Chapter 88 Sons - Benedict Snr POV
I don't pretend to know my eldest son very well, I know that I've been absent working on my political career more than I was home.
But I didn't know he was housing his mother.
His very mentally unstable mother, who was in a psychiatric facility the last time I checked.
So is that the reason he told me I was forbidden to come to his West Coast house?
Forbidden when I thought he was going to die, doing a fucking job I told him I don't want him to do.
The problem with Miguel is that he never listens when I tell him to do something. Not when he was a kid, and certainly not as an adult.
I'm not going to deny that it pained me to see Valentina. She's as beautiful as ever. And if I wasn't who I was, we could have been together.
I still remember seeing her for the first time. God, I was so young and naive then, the weight of my family's responsibility heavy on my shoulders. I was always raised to be greater than my father, my future was already written, I just had to walk the chosen path.
I worked endlessly to fulfill those expectations. One of those nights was when I first saw her.
She was working as a cleaner, and she came into my office not knowing someone was in there.
I can still see the shock on her face, the way her mouth dropped open, and the uniform that did nothing to hide her absolutely beautiful body.
I was immediately drawn to her. Who wouldn't be?
She was lured to New York by a bogus modelling agency who was really recruiting prostitutes. Instead of falling in that inevitable trap, she looked for odd jobs.
Needless to say, I was in that office every night, waiting for her. She was so shy at first, her with the broken English and me with the broken Spanish, but I just couldn't stay away from the girl. I helped her get all her documents in order, and I may have pulled some strings so she could get a valid work visa.
And I fell in love with an immigrant girl who had no qualifications aside from a high school diploma, who could barely speak English and who had no social standing in my world.
So I kept her a secret. During the day I was a lawyer in my family's very successful firm, and at night I was Valentina's boyfriend. I took her to places I knew my family would never frequent, and she thought it was so romantic.
Making love to her was explosive, unlike any of the sex I had before her. I was completely bewitched.
Until she fell pregnant, and shattered the illusion we were living in. I told my father, who demanded an abortion. No offspring of his would come from a Columbian immigrant who had nothing to offer.
When I told her, she ran away.
And I let her. If I wanted to find her, I could, but I loved her so much, and I didn't want my child with her to be killed.
That child would be the symbol of our love, and I didn't care what my family said.
She thought I didn't know where she was, but I found her in New Mexico, and I got to witness my son being born.
He was perfect, and I knew I had to protect him from my family. I could give him my surname, but the only thing Valentina demanded was that he was named after her grandfather.
Of course they forced me to marry someone of my own standing. I didn't care for Caroline all that much, but I did what I had to to keep Miguel.
They insisted on another heir, one with a real bloodline. And I gave them that, even though my heart was telling me otherwise.
Valentina was heartbroken, but she continued to work minimum wage jobs and took care of our son.
She always knew I was going to take him. A Cargill didn't belong where she was living with him, and even though Miguel was not what my family wanted, they realised that he could be used in my political aspirations.
She ran away with him again, but I found them time after time.
First , I ripped her heart from her chest when I left her because my family said so. Then I destroyed her when I took away the only thing that she had left to live for.
I'm a monster, and even years after, she still can't look at me without crying.
"Why didn't you call?" Miguel closes the sliding door behind him, fully dressed now.
I'm outside in his backyard, soaking up the winter sun.
"Should a father make an appointment to see his injured son?" I throw back, and I see him closing off even more. "And you have no business having Madison Smith over. How do you think that would make your brother feel? He's been really hurt by the breakup."
In true Miguel fashion, he looks at me with an unreadable expression.
My two sons have never been friends. I don't know if it is simply because they have two different mothers, but I've always made sure that they both get exactly the same things.
"And why isn't your mother in the facility, Miguel!" Is he being stupid on purpose? "They have round the clock care for her there."
"My mother is perfectly fine being here." He says through clenched teeth. "She hasn't had an episode in months. Maybe if you didn't take her son away from her in the first place, we wouldn't even have this conversation."
This is the first time he mentions the role I played in Valentina's mental health decline. He's not wrong, of course, but I did what I had to do for him. And for me.
"As for Madison, it's no business of yours or Ben what she's doing here. They broke up months ago."
I see it then. And I know whatever T.J. said is utter bullshit.
There's a look in his eyes when he speaks of Madison.
It's the look of a man who would burn down mountains for the woman he loves.
It's the look of chaos.
Chaos that would destroy everything I carefully built.