Page 100 of Filthy Rich

“What is it then?” a woman shouts.

I hold up my hand. “I have a statement, so if you can hold questions until I’m done, that would be great.”

They do settle down, thankfully.

“Today’s news may be unsettling to some of you. When I say it was unsettling to me, you will understand why. Something most people don’t know, because I’ve largely kept it quiet, is that the man who raised me for the first ten years of my life has been in prison for the last fifteen or so years for theft. He was the consummate conman, and now he’s out of prison on parole.”

That’s definitely not what they were expecting me to say. When they start clamoring, I shake my head.

“I’m not quite done yet. Bear with me.”

Lots of flash bulbs keep blinding me, but I plow ahead.

“The thing is, when he got released, he came to find me. He planned to use some information he had hidden about me to force me to harm people I cared about. He threatened that if I didn’t let him manage my career, he’d expose the truth about my past, a truth I didn’t know until that night. At first, I let him.” I don’t have to fake my remorse. “I thought I was protecting the people I loved by living a lie, but one very special lady cornered me, and she forced me to fess up.”

I wish she was here with me.

“Octavia Rothschild has always been way too good for me, but she helped me find my way here today. She’s probably the reason my so-called father had to finally threaten me with the truth about my past.”

When I confess who my real biological father and mother are, every single reporter looks appalled.

“I think I can safely say that none of you would have welcomed that kind of news about yourself, and all I can say is that it shook me. I knew that if he leaked this information to all of you, you’d no longer want to come to movies I made, and I wouldn’t blame you for it.”

The murmuring returns. That’s a good sign, maybe.

“I dumped the one girl I’ve ever loved, to try and keep her away from me. At that point, I didn’t think I was worth much at all, and I just didn’t want anyone else to discover it. I hope none of you have ever felt the way I felt, but if you have, then maybe you’ll be able to understand. I pushed people away because I loved them. But when I bumped into my darling Octavia in. . .let’s just say it was under strange circumstances, she pulled the truth out of me, and to my shock, she said she didn’t care who my parents were.”

Thanks to a ridiculous swell of emotions, I stop for a moment.

I bang on my chest with my closed fist. “Sorry, thinking about that moment, about my total shock when Octavia loved me anyway, in spite of what I’d found out I was. . .” I cough. “It still wrecks me. But she gave me the courage to tell my foster parents, and I found out that they’d known all along, and they loved me just the same, too.”

I don’t cry, but it’s a near thing.

“They gave me the courage to tell you what that conman who claimed to have raised me was holding over my head, to take away his power. I’ve also reported the crimes he’s committed that I knew about to the authorities, and I’ve fired him from the job he extorted me into giving him. I’m sorry that I kept this information from all of you for so many weeks, and I’ll understand if you’re less understanding about all of it than my foster parents and girlfriend have been.”

Oh, boy. Now they have questions.

“I think I should ask the first one.” A voice—a gorgeous voice—from the back rises above the others. “As your girlfriend, I’d like to ask what you would like to do if the public, like me, doesn’t care at all what your parents are like. If they choose to place their value on what you do and who you are, and not what your parents did.”

I can’t help my smile. “Oh, man, I really love you.”

Now the flashes really are blinding. “I love you, too,” she says, “but that’s not an answer.”

“Well, isn’t this where I’m supposed to say, ‘I am Ironman’?”

I do not expect everyone gathered to clap.

“Clearly I’m not Ironman,” I say. “He never wept like a pathetic little baby. But I will say that I’m very grateful for the support I’ve received, and I’d like to encourage everyone who still supports me to let the former fans express themselves without criticism. I’ve been lied to most of my life, and I know it feels lousy. I’m sorry to have done that to you.”

I answer questions for twenty minutes, but then I close it down.

“I will just say one last thing. On the horrible night my uncle—who claimed to be my father until recently—told me about my true father, I recorded our conversation. So, for those of you who still feel like I might not be telling the truth, I’m releasing the recording to the media outlets who request it.”

My uncle calls me moments after I walk out of the conference. More accurately, he’d already called a dozen times, since it was being live-streamed, but I finally answer.

“Why hello, Uncle.”

“What the h?—”

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