Claiming The Heiress

Pedro Montener

Katerina

My father’s name is not Pedro Montener, but when I was a little kid and we were all a happy f*ucking family for five minuets, he used to joke with me that one day he’d change his name, because his was cursed, and achieve great things so I could be proud of him.

We used to watch this silly soap opera one summer, me and him, in secret from my mom, who hated such shows, and there was this great character, a role model dad, named Pedro Montener, who did everything for his children even in the expense of his own happiness and desires. Petar used to say he’d be my Pedro Montener one day. Then the drinking got to him pretty badly and not only did he not achieve great things for me, he just left us. I was eight and heartbroken, and messed up because of it all, for years. And last I heard he’d gotten married and found a new family, so screw him, right? I am a grown-up now, I have my own life. I don’t need that man back into my present when he robbed me of my past.

Next to me Eva tenses, her big eyes narrowing at me. She knows that story, that’s the one thing in my life I have never learned how to forgive to this day - being abandoned by the one person who was supposed to have my back through thick and thin. And I am almost thirty now. One could say I have everything, I should let go, but I can’t. This is the only thing I don’t know how to let go. This and my abundance of daddy issues I carry with me because of Petar Enev. I even had a boyfriend who used to joke about this until I dumped his stupid a*ss.

“How old was he when he died?” I ask, my heart thumping like crazy in my chest. Instinctively I reach out and grab Eva’s hand, squeezing her fingers for comfort. She squeezes back as she leads me to a nearby wooden bench and we sit there, the phone no longer on speaker.

“Fourty-nine,” the man on the other line replies.

“When was his birthday?”

“March, 21st.”

Damn it, the math is working. Another memory hits me, one I’ve buried so deep till now, I had completely forgotten about it. It’s how I used to chase my dad around our little apartment, wanting to crown him as my spring dad, because he was born on the first day of spring, and spring was my favorite season. It still is. F*uck, this can’t be happening. Is this all real, or is this scammer too good at what he does?

My hands start shaking slightly and suddenly the breeze doesn’t feel as pleasant. The last rays of sunshine make the sky above us look like burned copper and even though it isn’t, I think it’s getting really cold.

Next to me Eva sees my pale face and motions for me to give her the phone. When I don’t reach, because suddenly it all feels like too much, she grabs it from my hands.

“Hello, this is Eva Marinova, Ms. Eneva’s lawyer. You can talk to me now,” she says with a stern voice, all professional and cold as ice.

The man tells her something more, to which she just hmphs, then again.

“Okay, send it all to the e-mail I will text you,” she finally agrees, those big green eyes of hers holding my gaze. My anchor in the strongest of storms, like always. We’ve known each other for almost twenty years and I love her like a sister. Sometimes I feel like I love her more than I like my own teenage brother to be honest.

Eva hangs up then, cutting the man mid-sentence and after shooting a text, she gives me the phone back.

“I will look into it,” she reassures me. “Don’t think about it.”

But I do think about it.

On our way back to the hotel and during the remaining few days of our vacation.

I think about how once upon a time my father was my whole world and how empty this world felt when he just didn’t come back one day. How I never felt truly loved again, not even by my mom who all but blamed me for him leaving and for all the hardships I brought in her life just by being born. How I had to fight to the bone to survive - the depression, the trauma, life in general. How growing up I had to watch all those kids with their happy families and all the support they had from their parents, all the while I struggled to make ends meet and pay for my education, working two jobs at a time. How at the end of the day there was no one but Eva, not truly, to turn to and hug.

And now he’s back, but it’s worse, because if he really is dead, then I lost my chance to shove it in his damn pathetic face that I survived. That I didn’t need him to do it and how I will never need him or want to have anything to do with him now that I have myself.

And it’s not just that old anger coming back to me.

I am not happy. I’ve been working like crazy on this big project at the bank for the last few months and my few days off were supposed to be fun and relaxing as I chilled by the beach with a margarita in hand and someone fun to talk to. Partying. Being free. Instead, I am brooding, hiding my eyes behind large sunglasses so the dark circles underneath them are not visible. Pretending to smile for Eva’s sake because she didn’t come here to see me falling apart.

She understands, of course she understands, she always has, but it doesn’t mean it is fair to her. So I do my best to hide it, but the truth is I am relieved when we finally head to the airport after the longest two days in my life.

The moment we get back to Sofia, I grab a taxi and head right to my mom’s place where she lives with my stepdad and my brother. I don’t even think about my luggage in the trunk or how mom won’t be particularly happy about me arriving unannounced at her front door with a big suitcase, my clothes wrinkled and my hair a mess, but I don’t care. She was all vague on the phone earlier when I asked her if she knew anything about that Pedro Montener story and now the doubts refuse to leave me.

It’s a late night in the middle of September and even though it’s warmer than usual for the season, I can smell the scent of autumn in the air. In the dusk I can see the yellow already creeping up at the trees and bushes lined up diligently near the sidewalks to form a tunnel over our heads.

The driver has left the windows of the taxi open and I take solace in the familiarity of the view and the voices, and scents I can catch outside. There are people everywhere - chilling at the cafes and little parks between the large apartment buildings with their old-fashioned aesthetics, not one balcony the same as the other, not one facade in the same color. People are rushing on the sidewalks, everyone busy in their own little worlds. Some are sitting at the benches talking, playing chess or watching their kids and dogs play, random strangers just being carefree and relaxed in their own bubbles of life as the sun slowly sets over the purple hills of the Vitosha mountain. Home. Oh, how I wish I was just as carefree, go back to my routine, get out for a walk with friends, do something fun, just not sit in miserable silence at the backseat of an overpriced taxi.

Usually, when I get back from a trip, for vacation or for work, I’d order some dinner and while I wait for the delivery, I’d take care of my luggage, because it drives me insane to leave it for another day. I’d take a shower, put on some TV, catch up with my roommate and my cat. Not tonight though. Tonight it’s like I am another person. I am rushed and unsettled. The moment I am at my mom’s place, a closed off private building with a hired porter and security, I barely have the patience to pay the driver and wait for the change, so I tell him to keep it and he stares at me because it’s a pretty big tip, but I don’t give a damn. Not right now.

I grab my suit case and rush to the large apartment building. The porter buzzes me in as he knows me pretty well, and here I am, ready to force the truth, whatever it is, out of my mother’s mouth.