Forgiveness and Punishment

20

"Well, Miss Heath, it's lovely to see you again. Please, have a seat. Mr. McGavity, if you would?" Mr. Lister says as he ushers them into his office.

Timothy stiffens immediately. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe we've met." 

Mr. Lister smiles, "No, but your reputation precedes you boy. Now, please take a seat."

Timothy raises an eyebrow at the way he's being spoken to, but decides to humor the human before him.

"Mr. Lister, you seem to be aware of Mr. McGavity, can you tell me please how you know about him?" Melissa does her best to calm ruffled feathers. The last thing she needs right now is for the males to get all pissy.

Mr. Lister settles himself behind his desk making himself comfortable before answering. "Things aren't always what they seem in this life." He finally says, enigmatically, looking at Timothy before turning to Melissa.

"I think I like your new name, Melissa much more than Pimpernel. Why your father ever put that name on you, I will never understand. Melissa suits you far better. The pimpernel only shines in bright light, you on the other hand have bloomed and grown beyond my best expectations. Your father would be proud," Lister tells her.

"Oh, I seriously doubt that, sir. I realized that my father had cameras all over the house. He knew exactly what was going on for years. He had that penthouse that he stayed in when he didn't want to be around Marissa, which I don't blame him for. But since he left me there in that toxic environment, yeah, that I can blame him for. I think he left me everything more out to spite Marissa, not because he loved me." Melissa says finally putting to words her bitterest feelings.

Trevor Lister sighs, "He loved you more than you can imagine. His problem wasn't that he didn't love you, Melissa, it was that he loved you too much. He knows that Marissa is a bit unbalanced. Yes, he saw the abuse  you went through, he also heard on more than one occasion that she would kill you if you weren't going through that. He couldn't allow that, so he permitted the mental abuse. He was working on getting her committed for psychiatric evaluation when he was killed. He just about had enough evidence to do it, when he was killed.

"He never stopped loving your mother, Melissa. It broke his heart when he broke things off with her. He never did understand why he married Marissa, but once it was done he was determined to make the most of it. Perhaps if he'd known that your mother was pregnant with you, well, might haves and could haves will never be, so there is no use going over them. 

"When your mother died something in your father died as well. He became harder, colder and in some ways crueler, except when it came to you. With you, he was the person he was before Marissa destroyed his life. You became his world and his reason for living. It caused him a great deal of agony having to hear the abuse they put you through. When Tad turned against you as well, he was ready to kill Marissa.

"He saw that Sarah was nothing more than a carbon copy of her mother. He was sickened by her, but, although he wasn't thrilled with TJ, he saw something redeemable in him. He only left Tad his trust fund, because of how much you loved him. His first reaction was to deny him anything. He knew, though, that you wouldn't approve of that.

"He also knew that Marissa was likely to challenge the will." Trevor smiles darkly. "So I had everything ready should she do so. She saved me a lot of work, actually. Her going to jail made it so that she couldn't challenge the will. It was written in the prenup that she signed before they got married. Of course there is also the part about her being faithful to him. I have the paternity test on Tad and all that lovely video evidence to back me up. Your inheritance was safe."

"You knew my mother personally?" Melissa asks softly.

Trevor smiles softly at her, "Yes, she was a lovely woman, much like you. You are far lovelier now that you're vampire than you were as a human. You were beautiful then, too, just like her."