????喬布斯輝煌的56年人生中有過很多愛恨糾纏的故事，但其中持續時間最長且最令他難堪的，應該是與初戀女友、女兒麗莎的生母克里斯安·布倫南的恩怨。

????1972年，17歲的喬布斯與布倫南在加州庫比蒂諾的霍姆斯特德高中讀書時結識。而因為喬布斯拒絕承認父親的身份、他對待女兒麗莎的方式以及他提供的有限的經濟支持，使布倫南與喬布斯的恩怨糾葛一直持續到喬布斯去世，長達四十多年。布倫南在2013年的一本回憶錄《咬一口蘋果》（The Bite in the Apple）中痛斥喬布斯，并講述自己受到了“他的殘忍對待”。

????但在兩人不堪回首的往事當中，有一部分目前仍鮮為人知。那是在布倫南的回憶錄截止的時間之后，當時她的前男友已經達到了聲望和財富上的巔峰。布倫南要求當時已是億萬富翁的喬布斯向她支付2,500萬美元，為自己的“不光彩行為懺悔”，還要求他向當時27歲的女兒支付500萬美元。

????現年60歲的布倫南在一封未注明日期、單倍行距、兩頁紙的信件中提出了上述要求。她聲稱自己在2005年12月將信寄給了喬布斯。后來，她向《財富》雜志提供了一份信件的副本。自稱是“經過蛻變的”畫家和雕塑家的布倫南，在當時經濟拮據，而且她成年后的生活狀況一直沒有改善。而當時50歲的喬布斯，擔任蘋果公司和皮克斯動畫的CEO，身家估計為30億美元。

????布倫南對喬布斯寫道：“我在異常艱難的條件下將我們的女兒撫養成人，我們本不需要經歷這樣的磨難。很顯然，更令人迷惑和難堪的是，你有那么多錢……有些事情是不完整的……我相信，通過金錢可以獲得體面，讓我得到解脫。就是這么簡單。”

????布倫南稱，喬布斯對她的要求視而不見。幾個月后，她開始撰寫回憶錄，描述他們之間的關系。

????向喬布斯寫信要錢三年多后，布倫南再次進行了嘗試。2009年，疾病纏身、窮困潦倒的布倫南，借住在朋友家，因此她再次聯系了喬布斯。這一次，布倫南提出用停止出書（她表示，麗莎也不希望她出版）來換取經濟和解。

????根據布倫南提供給《財富》雜志的電子郵件，她曾在2009年9月26日對喬布斯寫道：“我最后一次請求你，為我設立一個信托機構，支持我的生活。我不想與你發生沖突，但我必須做一些事情。我病了三年，已經別無選擇……沒有人會對這本書里的我們兩個產生好印象，而且這會給麗莎造成傷害，她不應該受到這樣的對待。如何選擇由你決定。請考慮一下為我提供10，000美元，幫我度過幾個月時間，并為我設立一個信托機構。我們現在沒法直接談，因為我病得很重，而且情緒不穩定……鑒于我目前的情況，我必須盡快獲得金錢來維持生計，要么通過你要么通過出書。”

????喬布斯當天便回復稱：“我不會被要挾。你的情況與我沒有絲毫關系。”并且他將郵件抄送給了當時31歲的麗莎。

????（麗莎在電子郵件中拒絕對這件事發表意見。喬布斯的遺孀勞倫·鮑威爾·喬布斯的發言人稱，她對此也不作任何評論。）

????高中時，喬布斯與布倫南因為對反主流文化精神志趣相投而陷入愛河，兩人經歷了長達五年分分合合的戀情。他們沒有結婚，但大部分時間住在一起。布倫南在18歲時懷孕，但根據兩人的協議，她做了流產。23歲的時候，布倫南再次懷孕。

????Among the many love-hate relationships that Steve Jobs engendered during his remarkable 56 years on earth, none endured as long—nor was as fraught—as his connection with Chrisann Brennan, Jobs’ first girlfriend and the mother of his daughter Lisa.

????The pair met at age 17 in 1972, as students at Homestead High School in Cupertino, Calif., and Brennan’s stormy dealings with Jobs—over his initial denials of paternity, his treatment of Lisa, and his limited financial support—continued until his death nearly four decades later. Brennan offered her unsparing take on Jobs—and becoming an “object of his cruelty”—in a 2013 memoir, entitled The Bite in the Apple.

????But one till-now-unrevealed chapter of their tortured history unfolded after the period covered by Brennan’s book, during the time when her ex- was achieving his highest renown and wealth. It’s the story of how she asked Jobs, by then a billionaire, to repent for his “dishonorable behavior” with a $25 million payment to her—and another $5 million for their daughter, then 27.

????Brennan, now 60, made her request in an undated, single-spaced, two-page letter, which she says she sent to Jobs in December 2005. She later provided a copy to Fortune (click here to read Brennan’s letter). A self-described “transmutational” painter and sculptor, Brennan was struggling financially then, as she had throughout her adult life. Jobs, then 50 and the CEO of both Apple AAPL 0.22% and Pixar, was worth an estimated $3 billion.

????“I have raised our daughter under circumstances that were all together too tough and tougher than they needed to be,” Brennan wrote Jobs. “Obviously it was all the more confusing and difficult because you had so much money….something is incomplete….I believe that decency and closure can be achieved through money. It is very simple.”

????Jobs ignored her request, Brennan says. Months later, she began writing a memoir about their relationship.

????More than three years after writing Jobs and asking for money, Brennan tried again. In 2009—sick, out of money, and living with friends—she contacted him again. This time Brennan offered to shelve the book (which she says Lisa didn’t want her to publish anyway) in exchange for a financial settlement.

????“I am asking you for the last time to please set up a trust for me for my life,” Brennan wrote Jobs on Sept. 26, 2009, according to emails she provided to Fortune. “I do not want to cause conflict with you but I must do something. I have been ill for 3 years and I just do not have a choice anymore….No one is going to be impressed with either of us in this book and it will hurt Lisa who never deserved any of this. The choice is yours. Please consider providing me with $10,000 for a few months and working out a trust. You and I cannot talk because I am too ill and on a hair trigger…. Given my circumstance, I am moving as fast as I can to have the money I need to live, it is either you or the book.”

????“I don’t react well to blackmail,” Jobs wrote back that day, copying Lisa, then 31. “I will have no part in any of this.”

????(In an email, Lisa declined a request to comment for this story. A spokesperson for Laurene Powell Jobs, the Apple co-founder’s widow, said she would also have no comment.)

????After falling in love in high school, Jobs and Brennan, kindred counterculture spirits, had an on-again, off-again romance over five years. They never married, but lived together for parts of that time. He got her pregnant at age 18—by their agreement, she had an abortion—then again, when she was 23.