He arched an eyebrow.
“Anything,” he agreed. “Name it.”
“I…” she took a deep breath. “I need you to inform the father.”
Luke stared at her blankly.
“Why can’t you do it?” he demanded and Rachel grimaced.
“I don’t want to see him.”
“Why not? Did he hurt you? I swear to God, Rachel, if he put a hand on you—”
“It’s more complicated than that,” she muttered. “But no, he didn’t touch me.”
“Rachel, I’m trying really hard to react like a normal human being but you’re making it really difficult when you’re talking me in circles. Please, just spit it out.”
Rachel knew she had to say it, painful as it might be.
“The father is Damien Smythe,” she said simply, waiting for the name to resonate with Luke. To her absolute shock, not a glimmer of recognition touched his face.
“Fine. He’s from New York?”
Rachel continued to gape at her brother who returned her gaze expectantly.
“Well?”
“The name doesn’t mean anything to you?” she asked and Luke’s brow furrowed. Slowly, a gleam of understanding filled his eyes.
“Franklin Smythe’s son?” he asked.
“Collette Smythe’s brother,” Rachel prodded. “You know, the girl he says you knocked up in high school and abandoned?”
Disbelief colored Luke’s face.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded, anger creeping into his tone. “He told you that?”
“Is it true?”
“That I impregnated…” He trailed off, his jaw almost hitting the mahogany desk as a dawning horror filled his eyes, and rage slowly crept over his features.
“Is this some kind of sick game?” he choked. “Damien Smythe got you pregnant as revenge?”
“I don’t think a baby was really a part of his plan,” Rachel offered by way of consolation, but it did nothing to dispel the red tinge in Luke’s face.
“He’s out of his fucking mind!” Luke roared. “I never got Collette pregnant! Trust me, she would have said something if I had!”
Rachel eyed him uncertainly at first, but she believed Luke. He’d never lied to her before and she was sure he wasn’t lying about this.
“Damien seems to think that you did and that Collette had an abortion which caused her some sort of mental break. And then she also tried to commit suicide?”
Consternation and dismay filled Luke’s face.
“No!” he insisted. “There’s no way! If Collette was pregnant, the baby certainly wasn’t mine.”
He paused and she could see the wheels in his mind turning.
He’s wondering what Meredith is going to make of this when she hears about it. Dammit, I shouldn’t have come. I’m just going to cause drama for them over ancient history.
“Well, regardless of the truth behind it, Damien should know he’s about to be a father,” Rachel sighed. “I wasn’t going to tell him. Ever. But…the more I think about it, the more I feel like the baby deserves to know his father.”
“But, but – he’s obviously a sadistic asshole, if he tried to hurt you to get revenge! How could you want him in your life? In your baby’s life?” he asked incredulously.
“Oh, not my life. Never again. And I mean ever.” Rachel’s heart still ached when she thought about his treachery. “But the more I think about it, the more I think that he’s a little…like you, Luke.” She braced herself for the explosion she knew was coming.
“What?! How could you say that? I would never hurt you!”
“But that’s exactly my point, Luke. You would do everything in your power to protect me. Always. And Damien feels the same about his family. He was obviously misled by at least one of them, so that means he’s prone to being a stupid asshat, but ultimately, he was putting his family first…” Her voice trailed off as she realized she had almost had that position in his life.
How could that still hurt? After the betrayal and the pain? I just have to forget him already. It’s not like I could ever trust him with my heart again anyways.
“That’s just crazy!” Luke sputtered, this time reaching for his cell phone. “I’m nothing like him. And you’re right – he’s going to damn well provide for this kid and set the record straight. And then I’m going to kill the son-of-a-bitch.”
“I don’t want him in the baby’s life if he doesn’t want to be,” Rachel stressed vehemently. “IF he wants a chance to be in the baby’s life, then, I guess he can maybe have it, but I’d be just peachy if he doesn’t.”
That would actually be so much easier, she muttered under her breath.
“And the way things were left, I have to assume he might not want to be,” Rachel said quickly. “I…I guess that’s why I’m asking you to tell him. I really don’t want him to laugh in my face — I trusted him initially or I wouldn’t have, you know ... I can’t go through his rejection again.”
“He won’t fucking be laughing in my face,” Luke assured her, a familiar rage shadowing his eyes.
“Don’t hurt him, Luke,” Rachel told her brother firmly. “Promise me.”
“I can’t promise you that,” he snapped back.
“Luke…if you don’t promise me, then I’ll do it myself,” Rachel insisted firmly, waiting for him to acknowledge her demand.
“Fine!” he growled. “But he won’t always be safe, Rach. Mark my words. I can wait out a vendetta too.”
Rachel rolled her eyes.
What the hell was wrong with men? Did they all think with some archaic caveman part of their brain when their protective emotions were involved?
“In the interim, maybe I can stay with Remy,” she offered quickly. “Or at a hotel. Meredith isn’t going to take this well.”
Luke’s face was the picture of fury, but he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“It’s just not true,” he insisted again. “Whatever Damien told you, it’s a lie. As messed up as she was, had I known about a baby, I would have figured out a way to see she was cared for.”
Rachel nodded and leaned toward her brother to kiss his cheek.
“I believe you,” she said softly. “But I still think it’s a better idea if I go to Remy’s until it’s all sorted out.”
Luke nodded begrudgingly and exhaled.
“This is fucking nuts,” he growled. “But I’ll get to the bottom of it, I promise.”
“No!” Rachel said sharply. “Forget about Collette or whatever happened when you were in high school. It’s long over now. I just want you to deliver the message to Damien so he knows about his kid. It’s not easy, I know, but I feel strongly that it’s not right to keep it from him.”
“Sure,” Luke replied, the word seeming to stick to the roof of his mouth and Rachel felt a jab of worry.
Maybe I made a mistake coming to him. Maybe I should have just sent an email.
But there was no guarantee that Damien would read an email from her and if Rachel was being honest with herself, she knew that she’d come to Luke because…well, she knew that Luke would tell her the truth.
Even if it’s not one I want to hear.
“I’m calling a car for you and I’ll tell Remy and Olive you’re on your way.”
She nodded and squeezed his hand gently.
“Thanks,” she murmured. “Sorry I doubted you.”
Luke met her eyes and shook his ebony mane of hair earnestly.
“You don’t need to be sorry about a damned thing,” he growled. “I wish I could say the same about that fucking idiot, Damien Smythe.”
Chapter 14
“You aren’t going to believe this,” Chandra breathed, darting into Damien’s office. “But Luke Vaughan is outside.”
A peculiar sense of life coming full-circle flowed through his body. He kept his face impassive.
“He’s pissed!” Chandra continued, her eyes wide and almost scared. “You better talk to him.”<
br />
His instinct was to tell the cocksucker to fuck off, but he would be lying if curiosity hadn’t overwhelmed him.
Did something happen to Rachel?
The question twisted a knife through his gut. He’d tried to discover how she was doing, after everything fell apart. He’d only recently found out she was no longer the director at Hollywell Hospice and that had him concerned. She wouldn’t have left a job she loved as a result of his vendetta, would she? The thought pained him.
Isn’t that you wanted to do, you idiot? Breaking her was the plan, remember?
“Show him in,” Damien instructed, sitting back as Chandra hurried out of the inner office. On some level, he had been expecting the visit from Luke immediately after his and Rachel’s last meeting, but apparently she hadn’t run to her big brother to fight her battles for her. And as the months had passed without word from Rachel or her brother, he realized he was almost disappointed.
How many times had he thought to go speak with Rachel, to at least try and smooth things over? But what could he possibly have said that would make her want to hear him? He’d behaved like an asshole, motivated by some notion of avenging his sister.
A sister who didn’t seem to need avenging anymore, nor even knew about it.
He knew that walking away from Rachel would be challenging, at first. What he hadn’t counted on was how much he found himself missing her.
It didn’t help matters that his father would not let things drop and was constantly on him to reconcile with her. The knowledge that Franklin wanted them together only served to keep Damien away from her, to protect her from further hurt at the hands of the Smythe family.
There’s something else going on with Dad. This has to be about something other than just getting back at Luke Vaughan.
But life had gone back to a relative normal, even if Damien did often think of Rachel and what she was doing.
And now her brother was storming into his office, smoke almost emanating from his nostrils.
“You and I have something to discuss,” Luke hissed, advancing on him. Instantly, Damien rose and met his eyes evenly, both men a hair’s breadth apart in height.
“Sit down then,” Damien growled, determined not to be intimidated by Luke’s blustering. Whether or not he had decided to let go of the age-old vendetta, Damien still had no respect for Luke Vaughan.
“You don’t have any right to tell me what to do,” Luke snarled. “Not after what you did.”
“If this is about Rachel, that was months ago. Why are you coming to me now?”
“Why did you target my sister, she had absolutely nothing to do with Collette’s relationship with me. What bullshit did Collette feed you?” Luke snapped. “I never got her pregnant!”
The information caused a stirring of uncertainty in Damien’s gut, but he maintained the glower on his face.
“Like you would ever admit to being a coward,” Damien sneered.
Luke glared at him hatefully.
“I should just fucking bust your pretty face,” Luke sneered. “Sadly, I promised my sister I wouldn’t do that.”
Confusion swept through Damien as he studied Luke’s furious face.
Really? She waited six months to send Luke after me?
Granted, he hadn’t known Rachel all that well, but the woman he’d met hardly seemed like the type to send her big brother after an ex—particularly not after such an extended amount of time had lapsed.
You’re not an ex, remember? You were a hate fuck.
“Is Rachel okay?” Damien heard himself ask. He could have kicked himself for showing the weakness.
Luke scoffed.
“Do you give a shit if she is? She was just a game to you, wasn’t she? You abused a decent girl for no reason!”
“My sister was a decent girl too! And I did not abuse Rachel!” He spat, knowing at least on some level it was a bald-faced lie.
“Your sister had problems long before I came along,” Luke spat back. “I didn’t add or subtract to whatever was going on in her head. Instead of blaming me, maybe you can look to your father for the origins of that mess.”
Damien bristled.
“I want to know what she told you,” Luke hissed, drawing his face closer to Damien. “Whatever it was, she lied.”
Damien’s eyes narrowed, his lips parting to protest, but as he thought about it, he realized that Collette had never told him about her pregnancy.
No, but Dad sure as hell went on about it.
An uneasiness swept through Damien as the sordid tale replayed in his head. He had been young when it had all happened but he remembered the breakup between Luke and Collette, the days of her crying in her room. Then he remembered the ambulance showing up one night at home. He had been ordered to stay in his room, but his father had filled him in about what had happened the next day.
His father. Fuck!
Had there really been a pregnancy, an abortion?
He loathed that he was second-guessing the story that Franklin had told him, but why was that surprising? Franklin had always had ulterior motives when it came to his children.
There’s only one way to get the truth for sure—by asking Collette.
“I’m waiting!” Luke barked. “Well?”
“You really need to get out of my face,” Damien insisted, not at all intimidated by Luke, but definitely getting pissed off. “I’m not talking to you while you’re breathing down my neck.”
“You’re really in no position to tell me anything,” Luke growled. “You have no idea what you’ve done, you stupid bastard. But you’re going to make it right,” he vowed.
Damien blinked at him uncomprehendingly.
“What exactly do you think I did?” he demanded warily.
Luke smirked humorlessly.
“You’re going to be a daddy, you prick.”
The words didn’t register right away and he stared at Luke blankly.
“What?”
“That’s what happens when you take advantage of unsuspecting women,” Luke hissed.
A combination of emotions flowed through Damien—denial, disbelief and oddly, defensiveness for Rachel.
“Your sister is stronger than you give her credit for,” he growled at the furious, ex-MMA fighter.
If anything, she had the upper hand. Sometimes he was glad that she never figured out how deeply he had come to care for her.
Of course he didn’t add that.
“My sister is six months pregnant with your baby.”
Damien peered at him dubiously.
Is this some kind of counter-revenge?
Strangely, he couldn’t help but feel that it wasn’t, that Luke was speaking the truth. Everything about his anger seemed real and Damien suspected that Luke was a better fighter than he was an actor.
“I want you to pull out your check book and write,” Luke instructed. “I’ll deliver it to her and you’ll stay the hell away from her and my family. Do I make myself clear?”
Damien scoffed.
“She sent you here to get money out of me and tell me to stay away?” he asked skeptically. Luke’s eyes became even more furious, if that was possible.
“She sent me here because she was afraid you’d be as cruel as you’ve already been to her and laugh in her face. She left a job that she loved, and likely her career because of this little vendetta you cooked up. I’m the one telling you to stay the fuck away from her — if you value your legs.”
“Threatening me isn’t going to work, Luke,” Damien snapped.
“It better work, because if I see your face around my sister—”
“Your sister is not a child who needs you to protect her,” Damien snarled. “Stop acting like she is.”
“Funny coming from you. You spent twenty years brewing some insane revenge over a matter that didn’t even happen for yours.”
“Collette didn’t know anything about this,” Damien growled before he could stop himself. Luke’s brows shot up.
“You took it upon yourself to do this? To what end, Smythe? Were you going to have Rachel fall in love with you? Marry you? Or maybe this pregnancy was your plan all along?”
Damien lowered his eyes, knowing how insane it all sounded now. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty, after all.
Fuck! He has every right to be incensed.
“I don’t see that check book.”
“I will not walk away from my child,” Damien barked back. “No matter how much you threaten me.”
“You already did. When you threw a woman like Rachel out of your life,” Luke snarled at Damien. “I’m just ensuring you stay away.”
The men held each other’s gazes unwaveringly.
“Rachel doesn’t want to see you, Damien,” Luke said softly. “Or else she would be here herself. You’ve hurt her enough that it took her six months to even tell me about what you did. She tried it on her own first, cause that’s just who she is. The only reason she came to me is because this pregnancy has cost her her livelihood, and it’s kind of hard to raise a kid by yourself when you have no money coming in. If you have an ounce of morality, you’ll leave her to raise her child – away from you and your insane family.”
Damien’s jaw clenched, knowing that arguing with Luke was useless. He would have to speak with Rachel himself.
Not that I expect that will go a whole lot better.
“Start writing,” Luke snarled. “You’re beginning to piss me off.”
“I thought Vaughan Industries was thriving,” Damien said sarcastically. “I had no idea that you were so strapped for cash.”
Luke laughed harshly. “Oh, no, no, no, little hypocrite. You are going to write me that check, so that I can tell Rachel this is how you’re dealing with your “mistake”. And my sister turned away from Vaughan money, the name and all it stood for years ago. If you had bothered to investigate at all, you’d know that. It’s a matter of pride with her, and you expect me to force it back into her life?” Luke shot back. “Typical deadbeat.”
Damien gaped at him, a short laugh escaping his lips.
“I’m telling you that I don’t want to walk away from Rachel—”
“And I’m telling you the matter is closed. Holy shit, Smythe, if I have to tell you to write the check one more time—”
Revenge Revealed Page 10
