“What do you mean by you have been watching me?” Derek asked in surprise. “How?”
Yasmin exhaled slowly. “I know you are probably going to hate me more than you already do by the time I am done with this next round of my confession,” she said and sounded tired even though her face still looked flawlessly beautiful and her youthful skin still glowed as before.
“I don’t hate you,” said Derek. “I simply don’t know you.”
“I understand,” she said indulgently. “Now, back to my confession. I have a friend named Ariana Connolly. We’ve been friends since high school and all through college. She was my maid-of-honor when I married your father.
“She was with me all through those years when I suffered emotional abuse from your father and when I seemingly spiraled out of control and started getting involved with different men. You see, Ariana has a daughter. This brilliant girl finished top of her class in Princeton and her dream was to work in the Fraser empire with you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, and when Ariana called me to ask that I get her daughter hired in the company, I knew I couldn’t say no to her. As fate would have it, you were shopping for new staff around that time, so I cleverly slipped her resume in with the others at HR.
“Fortunately, she got the job and it was my turn to ask Ariana for a favor. I begged her to instruct her daughter to always report back to her about anything and everything that you were up to both professionally and personally.”
“Wait. Are you saying that you’ve had someone spying on me all these years?”
Yasmin bowed her head. “Yes. It was the only way that I could know anything about you. As I said before, your father had already poisoned your heart against me so there was no room for me to establish any kind of relationship with you anymore.
“You never tried to talk to me and whenever I wanted to have a conversation with you, you’d blow me off and tell me to leave you alone. I let your father succeed in manipulating you against me and I also didn’t help matters with the way I went off the rails, living a wild life. Having that person watching you and reporting back to me was the closest I could get to you.”
“Oh my goodness…” Derek groaned as if he was physically sick.
“Are you all right?” Rachel asked him softly.
“No, Rachel,” he replied. “I knew coming here was a bad idea. I wish I didn’t know any of these things.”
“I am so sorry that you feel this way, Derek,” said Yasmin. “I wish I could go back in time and undo so many things. I wish I would have held my ground with your father and refused his offer of marriage.
“My father would have lost his business then, but didn’t he eventually lose it even after I married Jeremy? I wish I would have found a better outlet for my frustration instead of seeking redemption from the arms of different men.
“I made a lot of terrible mistakes in the past and I am sorry that I allowed you to despise me all these years without even making more efforts to tell you my side of the story.”
Derek sighed. “This is seriously messed up,” he said. “So, does this spy still report to you or did they stop after your… death?”
She smiled. “Well, besides the two of you, Ariana is the only person who knows that I am alive.”
“So, your friend is the spy? I’m confused.”
“She’s not the spy. Her daughter is. The girl reports to her mother, it has been so for years. Everything she tells Ariana, Ariana tells me.”
“Who then is the spy?” Derek wanted to know. The suspense was killing him.
“It’s your executive assistant/secretary, Diane Henson.”
“No!” Derek was shocked. “That cannot be possible.”
“It is. Ariana had Diane before she married Russ Connolly. She has worked with you for nearly a decade and she knows everything there is to know about you. Please, don’t be mad at her.
“Spying on you was her mother’s request as her payback for speaking to me about Diane’s intention to work with you. She was happy to do it because it seemed harmless enough, which it was, and still is. I just wanted to keep track of you and know for certain that you are ok.”
Rachel was touched by this woman’s love and concern for her only son even though he hadn’t given her a chance to get close to him.
“I feel as if my world keeps collapsing the more with every word that comes out of your mouth,” said Derek. “Why did you decide to reveal yourself to me now? What do you want from me?”
There was no mistaking the sadness that was written all over his mother’s face. “As I said earlier, I felt that the fates have given me a second chance to correct my past mistakes by making our paths cross here.”
“Our paths didn’t cross though,” said Derek, bitterly. “You stalked us.”
“What I meant was that your decision to come to Bermuda seemed divinely orchestrated,” explained Yasmin.
“There was nothing divine about our decision to come here,” Derek snapped.
He was struggling to keep his temper in check. Everything this woman was saying was driving him insane and he hated how she was trying to rationalize it all.
“Rachel wanted to visit Bermuda and that’s why we’re here. It was simply a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” said Yasmin, stubbornly. “Besides, you could have made up an excuse to not come here, knowing this was where your mother died. I guess you were curious to see where it all happened, weren’t you?”
Derek rose to his feet suddenly. “I have heard enough of your tales. I’m leaving!”
“But the lunch – “
“Screw your lunch!” He fired back at his mother.
“Derek!” Rachel was mortified by his manners, or the lack thereof. “Don’t be rude to your mother,” she said.
“She’s not my mother,” he snapped at her. “Are you coming or what?”
“Derek, please,” Yasmin appealed to her son. “Please, give me a chance to right my wrongs. I am sorry for hurting you so much. I wish you would just give me a second chance, please.”
“Did you think you could win me over by spinning all these fairy tales about how my father was a terrible man and you were a helpless damsel in distress? Did you expect that all those stories would move me enough to believe you especially when my father isn’t here to defend himself? How convenient!”
“What do I have to gain from lying to you?”
“Sympathy!”
“You’re right, I want your sympathy but I will not get it by lying to you. I am not a liar, Derek.”
“Says the woman who faked her own death and rebranded herself into someone else,” he said through gritted teeth. “I am done talking to you. Stay away from me and mine.”
“Derek!” Yasmin called after him as he marched toward the exit. “I want to see Zoe, please.”
He paused at the door and turned around to look at her with cold blue eyes. “That will never happen. Stay away from me and my daughter.”
“But she’s her granddaughter,” Rachel interjected.
“She’s nothing to Zoe,” said Derek. “Let’s go, Rachel. “I have heard enough nonsense in this room to last me a lifetime.”
“It’s not nonsense, Derek. Everything I told you here is true,” said Yasmin. “If you don’t believe me, ask Alfred Rickman. You know him, don’t you?
“He was your father’s best friend all those years and he was the only one who truly saw my pain, and when he tried to speak to your dad on my behalf, Jeremy accused him of sleeping with me. That put a strain on their friendship but they still managed to remain friends until your father’s death.”
Hearing Uncle Alfred’s name gave Derek pause. He was the closest thing to a relative to Derek besides his parents and he was there to guide him through running the Fraser empire after his father died.
“Does he know you are alive too?” Derek asked.
“No, he doesn’t but he knows everything about how my relationship with your father played out. If you think any of the things I have said to you here is a lie, then ask Alfred. He knew everything.”
With his hand on the doorknob, Yasmin called Derek, halting his exit. “I want to give everything I own to Zoe.”
Rachel gasped in shock.
He turned and gave Yasmin a sharp look. “She wouldn’t be needing your money or anything else that belongs to you,” he said coldly. “She already has Fraser Empire to inherit. Keep your money.”
“Fine,” she said weakly, conceding defeat. “But at least, allow me to throw Rachel a birthday party tomorrow. It is the least I can do.”
Rachel was surprised. She had completely forgotten about her birthday. “Oh my gosh! Tomorrow is my birthday. How could I forget?”
“Let me throw a party for you, Rachel. Please,” said Yasmin.
Rachel glanced at Derek as if seeking his opinion. “She’s trying to bribe you,” he said flatly.
“I am not,” said Yasmin. “You have made up your mind about me and I don’t blame you for that, but please, don’t be so suspicious of my kindness. I just want to do something nice to put a smile on Rachel’s face after putting her through that tumultuous confession sessions.”
“Whatever,” Derek said with a shrug. “I’m not even going to bother asking how you knew her birthday…”
Yasmin chuckled. “I know I have not been a good mother to you, Derek, but now that you’re a parent, I am hoping that you will eventually understand why I have done everything within my power to make sure that I remain close to you somehow.”
“We are done here,” he said with a note of finality and opened the door to leave.
Rachel ran after him but not after looking back and mouthing a quick, “Sorry,” to Yasmin who was standing there with a lone tear running down her flawless face.