"It was you?"

"Who else did you think it was?" Clint exclaimed. "If it weren't for me, nothing would ever get done—and done right. You, with your apartment. Allen, with his cafe of which you now own half. And Gareth. Have you ever wondered how Gareth went from nobody to somebody in less than three years, Riley? How he didn't have to be some director's pet, and get his ass branded with some guy's initials just to get his first role in that war movie—"

"Hell's Kingdom. It was a mini-series on cable," Riley whispered, remembering the news reports, the articles that talked about Gareth's rise to fame—a quick one that involved being at the right place at the right time. "He nailed that audition."

"Nailed that audition, my ass. You need to grow up, Riley, and know how things really work in show business—any business for that matter," Clint chuckled. "You've got to make it through the door first in any town before you can nail anything. It's who you know—not what you know that gets your foot through the door. He'd still be doing potato chip commercials if it weren't for me. He'd still be waiting tables at the Ivy if it weren't for me. Do you think Collette Williams would have taken him in as a client if I hadn't paid her to handle his non-existent career? She wouldn't even touch him with a ten-foot pole then. But of course now, she salivates at the faintest glimmer of a contract."

"But I don't understand," Riley stammered. "Why would you do that? Why did you want Gareth and I out of New York so badly—"

"You don't get it, do you? You absolutely don't get it." Then he stared at her, his face turning pale. "Oh my God, you don't know."

"Know what?" Riley was too overwhelmed to think straight, and she felt stupid for not getting what Clint expected her to get. But what could he possibly mean?

"She'd had four miscarriages. You remember every single one, Riley, because she cried on your shoulder every time. And every time you told her everything was going to be alright, that we were going to get pregnant, that it was going to happen, that the IVF would be successful the next time—or whatever it is sisters say to each other," Clint said.

"If there's one thing that can reduce a man to nothing, Riley, no matter powerful he thinks he is, it's knowing he can't father any children—not after prostate cancer, no matter how successful the treatments were," Clint said, shaking his head. "What was I thinking, believing I could beat the odds even when the best doctors told me that success rates for even implantation of a fertilized egg were still less than fifty percent?"

It took Riley a few seconds to understand the meaning of Clint's words. Of course, she'd been there for every miscarriage, almost every pregnancy test that said she wasn't pregnant, and every time, Paige had cried.

"So you thought that Gareth would make the perfect donor? Did he even know? Did he volunteer?" Riley felt the tears falling down her face. She was losing this round and worse, she'd lost it a long time ago. "Was that Paige's idea? Or yours?"

"Neither. It just happened," Clint said. "After the last IVF results came back negative, she went to see you—like she always did. Only you weren't home; you were working late. But Gareth was home, and I guess they started drinking and talking. And...and things happened. That's all I know."

Riley shut her eyes, not wanting to see Paige and Gareth together, but it was hard, for she'd already seen them together.

"She never went back to your apartment ever since," Clint whispered, and Riley knew he was right. Paige used to have no problems being in the same room with Gareth, they'd always gotten along, joked and teased each other but never anything beyond friends. But that all changed, Riley remembered it now. Both of them changed. When Paige started making excuses, asking Riley to come to their brownstone instead—alone—Riley had always thought it was because of her pregnancy.

It had been a difficult one for she was carrying quadruplets and had to be on full bed rest from her second trimester onwards. When the quadruplets were born prematurely, the fourth one, Timothy, didn't make it. The babies stayed in the hospital for almost three months, and Riley now remembered how it took a lot of prodding just to get Gareth to visit with her the day of the delivery. She'd always thought it was because he didn't want children—at least not yet.

Then she remembered how she caught him visiting the triplets by himself two months later, watching from the glass partition as the nurses fed and changed them. He wasn't family so he wasn't allowed to hold them. Riley realized he never got to hold them at all, even after they left the hospital.

What are you doing here? She had asked him then.

Research, he had replied. I'm auditioning for this role of a father. So I thought I'd see how babies are cared for. I may not get it, but I figured I might as well try.

Riley had laughed then. You could have asked me to tell the nurses you're family — because you are.

She remembered now how Gareth had turned pale though he forced a smile and shook his head. You know me, Ri, ever the visual learner. But they're beautiful, aren't they? Do you think they'll take after their mother? After you, too, even?

Would you like to hold them? I'm sure the nurses won't mind.

No, looking is fine, he said, too quickly.

Gareth had turned distant then. He'd stopped making love to her the way he used to. This time, it was rougher, angrier, and she'd always felt empty when it was over. When the triplets turned one, he didn't come to their birthday party. She found him at their apartment, drunk and saying he had to go Hollywood and try his luck there and that he was going to take her with him. But Riley told him she'd just follow him after. She was working those two jobs then, and they had bills to pay.

How did I ever get so lucky with you, Riley?

You didn't get lucky, Gareth. I did. You were always there for me, especially after mom died, and it's something I'll never forget. You were always there for me.

Well, Gareth shrugged then, looking down as he always did when he had to pick the right words to say. I'm never one to let go of a good thing once I've got it.

But in the end, Gareth ended up letting her go. After he had promised to send for her once he got settled in L.A., Gareth canceled her airline ticket, saying it wasn't the right time for her to come. He had a movie producer to see, and he needed to be on the ball for this one, that it was his only chance to impress the man. But Riley had come anyway, purchasing the ticket herself, ending up at the producer's party anyway when she ran into his fellow roommates at the apartment, and they agreed to take her with them.

Seeing Gareth then—on top of his game in charming the ladies—had set her off. He was in his element. The West Coast vibe suited him. His face shone, his smile was wider, and Riley felt cheated, for she wanted nothing more but the old Gareth back. He didn't even see her at the party. He'd been so busy kissing two girls in the Jacuzzi, talking in his New York accent one moment and then a Boston accent the next, listening to them giggle and swoon.

Then she stumbled upon the guests doing lines of cocaine in the game room as others were shooting up in the corner, splayed out on the couch and lost in their world. One hit wouldn't hurt, she thought then. Then line became another, and then another.

When Gareth found her, she was about to get it on with some line producer who told her how beautiful she was, and that he knew how to make her forget any man. Gareth was livid. He made up a story that she was some fan of his from New York, that she'd followed him all the way to L.A., stalking him. That was enough to get her kicked out of the party, though Gareth left with her, carrying her in his arms and driving her to the nearest motel and staying with her till she sobered up a day later. She remembered the car he drove. It was a Bentley. He told her it belonged to a guest at the party, an older woman, a French perfumer. But she was just a friend, he said. She would, later on, find out that they were all just friends.

You've just proven to me that you can't handle it here, he had told her. Not yet. I'll come for you. I promise. For now, let me work.

Do you call that work? Kissing girls in a Jacuzzi and doing lines of coke?

I may drink, but I never do drugs, Riley. But the owner of that house is a big-shot producer I need to impress. A new manager's willing to take me on if I nail my audition with the guy tomorrow, and she's a big shot in the business so I can't disappoint her, or fuck up with this audition. So don't ruin it for me, Ri. I can't be waiting tables anymore. If I don't make it tomorrow, I'm going home. I promise. I'll come for you.

Only he never did. At least, not for her, Riley thought then, remembering the words he'd said to Paige when she caught them together.

"I have to protect my family, Riley," Clint was saying, dragging her thoughts back to the present. "I have to protect my children."

"They're not your children," Riley said.

"And that's where you're wrong," Clint said, and this time, his face turned cold again. "They're my children, and no one can tell me otherwise."

"So you thought that getting Gareth and I to L.A. would solve your problems? Was Paige in on this?"

"Of course not," Clint replied. "All I wanted was for everyone to be happy. Gareth in Hollywood doing what he loved and you with him because you loved him. And my family here, with no Gareth to pop in at the park watching them, because that's exactly what he started doing, Riley. How do you think that makes me feel? Not knowing what Gareth was going to do—if he was planning on claiming them for his own, or whatever he would have done. Do you have any idea what such a revelation would do to the children's lives? They're Caldwell's, and they can't be anything else. I had to do something. For the boys."

"Sure, these days he may have the money to think he can take me on for custody of the boys, but I know Gareth, and he won't risk it—not for his career, not when he's Mr. Party-boy and current boy toy to Isobel Reign," Clint continued. "I'd bury his career before he can even think of doing such a thing."

"So you figured kicking me out of my apartment after I got back from L.A. with no intention of going back there—and then paying me off—would do the trick?" Riley exclaimed. "If you really wanted me out, then why the hell did you help me become partners with Allen at the cafe and then help me get my apartment? Why am I still here?"

"After you almost overdosed, I had no other choice but to do whatever it took to take care of you—anything—even if it meant keeping you here. I couldn't handle seeing Paige fall apart again, not over you overdosing over a boy," Clint snarled. "At least with Gareth, he was smart enough, hungry enough, to do what needed to be done after he got his first big break. As long as he was happy and away from New York, I was happy."

"And the money? What was that for?"

"Collette was supposed to convince you to fly back to L.A. with her. She was supposed to help you move out of the apartment, put stuff in storage and fly with you back to L.A. I paid her enough money to do that."

Riley scoffed. Clint had suddenly turned cheap. "And you thought twenty grand was enough—"

"Try a hundred grand," Clint retorted. "If Gareth hadn't come in here two weeks ago, accusing Paige of kicking you out of the apartment and leaving you only twenty grand, I would never have known what Collette had done. She pocketed the rest and now claims that it was her fee for all her trouble. Gareth's Fast Track to Fame 101."

Clint raked his hand through his hair. "All I wanted was for Paige and me to raise the kids in peace, Riley, not to have to keep looking over our shoulders."

They stood opposite each other not speaking for a few minutes. The only sound Riley heard was the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer, and she wondered if maybe that was the beating of her own heart, like a time bomb about to explode. She was numb, her vision distant, as if a part of her had risen from her body and hovered just above her head, where it felt safest.

Still, Riley couldn't let herself get away so easily. She still needed to be strong, grounded. At least for herself.

"Then maybe it's best that I don't see the boys at all," Riley said slowly. "Maybe one day they'll understand why I can't be in their lives anymore. And why, if I did, it would all be a lie. And I'd just be party to another one of your lies."

She sighed. "But I'm done lying, Clint. I'm done living in this dream world you've created for me with all your money, all because you wanted to shelter yourself from the truth—and that's what you're terrified of, isn't it? The fact of your mortality and your limitations. So you put me in a cage—packaged me in my apartment, set me up to own half of my own business, treat me like I'm your little pet project who'll do whatever you want me to do, all because you want to keep what isn't really yours. Those kids. Don't you think that they deserve to learn the truth one day? What then are you going to tell them?"

"I'm going to tell them the truth," Clint said through gritted teeth, "that they're my children."

"Then keep telling yourself that, Clint, and maybe it'll all come true. Because if you had to do all this—paying everyone off behind their backs all these years then you know very well that they aren't yours, and never will be," Riley said. "Money can't buy everything, you know, not even a clean conscience."

Riley didn't wait for Clint to say anything back to her. She only wanted to get out of there and get some fresh air. Some battles were simply not worth fighting to the death, and Clint, Riley knew, was not one to ever back down. She also knew she had to leave before the children saw her, for she wasn't ready to say good-bye to them. She wasn't ready to tell them the truth that she was too angry to see them.

Riley gathered her purse and headed out the door, running down the steps but stopped when she heard a child call her name.

Aunt Riley?

Then one voice turned to three.

***

There is a bonus story in Gareth's POV about what happened that day in Paige's office. It's in his words and I just re-published it (July 2021). It's a BONUS story titled BARBED WIRE.

Please remember that it deals with cheating.