Chapter 13: Francis

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Yes, I hear you guys, I know you miss William and Chloe! William chapter due next week, and I hope it's worth the wait ๐Ÿ˜‰

The sunrise was slow. It was like the sun was desperately freeing itself from the night, undergoing a battle in the sky as it blended from black to blue, and then to a burnt orange, the colors warring together into some kind of harmony.

It flickered across the surface of the gold loop in his hands, casting sparks to fly from the diamond when the light brushed it right.

Francis had truly failed.

Again, the thing he loved most had slipped from his grasp. There was no amount of apologizing or good doing that could fix it. She knew him the best, and that was why she would never return, never love him. He'd once thought it was what made them closest, that they both knew each other better than they knew themselves. But, it was what separated them.

It was the last chance he'd ever have to make her stay, before his world came crashing down and she'd find out what a mess he'd made. One last frantic attempt to make Lola love him.

He twisted the ring between his fingers, playing with the glittery reflection. It had once been gifted to his mother by his father. Before she killed herself, of course. She was one of the many things that haunted the Greene manor. The Greene family. Well, what was left of it at least. He wished he could blame her for the person he'd become.

Slowly, Francis rose to his feet, his eyes meeting the window. The sunlight he hadn't seen in days. In one motion he walked towards it, pulling the curtains firmly shut so he was again thrown into darkness.

Maddy Danton refused to leave his thoughts, and it made him hate her. He couldn't decide whether she made him furious or sorry. A sharp, suffocating guilt was clawing at him, its talons digging deep into his chest as she flashed through is mind. Her seductive laugh, the way her eyes would graze him carefully, almost fearfully. The hopeless tone as she'd spoken those words.

I had the baby. I had her.

There was a sharp knock at his door.

"Come in," Francis responded, not retreating from his stance by the now-closed window. He pocketed the ring, still fidgetting with it between his fingers.

Whoever had entered his bedroom was silent, the door closing behind them.

"You've missed one week of work."

Francis turned, eyeing his father in the darkness.

"Whatever is going on, you've had enough time to deal with it," he said. "You lost Delores Davenport a long time ago. Women shouldn't make you weak, Francis."

He swallowed, his muscles tensing involuntarily, as if he wanted to strike, to lash out in some way. His father was never good at understanding, though. His mind operated in business strategies and deals.

"She was always supposed to be mine," Francis murmured, his voice cracking.

"And one day she will be," his dad said.

Francis' gaze dropped to the floor. He knew that was something Lola would never want, not with the monster he was. He couldn't scare her into loving him anymore, she'd grown too far from him.

He couldn't decide whether he wanted her to be his, or whether he wanted her to be happy. She knew she could never be happy with him again, but maybe if she let him tryโ€”

"Clean yourself up and come to work today."

Francis took a deep breath. He didn't want to return to his Dad's office, pretending to show interest in balance sheets and management decisions. Not when he knew he was hiding something huge for his own supposed protection. Not when he hadn't managed sleep in days.

He'd give him one chance. One chance to make things right between them. And then he'd find a way to leave, to cut his father from his life altogether.

His mother had always found him suffocatingly controlling, so much so that she couldn't take it anymore and took death over a world with him in it. And now he was starting to feel the same, confronted with this life-shattering revelation combined with losing the one girl he'd ever love.

"Father," he began, his tone hesitant. "Tell me about Madeline Danton."

He saw his father's shadow freeze in the darkness.

"That explains it then," his father said slowly. Francis could sense him reddening, the vein in his forehead no doubt throbbing. "How did you find out? Did she tell you?"

"What would you do to her if she had?" he questioned. "You've paid her off, right? You didn't want me to know that I had a child."

His voice cracked at the last word, splintering sharply, like a stab to his gut.

His father was quiet, his breathing heavy.

"She could have ruined your life," he said after a while. "We were protecting you."

Suddenly there were tears pricking at Francis' eyes. His father had stolen the prospects of him being a father, no matter how terrifying and disastrous it could have been. He'd stolen his choice.

Things could have been so different. How would they have ended if Francis had known? If he could talk to Maddy, be a part of her decisions?

His mind flashed back to the younger him, to the bitter and hateful man he'd been before he lost Lola. The man he still struggled to suppress. Would he have made good decisions? Or would he have made the lives of Maddy and his unborn child Hell?

He was afraid it was the latter.

"You had no right," Francis said, his fists bunching tightly at his side, his chest rising and falling heavily.

"Your immaturity proves it was a good decision, Francis," he said. "How you handled losing Delores, and how you're handling this now, shows you are in no position to be a parent. And what would it do to your image? To your name? You were happily with Delores and somehow a half-Brazilian party-animal winds up pregnant with your child. We did what was best for you."

"What about her?"

"She is benefiting the most out of this. She's on the East Coast, going to Yale and receiving more benefits than anyone could dream ofโ€”"

"I didn't mean Maddy."

In the small orange light seeping through the corners of the curtains, Francis' ice blue eyes met his father's identical ones, fury coating his vision with a searing hate.

"Your grandchild," Francis said through gritted teeth. "My child."

"She is in a better place," his father said. "She is better off than she would have been with either of you. You are immature, Francis. Irrational and possessive and demanding. Madeline Danton was a drug addict, the offspring of a deranged pop-star and a pornographic model. Your baby is in a safe and wealthy family, a thousand times better off than she would have been with you. It's what Madeline wanted too."

Francis lunged at his father, shoving his shoulders which were covered in a perfectly tailored suit. His father hit the wall, but his expression was unphased.

"Do you think Delores would have ever loved you if you'd had a baby with her?" he asked, his voice deathly cool and his brow arching.

No. Lola would never have come back to him if she knew.

"This isn't about Lola," Francis said. Usually, everything was about her, her hypnotic eyes and her plump smile dominated ninety-percent of his thoughts. But not lately. Ever since Sophie's words had given him the realization that Maddy wasn't lying, it had been her. Maddy and a small child with no face. What โ€“ in a perhaps perfect world โ€“ would have been a family.

He didn't deserve a family, that was for sure. But some part of him craved what was rightfully his. Maybe if he had a choice it would have been different, but having it ripped away from under his feet started a fire burning beneath him, a longing for something he never knew he wanted so badly.

"I am a bad person because of you," Francis spat with venom, staring his father down. "You made me like this."

"You're looking for someone to blame for who you are," his Dad said, "But there is only you, Francis. You are the one who makes poor decisionsโ€“ who scares everything good out of your life with your bratty temper."

Rage coursed through Francis' blood, and the thirst for violence overwhelmed him. It took every piece of restraint he could capture to keep his feet planted to the ground, to stop himself from attacking his own father.

"I'm going downstairs. If you don't show at work today you will be demoted back to sending emails and cleaning spreadsheets."

It was a good thing his father retreated, because if another moment passed, Francis was sure he would strangle him.

This was exactly what his father had meant, the uncontrollable temper that rippled beneath Francis' skin, easily awakened and impossible to tame. He couldn't even tell whether it was justified anymore, it was a consuming force that dictated his every action.

His bedside table fell to the ground first, then his lamp, and then the picture of his mother on the wall. The sound of slamming and smashing was a musical chaos, fuelling his need to pull his life to pieces from the outside in.

Nothing had changed. He still hadn't grown up. Though the people around him were growing and moving and creating their lives, he was miserable and angry and stolen of anything he could ever truly love.

And he deserved it. That was the worst part of all.

His father and step-mother had long vacated the house when he finally left his bedroom. By his feet was a suitcase stuffed haphazardly with clothing and money, enough to live on for a while once they cut off his trust fund, and a checkbook. His Ferarri had been impounded and his license suspended, but he didn't care. He'd take his father's Aston Martin and hopefully be half way around the country by the time he caught on.

That was the thing. He couldn't care anymore, there was nothing left to care about. He'd never have Lola, and the more he pushed it the less likely it was that she'd ever understand. The more he thought about his hidden baby, the more the heart in his chest โ€“ which he'd thought for so long had never existed โ€“ ached so painfully he would buckle over. He needed to forget.

He needed a fresh start.

But first, he needed to see her. To try to convey what could never be said by words.

Maybe he owed her that, at least some kind of acknowledgment of the life-altering event thrust into her life for her to deal with alone. Maybe she wasn't alone. Maybe she'd been glad that he would never know, that she could move on with her life without him in it. That seemed to be what everyone else wanted to do. To be free of him.

But he couldn't leave to go God-knows-where without saying something. He knew her telling him would only end badly for her. When his family wanted to shut someone up they remained shut up, and for her to break that, with everything they held over her head, she must have been desperate.

The least he could do was see her. To give her the acknowledgment she deserved, the reassurance that the baby she'd had not only existed in her heart, but had now been implanted in his too.

And even though he'd never met her, even though he had nothing of her existence to keep in memory, he wanted to feel her in some way. He'd never meet her in person, never see his daughter โ€“ his daughter โ€“ in life or image or anywhere but his imagination, and maybe his dad was right, that was best. But he couldn't get over this if he didn't try.

This time, it wasn't Lola he was desperately rushing to. No, his feet pressed the pedal to the floor in a desperate bid to reach Maddy Danton, before the fear and shame cloaking his body could stop him.

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