Cold anger chilled his veins and tightened his fists. He’d known for years. But hearing the confirmation elevated his hatred to a new level.
“Although not the time you saw me.”
Alejandro barked a laugh. “Does it matter?”
“It does.” Javier hung his head. “You know your mother lost a child, a daughter, between you and Adrian, yes?” At Alejandro’s nod, he continued. “I loved...love,” he corrected, “your brother. You. Antonio.”
The closest his father had ever come to saying “I love you.”
“But I’d really looked forward to having a girl.” Another emotion he’d never expected to see on his father’s face: sorrow. “When we lost the baby...your mother retreated into herself. And I buried myself in work.” He stared down at the floor, lost in memory. “Losing a baby wasn’t as talked about back then. It’s not an excuse for how I behaved. It just...counseling, mental health, they weren’t as accepted.
“When your mother got pregnant with you, she barely got out of bed. The doctor encouraged her to rest. But she was so scared that she hardly ever left her room. And then I met Minerva. It’s because of her that I worried about the women you associated with.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I met Minerva at a hotel bar. I’d been drinking. A lot. Before I knew it, we went back to my room and...” He waved a hand in the air. “One time. The biggest mistake of my life.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Because you saw us together at our house in Granada? Yes, I can see why.” He ran a hand through his hair. Hair that, Alejandro now noticed, was thinning at the top.
“Minerva, it turns out, wanted more. Much more. I told her in the morning that I had made a mistake. I told her about losing the baby, your mother being pregnant with you, everything. She didn’t care. She wanted a ring on her finger. And if she couldn’t get that, she wanted money.”
Alejandro arched a brow. “She blackmailed you?”
Javier nodded once. “For almost twenty years, until I found evidence that she had embezzled funds from a charity she managed. A stalemate, but I haven’t heard from her in thirteen years. The day you found us in the library, she had just upped her demands and provided a picture she’d taken of us in bed together while I’d been asleep.”
Alejandro’s stomach rolled. Such a photo would ruin his mother.
“Every time I saw you...knowing that my weakness had led to such a mistake, I could barely look at you. When you started to act out more, I saw myself in you.” His lips quirked up into a sad smile. “I became determined to make sure you didn’t duplicate my mistakes. So instead of focusing on the good, I came down hard. The more you misbehaved, the harder I tried to correct you.”
“You didn’t just come down hard.” He hadn’t even known himself capable of the wrath that infused his voice. “You abandoned me, then brought me to my lowest point.”
“I’m sorry, son.”
“Sorry?”
Javier stood, slowly, as if a great weight rested on his shoulders.
“What else can I say? I’m sorry I placed the burden of my mistakes on your shoulders so young. That I pushed you into the life you lead now.” Javier huffed. “Ironically enough, turned you into me.”
A hum started in his head, low but steadily building to a roar.
“What do you mean?”
“I was just like you when I met your mother. Different women, clubs, spending money left and right.”
Just like your father.
The world tilted. His father might be making amends now, but that didn’t erase decades of pain. Madre had often spoken of how quickly they’d fallen in love, how absolutely certain they both had been about their future together.
Just like him and Calandra.
“I hope if you ever have children, son, you can avoid the many, many mistakes I’ve made.” Javier took a tentative step forward. “Chief among them ever making you doubt that I didn’t want you to succeed. I was harsh. Unnecessarily so. I wanted you to succeed, wanted you to be the man I knew you could be.”
If the situation wasn’t so sad, he would laugh. Finally, he had an explanation, an apology, even words of support from his father.
Words that had come at a price. He’d based his entire existence, the man he was today, on what had transpired in that library. And for what? Nothing. And now he had to confront the possibility that, if he continued to pursue a life with Calandra, he would fall into the same trap his father had. Trying to turn himself into someone capable of love, fidelity, fatherhood, only to fail and leave Calandra broken, just as her father had done to her mother, and their child alone, just as he’d been. Just as Calandra had been because of the sins of her father.
“What if I can’t break the cycle?”
He hadn’t meant to utter the words aloud. They echoed in the stillness.