by Sarah Andre
Sean threw Robbie a dark look.
“I miscalculated the wood we’d need.” Her intern wiped his nose and winced. “We have enough to crate a small one—the Caravaggio or the Bellini.”
“Aw, guys!” She glanced at her watch. Two thirty on a Friday afternoon. By the time her team crated the last one, it’d be too late to drive downtown, collect the appropriate supplies, and return. “Okay.” Her shoulders fell as she re-counted the paintings around the room. “Before I leave, I’ll tell Mr. Wickham we’ll finish next week.”
“Sorry, Hannah,” Sean muttered. He was supervising Robbie and should’ve rechecked the supply list yesterday. He also knew from the few meetings with Harrison what a bitch of a conversation she faced.
She acknowledged his words with a terse nod and stuffed her clipboard into her briefcase, glancing at the apartment listings that lay in there. She’d have to spend all weekend researching and touring, because decisions needed to be made, movers called, boxes packed…
The frantic schedule made her rub her chest. Between lunch with Devon, the upcoming confrontation with Harrison, and this news about Joseph, her heart hadn’t stopped fluttering in hours. It was a wonder she hadn’t descended into an anxiety attack.
She returned to the second gallery but gave up inspecting the paintings within twenty minutes. Her churning thoughts were stuck on Joseph.
Back in her teens, Joseph always had a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Almost like he kept track of the kids in this huge house. And he’d always had their backs.
There was that time she and Devon were in a frenzy of lust on a basement futon. The door at the top of the stairs had suddenly opened and the fluorescent light switched on, freezing them like rabbits. They could hear Harrison Wickham discussing the wine selection for a dinner party that evening, as two pairs of footsteps began descending. Neither she nor Devon would have been able to right their disheveled clothes in time. Within seconds, shiny black dress shoes were in sight. Joseph must’ve heard the scurrying sounds, and stopped in his tracks, immediately suffering from a full-blown coughing attack, which blocked Harrison from descending any farther.
As Hannah and Devon hurriedly re-dressed and tiptoed to the far door leading to the side lawn, they’d heard Joseph apologizing profusely and suggesting the basement dust had kicked up his allergies. This was the Wickham home. There was no dust.
Joseph would never have started that fire. But someone in this house did, and not only did he probably know whom—he was covering for them.
She moved like a sleepwalker back into the hall where the industrial fans sounded like propellers. Did Joseph know he was the target of the investigation? Should she find him and warn him? Or find Devon and tell him this news? It wouldn’t hurt to ask a household member whether Joseph was on the premises. Five minutes tops, and she’d get back here and finish up.
The bedrooms were all on this second floor, on the other side of the house. She walked slowly, gawking at the artifacts she passed. When Moore and Morrow had more than a “they found Rubens forgeries” reputation, and were on more solid financial ground, Walter planned to expand their services to include conserving and restoring artifacts too. The items in this house could keep them in business for years. Not that the art and antiques she passed were in disrepair, but Mr. Wickham’s joy seemed to come from acquiring beautiful things, not necessarily in their conservation and upkeep.
She turned the last corner toward the bedroom wing. The noise from the fans and the clinging stench of smoke was replaced by a general smell of mothballs and ancient days gone by. Now her footsteps creaked loudly on the threadbare Persian runner. Instinctively, she moved closer to the wall and tried to be lighter on her feet. Not that she was tiptoeing or creeping up on anyone. More to lessen the eerie sound in this deathly silent part of the house.
A few steps later, she heard strains of classical music and the snapping hiss of a fireplace. At the threshold of the room, she discovered another, more informal library, shelves jammed with paperback books, some stuffed horizontally on top of vertical rows. Open magazines and newspapers littered the rose-colored carpet. Above the dark wood mantel hung an elaborate coat of arms, and flanking the fireplace were two faded tapestry high-back chairs. Someone sat in the one that faced the windows. All Hannah could see was the corner of a raised newspaper. On the accent table was a highball glass of what looked like water and a yellow plastic prescription bottle lying open on its side. Crumpled tissues littered the floor by the chair’s clawed feet. She strained to hear—it sounded like the person was muttering to himself, but it was too faint over the music and snapping fire. She knocked lightly. “Excuse me?”
The newspaper crumpled. Seconds later, Frannie poked her head around the side of the chair, her eyes puffy slits. Just seeing the confusion on her face jumpstarted Hannah’s blush. What was she thinking, sticking her nose in the business of this household? She was hired to do a job!
“Hannah?” Frannie leaned over the arm of the chair. “Are you lost?” Her words sounded nasally.
It was on the tip of Hannah’s tongue to say yes and leave the poor woman to deal with whatever crisis she obviously faced, but something made her walk forward.
The room was sweltering from the substantial fire. Outside, the October afternoon was warm and beautiful, and yet Frannie sat mere feet from the flames in a thick Irish-knit sweater. Maybe she was coming down with a cold. Hannah picked her way through the books, magazines, and crumpled tissues to the opposite chair, glancing at the empty prescription bottle as she passed. Seroquel XR. And not a generic, hard-to-pronounce version. The small hairs on the nape of Hannah’s neck tickled. It had been prescribed to her mother, who rarely took it. A medication well known for treating people suffering from bipolar issues.
Hannah stepped closer. The Apartment Rental page was open, and Frannie clutched a ballpoint pen in her left hand.
Appalled at the personal scene she’d stumbled upon, Hannah blurted, “I’m sorry to interrupt. It’s just that…” God, what was she doing here? She inhaled and started again. “Joseph might be in trouble, and—”
“Joseph?”
“My crew overheard the arson investigator finger him as the suspect.”
Frannie’s grasp on the newspaper slackened. “Where’s Joseph now?”
“I haven’t seen him. I just wanted someone in the family to…” To what? Spread gossip? Race to his defense? Be as outraged as she was? “Check it out,” she finished lamely.
“You must have misheard.” Frannie’s tone held none of the familiarity of this morning.
Between the smothering heat in the room and her humiliation, perspiration popped out on Hannah’s forehead. “I hope I did. I should get back.” She started for the door.
The paper fell in floating sheets as Frannie grabbed her wrist. Her fingers were frigid, the grip surprisingly strong. “Wait.” Frannie released her. “I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s been a horrible couple of days. I seem to be snapping at everyone.”
Hannah knew the feeling. “It looks like you’re moving.”
Frannie glanced at the apartment section. The same section Hannah should’ve been reading during lunch. “Just fantasizing. I’m almost twenty-nine, a mother, and trapped here until my divorce goes through.”
“Trapped?”
“My father thinks I’ll be happier here.”
“But if you don’t want to be here, just move.”
Frannie’s smile was bitter. “No one defies my father. Well, except Devon.”
Hannah frowned. Frannie still bent to Harrison’s whims? Surely she had her own money. “What do you do for a living?”
“I was a housewife until that national website offering discreet affairs was hacked and published my husband’s name.”
Hannah sucked in a breath. She really had no business being here. “I’m…I’m sorry.” She glanced around, aware of wasting valuable time when she could have finished inspecting the second gallery. “
I just wanted to make sure Joseph was okay.” She slipped past. “I hope everything works out for you and your son.”
Frannie never replied.
Hannah wound her way back down corridors, still half hoping to run into a maid. But aside from her own creaking steps, this wing held the eerie emptiness of the hotel in The Shining. Her cell phone rang, and she muffled a scream. “Hello?” she croaked.
“How’s it going over there?” Walter asked crisply.
Her goose bumps didn’t die down. She knew that tone. He was hugely pissed. Did he know they were short on supplies?
She bit the bullet and told him, and no, he hadn’t known. Great. “So, I’ll finish the other gallery,” she said with mustered authority, “and then go tell Mr. Wickham the team will complete the transporting on Monday.”
“Tell Wickham we’ll finish everything on Monday, and get back here.”
Uh oh. “What’s going on?”
“We need to discuss this in person.” He hung up before she could say good-bye, and she groaned. Please don’t let it be about Bernice.
Hannah paused in front of Mr. Wickham’s office. “The gates of hell,” she’d laughingly told Walter after their initial appointment with him.
In high school, Devon had made sure she’d never met his father. She’d taken the gesture personally, as if he were ashamed of dating a girl without wealth or family connections. Yesterday’s meeting proved how grossly mistaken she’d been. Devon had been protecting her.
Not that Harrison hadn’t been cordial, but the discussion had been strictly to the point, and without any gesture on Harrison’s part to make them feel comfortable. They’d stood in the office while he sat behind his desk like he was holding court.
Bracing herself, Hannah raised her knuckles to knock just as voices on the other side rose sharply. “You’ll take orders from Wesley as if they came from me.”
“I take orders from nobody, old man. This is my company!”
Hannah froze. The anger and desperation made his tone deeper, but oh, how well she knew that tenor.
“In twenty minutes, I’ll control Ashby Enterprises.”
“Over my dead body.”
She heard striding footsteps just as a third, closer voice drawled, “I want your profit and loss emailed to me today. Before market closes.”
“Shut the fuck up, Wesley.” The seething reply came directly from the other side of the door.
Hannah gasped and stepped back. Too late. The door was wrenched open, and she stood nose to chest with sheer muscle and blistering fury. Midnight eyes, electrified with rage, glared at her like she was a stranger. Time stopped as the intensity of Devon’s wrath washed over her, leaving her mute, fist still raised to knock.
In the next heartbeat, his face shuttered into an expressionless mask. “Excuse me, Hannah,” he murmured, and brushed by her. The brief contact jolted her insides, as if she’d just fired back a double espresso. His long-legged stride ate up the hallway, his shoulders bunched as if warding off a blow. A cell phone rang, and he stuck his hand in his pocket. Before he turned the corner, his biting tone floated back to her: “I know I’m in deep shit, Nicole, but I can’t talk right now…”
Hearing him say his fiancée’s name drove a knife through her heart.
“May I help you?”
She turned back and faced a dead ringer for Robert Redford, circa 1970. Under his appreciative sweeping glance, her cheeks heated. “Oh,” she sputtered, “uh…”
“Come in, miss,” Mr. Wickham called impatiently from across the room, and the Jay Gatsby lookalike stepped aside, his slow smile an embossed invitation to sleep with him. She didn’t return it. Like she needed her life complicated any more than it already was.
Hannah crossed to Mr. Wickham on wobbly legs. The testosterone still reverberating in here was almost palpable. What was up with him taking over Devon’s company? Why wouldn’t Devon have told her something this explosive at lunch? Maybe he hadn’t known. What a crappy time to tell Mr. Wickham the project was a day behind. She halted in front of his desk, quaking as if this was an encounter with the school principal. Or a king rattler.
He looked over her shoulder and barked, “Make sure everything is in order to take that firm today. It must be today!”
Jay Gatsby nodded and lifted his cell phone, and then Harrison directed that high-voltage, ice-blue stare at her. “How are my paintings?”
“The, uh…project is coming along, sir. I was hoping to be through today, but barring any unforeseen circumstances, we’ll finish the crating and transporting on Monday.”
“You mean tomorrow.”
She hesitated. Did he not know it was Friday? “Moore and Morrow conducts business on weekdays, Mr. Wickham.”
“Not on my project.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. She couldn’t take on one more thing. But she’d have to; her employees were salaried. Maybe if she asked Sean to help her bang out the remaining nine paintings, and pad the Wickham bill to cover a weekend bonus for him. A tricky situation she’d hand over to Walter. But when would she have the time to look for apartments?
Harrison was already reaching for the phone without waiting for a response. The arrogance of his dismissal stung. She owned a company that had doubled in size last year; who was he to tell her how to run it? She raised her chin, and opened her mouth to reason with him. Under his withering glance, she slowly closed it.
“Will there be anything else?” he asked, his tone answering his own question.
She remembered the painting Ricky had asked her to clean. “We’ve also taken the art your son gave you last night. We’ll send an estimate and delivery date to you by Wednesday.”
“Keep it.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’d be the laughingstock of Chicago if anyone ever saw that piece of trash in my possession. Donate it to some old people’s home or something.”
She managed a nod and walked woodenly to the door. She finally understood Devon’s drastic decision to leave that rainy night, and how much of an impact her words must’ve had. No wonder Devon had never contacted her again.
Her choice to stay with her mother was a no-brainer. But to a boy who’d lost his mother so violently and then experienced nothing but this kind of dismissal and disdain from his father, her decision not to run away with him must have been the cruelest rejection of all.
Chapter 10
Devon’s trembling thumb skimmed past Eric’s number for the second time. Jesus! He needed to calm the hell down. The extremely short, rage-filled call from Nicole still rang in his ears. Canceling tonight had put their relationship on shaky turf, for the first time ever. It was also the first time their synergistic goals had parted ways. Keeping O’Callaghan happy meant retaining Chicago’s best project manager, a brilliant strategy if Devon could also save his company from his father’s clutches. To Nicole, no reason excused the social embarrassment. He’d expected her to be angry, but the extent of her wrath and her blistering words dumbfounded him. Where had her even-keeled, rational side gone? She always had her eye on the goal, and the goal was wealth and power, not a dinner party. Of course, she’d just gotten the message, which didn’t give her a lot of time to cancel the extensive list of guests.
Devon glanced at his watch and his heart lurched. Shit. Because he’d been late to meet Harrison, he’d now blown through the will appointment with George Fallow. He gritted his teeth, compartmentalizing that issue. Why sign for the funds when they’d disappear if he didn’t fix this problem? He rolled his shoulders and took a couple of bracing breaths, then pushed the video call icon for Eric. “Hey,” he muttered, heading out to the privacy of the back patio.
“It’s about time! How’d it go?” The anxiety on Eric’s face was unmistakable.
“Before market closes, two of our board members will mutiny over to Bryant, aka my father. The three of them will hold a majority share of our company.”
Eric looked down. His breath woofed out as though he’d
just been punched in the gut. “Christ, I’m so sorry, man.”
Devon hesitated. Anger at his cousin wouldn’t solve the problem, and they only had seventeen minutes left. “We need to figure out which two; maybe we can talk one of them out of it.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start, Dev.”
“Westcott almost staged a coup of his own over the Rogers Park acquisition.”
Eric pursed his lips. Shook his head. “Naw. Granted, he’s got the most conservative views, but I can’t see him selling. Wickham Corp is an even bigger risk-taker than we are.”
“But they have the available capital,” Devon pointed out. “Westcott doesn’t have faith the development can be pulled off in this economy. It’s why he went ballistic when we voted him down.”
“Okay, let’s say he’s one. Who’s the other?”
Devon shrugged as he sat on the warm flagstone step. The late-afternoon shade was cooling the day considerably. “I can tell you who it isn’t. You, me, and Ken Tucker.” Silence and the blank look on his cousin’s face were the last things he expected. Had the video call frozen? “Eric?”
His cousin blinked. “He’s a shark.”
“He’s Nicole’s father.”
“He’d cut off your nut sac if it meant doubling his profits.”
“And then stroll his daughter down the aisle toward a penniless chump?” Devon forced humor into his voice. “Not to mention a eunuch?” Again, that expressionless, the awful silence. It spoke volumes, but volumes of what? “Talk to me, asshole.”
Eric blew out another long breath. “Every woman in Manhattan knows the Wickham name rhymes with cha-ching. And you are, after all, the eldest son.”
“And disinherited.”
Eric quirked an eyebrow. “Does Nicole know that?”
Did she? He’d never talked about his past, because discussing childhood scars, unfulfilled needs, and broken hearts was navel-gazing and a waste of time. Their focus was purely on the future. Besides, not once in the four years of dating had she brought up the subject of money. Or glanced at a price tag. It was beneath her. “She’s so wealthy, I doubt she cares.”
