by Robin Lovett
“But?” Her eyes are wide, like I’m about to deliver her the story of the century. I shouldn’t be telling her this, but the need to say it to someone is unconquerable.
“He showed me glimpses of the intense, compassionate man he can be. If he decides he wants to, he can get through this and come out the other side. And I want to be there with him if he does.” I wince. I hadn’t even admitted it to myself yet. Not really.
The curiosity disappears from her face, revealing something more empathetic. “It’s the happy ending this family deserves. What Blake hasn’t figured out is that the best revenge he can have on his father is to be nothing like him.”
To hear her echo what I’ve believed about Blake from the beginning brings me relief. “I agree.”
“But it’s all up to him now.”
“It is.” Someone laughs from the party in the back of the house, and I frown. The last thing I want to do right now is schmooze with donors.
“Let’s go for a walk. There’s endless discoveries to be had in this place.” She gestures at the forest.
“I should be helping Penny.”
She tucks her arm beneath mine. “They’ll need at least two more rounds of drinks before they’re ready to start writing checks.”
* * *
When I arrive at the Nowell & Nowell offices, a little nervous but a lot determined to make this right, I’m relieved to find a different receptionist—not Daisy.
I don’t think I could do this if she were here.
Though it doesn’t stop me from remembering her standing at the filing cabinets in that hip-hugging pencil skirt of hers. And how great those hips felt in my hands.
“Blake Vandershall to see Emmett Nowell,” I say to the receptionist, since I called for an appointment this time.
“He’s waiting for you.”
I turn toward the open office, and see the gentle man sitting in a wingback chair by the window, not behind his desk like I expected.
“Come in, Blake,” he says, with no contempt, no malice in him. Though I deserve it, I am grateful.
I close the door behind me on the way in. I say nothing, he says nothing, merely gestures for me to sit in the chair across from him.
He stares out the window at the wide porch and shrubbery, the sunlight streaming in the window. “They want us to move to an office building. Something more professional, they say, than this old mansion.” He turns to me. “I’m inclined to tell them to wait till I retire, then they can move wherever they want.”
“Depends on where you want your money to go. Rent or salaries.”
He laughs. “True businessman. How’s your law practice going?”
“I’m on hiatus at the moment. Attending to family matters.” I level eyes with him.
“Daisy and I had a nice chat last night. She convinced me I should give you a chance to redeem yourself.”
“She did?” My heart skips.
“Mm-hmm. And there was one thing abundantly clear to me. She got to you, didn’t she?” The paternal pride on his face is completely justified.
I can’t bear to look at him, so I stare at the painting of the late Mr. Nowell, his father, on the opposite wall. “Yes. She did.” I can’t help a half smile. “As if there was any doubt she would.” I should’ve known from the beginning, from the sprinklers on, it was inevitable.
He smiles too, and his eyes change, caution leaving, pleasantness replacing it. “It’s good to know you have a heart somewhere in that conniving mind of yours.”
“It may be hardened but it does exist.” I sit forward in my chair. “I owe you something.”
“What’s that?”
“I know it’s not adequate consolation for the grief I’ve caused you, but I was wrong.”
His expression calms, releasing the last of his professional mask, into something like compassion. He waits and lets me continue.
“My accusations to you were unfounded. You are not the man I thought you were. You did not deserve the censure I placed on you, and you certainly did not deserve my ill intentions toward your daughter. I am sorry.”
“Good of you to come to your senses.”
“My father was a horrible man, but it doesn’t mean everyone he did business with was equally horrible.”
“No, but it also doesn’t mean any of us were any less guilty for allowing him to continue once we knew what he was.”
“Did you know?” I remember the report he filed after my mother’s death. I want to see if he’ll admit it.
“I made a small attempt. I should’ve tried harder.”
“What did you do?”
“Let me ask you first. How did she die?”
“He pushed her down the stairs.”
“While she was pregnant.” He cringes in horror, and a paternal gentleness comes over him. “I was there in the hospital the next day. They had your mother on life support.”
“And my sister in the NICU.”
“I came to your house two days later, and I tried to talk to you.” He searches my face as though for a specific reaction. “Do you remember?”
“Those days are too foggy for me. But I’ll believe you.”
“You could’ve told me what you saw. I could’ve helped you.” There’s a desperate fervency in his voice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because my father made sure I couldn’t.” And he made sure I knew what the deadly consequences would be if I did.
“Down the stairs, my God,” he murmurs and scrubs his face. “I knew he was guilty. I knew he’d done it. But there was no proof.”
“The testimony of a child wouldn’t have counted.”
He sighs and sits back. “It would’ve counted to me.”
“But not in court. What jury would’ve believed a man like my father would push his wife down the stairs when it was perfectly logical that she just . . . fell.” It makes me ill to say it.
“I wanted to help you.”
“There was nothing you could’ve done. Nothing anyone could’ve done.”
“It doesn’t mean I ever forgot.” He sits up a bit straighter and his jaw tightens into that of the formidable attorney he is. The level of his upset surprises me and I wonder just how much he did care.
It reminds me that in the report, he said he spoke to my mother the night before she died. “How well did you know my mother?”
His voice drops to just above a whisper. “I loved her.” He says it so calmly, like it’s a truth all the world knows.
“What?”
“She and I dated for a time when we were students at Fenton. We weren’t destined for a lifelong relationship, but she was my first love. I could never forget her.
“I spoke to her from time to time. I knew things were off with your father. But I didn’t know how badly . . . I spoke to her the night before she died.”
His voice takes on a level of anguish I never expected. “If I had known, Blake, I swear to you, I would’ve gotten you both out. I would’ve done anything, everything. But I didn’t.” He lifts pained shadowed eyes to me. “So really, it’s me who should be apologizing to you.”
I’m shocked and speechless. Of all the possibilities I pictured for this meeting would go, this was not one of them. The way he’s looking at me now, I can’t fathom that this is a man who I ever thought was guilty of helping my father.
“So the money he was paying you . . . ?” I ask in a hoarse tone.
“He found out I gave a statement saying what I knew. It wasn’t enough, but I thought if they investigated your mother’s injuries, then . . . Well, they didn’t. Obviously.”
“Because she was my father’s wife.”
“Yes. And so he paid me for my silence. And, well.” He works his jaw and hesitates. “It got more complicated.”
“What do you mean, more complicated?”
“There were others.” He cringes, thinking this may be new news for me.
“You mean Logan Kane’s sister? My sister’s new husband?” My mother w
asn’t the only woman my father tortured.
His eyes round. “You know about that?”
“I learned it two months ago, yeah. What does that have to do with you?”
He sighs. “Charges were brought against your father. Multiple times. He brought me into it. He threatened my family if I didn’t help him.”
“What?” I sit forward in my chair. It shouldn’t surprise me, the levels of depravity my father sank to, but the idea of Daisy in danger from him makes me see new shades of red.
“It was a mess of endless threats and negotiations. In the end, the only choice I had was to do as he said. It’ll be on the list of sins at my reckoning that I abandoned you to him.” He clears his throat and awkwardly hides his eyes. “The blood money. I’ve been setting it by. Never quite knowing what to do with it. Feeling that I owed it to you somehow. And I thought yesterday, when Penny told me about her new charity, it would be fitting I give that money to her cause.”
Some odd places in my chest that were hard, I thought permanently hard, diminish, and I have a wild thought. Here is a man I could aspire to be like, who if he were my father I could love and admire.
A mourning takes over me. I’ve mourned the loss of my mother my whole life, but I never thought to mourn the fact that I never really had a father.
I croak out, “Thank you. That would mean a lot to Penny and me.” I stand, worried I might get emotional. It’s time for me to leave.
He makes like he’d give me a hug if I let him. But I can’t. I’m too raw, so he holds out his hand. “Please be in touch, Blake. Your mother meant a lot to me, and you’re so much like her. I’d hate to lose you.”
I swallow hard. “I’m like her?” It’s a hopeless bid for a compliment, but I’m desperate to know what he means.
“She loved you fiercely. As fiercely as you have loved her back. Your father was never capable of that.”
I can’t help it. The defenses in my heart that have been easing crumble, and I hug him in gratitude as hard as I can.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Once the guests leave, Penny not only invites me to stay, but that evening she gives me a tour of the mansion—the tour Blake refused to give me.
It’s as opulent as it was the first time I wandered it alone—crown mouldings, classic paintings, every amenity you could desire. The antiques make it feel like a museum. But there’s a coolness to it all, like no one’s ever lived here, like it’s all just a showpiece meant to observe, never inhabit.
It gives me the chills and makes me want to get out.
“The Tanners keep it beautifully, anyway,” I say, remembering the loving people who were Blake’s surrogate parents.
“Yes, they’re lovely people, aren’t they?” Penny’s face lights up. “They’re the best part about being back here.”
Layla has disappeared again. She noses about more than I feel comfortable with, but Penny doesn’t seem to mind.
“Where’s Logan?” I ask. I haven’t seen her husband since we arrived.
“He’ll be back soon. He went out. Having him around donors is not a good idea. He’s more likely to scare them away than get donations.”
I laugh a little, remembering those intense looks from him. “I suppose that’s true.”
“He’s great with the women who need help, though. It means a lot to him.”
“Because of his sister?”
She nods. “Did I tell you how we met?”
“You and Logan? No.”
“He blackmailed me.” I laugh, thinking it’s a joke, but she doesn’t smile.
She sits on the steps. “He forced me to marry him so he could have the trust fund I’d get on marriage.”
I sit beside her. “And you’re still married to him?” I’m starting to wonder if this is a plea for help. “How did Blake allow that?”
“He didn’t. He tried to get Logan put in jail.”
“I should hope so!” Penny smiles now, and I’m baffled. “How did you forgive Logan?”
“He was only after revenge for his sister’s death.”
“Did . . . ?” I don’t want to ask. I’m envisioning another woman abused by her father.
“Yes. My father’s work.”
“But still, how could you . . . ?” How does someone stay married to someone who forced them into marriage? I don’t want to censure her but . . . it’s unhealthy.
“It sounds awful, I know. For the longest time Layla wanted to kill him, but . . .” She sighs and checks her phone. “He is the answer to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean.” She leans back and stares at the ceiling. “Where I am incomplete, he fills me. Like the things I want and never thought I could have—he gives me.”
I sit up straighter. “That’s—that’s—” I can’t get the words out but . . . I know what she means. Exactly. All the things that were missing from my life that I didn’t even know what they were, he gave them to me.
Penny leans over and touches my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That my brother is an asshole.”
It makes me laugh, and she smiles too.
“Shall we find Layla and go back outside?” Penny asks. “I could use another cocktail and some dinner. I’m starved.”
“That sounds great.” I’m not ready to go home alone. I don’t know where to go, and staying here with Penny and Layla would be nice.
Layla reappears at the banister upstairs. “Whose room is third on the left?” Layla points down the hall, and the trace of anticipation in her voice makes me curious too.
“I, uh, think you’re talking about Blake’s room,” Penny says, reluctantly.
I didn’t have the courage to ask which was his, thinking it was probably better if I didn’t see it. Now I think on it, Penny passed by that closed door as though it were a closet. She must have done it on purpose.
“Daisy, I know you want to see.” Layla waves me upstairs.
I glance at Penny for permission.
“If you want, go ahead,” she says in a sad voice that makes me want to see it even more.
I dart up the stairs, faster than I should.
Layla leads me down the hall. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I picture a gilded bed frame, maybe some rare artwork, or an overwhelming number of trophies from his no doubt endless stream of accomplishments as a student. Under the pressure of his father, he must have been an extreme overachiever. No one passes the bar in California without being one.
“It’s nothing like what you’d think,” Layla says, and in her voice is a hint at something strange, something off.
And it stops me, for a reason I don’t understand. “It’s not good?”
“It’s just odd. It makes me wonder if I really understand him at all.” She sounds a little disturbed, and it makes me think twice.
But before I can stop myself, I catch a glimpse through the door, and it halts me. It’s not gilded or even decorated, it’s . . .
I back up. I don’t want to go in. I’ve seen too much. It’s something intimate, something to do with his past, something invasive that I shouldn’t spy on without him here. I may not be with him anymore, but it doesn’t mean I’ve lost respect for the trauma he went through. To invade the sanctuary where he lived while he was surviving it, without him being the one to show me, feels wrong.
“Why are you stopping?” Layla asks, appalled, confused. She can’t understand why I’m not running inside.
I back into Penny, and she puts a delicate hand on my shoulder.
“It might be good,” she says, hesitating, “not to see it.” I see the confirmation in her eyes. Something about the room is very private for Blake, and her response seals my decision.
“I’m not going in.”
“What?” Layla freaks like I’ve just said the most incomprehensible thing she can imagine.
“Layla, leave it,” Penny says. “Not everyone is as eager to know everyone’s
intimate secrets as you are.”
Layla sighs with confusion, but accepts it. “Fine.”
“Let’s go outside for a drink,” Penny says, obviously uncomfortable.
I glance at the door to his room once more—the room of the boy who, even after everything, I still want to learn more about. I just want him to be the one to tell me.
* * *
I arrive at the estate and nearly turn around and drive back out.
The car in the drive could be someone else’s. Lots of people have the same car as her.
But I’m not that lucky.
Or maybe I am that lucky.
She’s here.
There’s a lift in my stomach I shouldn’t feel.
I sit in my car, unable to get out. What’s she doing here? My sister must have invited her. I want to be angry at Penny, but she had no idea I was coming. I didn’t tell her.
I had hoped to sneak into the guest house without Penny knowing I was here, make it at least one night without having to talk about anything that’s happened.
I could still sneak into the guest house, park my car around back. Daisy would never even know I was here.
But I can’t.
I want to see her.
Like I want to breathe.
The chance to apologize in person is one I can’t resist. Not to mention how starved I am for her radiant face. Or how desperate I am to hear her ask me “why?” one more time.
I move toward the house—what if she’s inside? I’d have to go in.
I approach the front door, and my palms start to sweat. My hand reaches for the knob . . .
A chorus of feminine laughter rings from the garden near the kitchen door. They’re not inside.
But it only makes my heart beat faster. I recognize her laugh. She’s here.
I sneak around the back, keeping to the shadows of the trees. In the evening light, she might not see me.
She sits in profile to me, her hair tied back. I swear, the sexiest part of her is her shoulder. Though I’d probably think that about any piece of her I was privileged to look at. The slope of her collarbone up her neck, along her jaw—I could trace the path again and again, first with my fingers, then with my breath or my nose, my lips, my tongue. And then the other side.
Almost as though she can feel me staring at her—and maybe she can—she cranes her head to the side. And sees me.
