Chapter 8 - The Desperate Pleading
I thought I was completely done with them, but a desperate animal will always try to find its way back to the only food source it knows.
Somehow, through the grapevine of old corporate contacts, Arthur found out about my position at Verdant Groupe. He found out about my multi-million dollar payout.
One afternoon, my assistant walked into my office in Paris, looking uncomfortable. "Miss Vance, there is a man on line one. He claims to be your father. He sounds very distressed. Should I hang up?"
I stared at the phone. A part of me wanted to disconnect it. But another part of me needed absolute closure. "Put him through, Marie."
The line clicked. "Clara?" Arthur’s voice was broken, raspy, completely stripped of its former arrogance. "Clara, thank God. Please don't hang up."
"What do you want, Arthur?" I asked, my voice as cold as ice.
"We have nothing, Clara," he sobbed. I had never heard my father cry before. It sounded pathetic. "The feds took the house. Julian is a mess. Your mother is sick, and we can't afford her medication. We know you got millions from the French company. We're your family, Clara. Please, you have to help us. Just wire us a hundred thousand. That’s pennies to you!"
I leaned back in my plush leather chair, staring at the ceiling.
"Do you remember what you told me when I graduated, Arthur?" I asked quietly.
Silence on the other end of the line.
"You told me to take the barren dirt, because I couldn't ruin anything important out there," I reminded him. "When I was freezing during that first winter, when I had to wear three layers of coats inside my own house because I couldn't afford heating, I called you. I asked you for a five-hundred-dollar loan to fix my radiator. Do you remember what you said?"
"Clara, please, I was stressed with the business—"
"You told me that failures don't get bailouts," I said, my voice hardening. "You abandoned me. You let me freeze. And the moment I created something beautiful, you and Julian came like vultures to rip it from my hands under the threat of physical violence."
"We were desperate! Julian was in trouble!" he pleaded.
"Julian is a grown man who gambled his life away. And you enabled him," I replied. "You are not my family. You are a biological coincidence. Never, ever contact me again. If you do, Verdant’s corporate lawyers will bury you so deep in harassment lawsuits you won't even be able to afford the rent on your miserable little apartment."
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"Clara! No! Clara, please—!"
I pressed the end call button. The silence in my office was beautiful.
