collection, at the Vermeers, the Rembrandts, the Murillos, and the Titians, and a thrill pulses through me. I may have been betrayed by my own mother, yes, but now I have access to a dream that I never thought possible. To touch history, to restore it, to make it live again. And I can’t help but think that if these are the paintings that haven’t needed to be covered up, what the hell sort of treasures are in those covered frames?
And this is all possible because of my father.
For the first time in my life, I feel the real weight of loss. I lost something special. Really special. I realize I can grieve, and I can feel hurt. I can even take a step back from my mother and let her stew in her own pettiness that deprived me of a father. But I can also move forward, take what is offered, and make it my own.
I close my eyes, and instantly, my father’s face, his voice, his pride in me, flowers into a small, steadying presence, a reminder that even in absence, love can exist, quiet and steadfast. And just like that, I feel resolved. The betrayal, the secrets, the lies - they are a part of my story now. But they will not define me. Not today. Not ever.
I take a deep breath. This is my beginning. The past may have been hidden from me, but the future is mine to shape.
Chapter
Thirteen
JO
Ipace slowly between the racks. Every step I take echoes on the hard floor, and with every step it becomes more and more obvious: this is no ordinary workspace. This place is almost reverent, like a church. Housing masterpieces, irreplaceable, each one carrying centuries of history… and now, by some surreal twist of fate, restoring them to their original glory has become my responsibility.
The wonderful silence is disturbed by the soft click of the door’s locking system. I freeze. The door swings open, and Axel steps in. He’s impeccably dressed. His green eyes catch the light as they scan the room and come to settle on me. His gaze is cold, but my stomach does a crazy somersault. A familiar pang of something unnamable, something I shouldn’t feel for such an insufferable man, goes through me. My pulse quickens despite myself.
“Jo,” he says, his voice calm but clipped. There is no warmth, no sign of the anger with which he stormed out of Gavin’s office earlier, just controlled authority.
“Axel.” I raise a sarcastic eyebrow, even though I am acutely aware of the electricity throbbing in the air. “What can I do for you?”
“Gavin informs me you’ve agreed to the… stipulations of Joseph’s will. I trust he told you I have too?”
The tension in my shoulders tightens, but I nod.
He nods back, the movement precise and controlled. “Good. I suppose we should draw some rules that will make this situation more bearable.”
“What sort of rules?”
“We live in our respective suites and have as little interaction as possible, while we fulfill our obligations – me within the business, you with the art collection.” He frowns. “And while we find a way to produce an heir each by the end of the stipulated year.”
“Agreed,” I answer, my voice steady despite the turmoil in my chest. I’m not being totally honest. I might not produce the heir. If I don’t find the right guy, I’m not making a baby just to fulfill my father’s demand for an heir. I might just stay around to clean the paintings.
We stare at each other, our agreement hanging awkwardly between us. I feel as if there is a silent battlefield of wills going on between us. He doesn’t like me, and I’ve just lied to him. Then, as if by mutual understanding, we both turn away at the same time and walk away in opposite directions, him towards the door he entered by, and me back to my workstation.
