Tears poured down my face and Devon pulled me against him, wrapping his arms around me, holding me, keeping me safe. I cried against his chest, hiccuping and sobbing, as he held me ever tighter, shutting out the world where fathers treated daughters like litter, like things to be tossed aside when they became tiresome and inconvenient.
After a few minutes that felt like a few years, my crying jag subsided into sniffles, nose-wiping, and general embarrassment.
Way to look like a big whiny idiot, Ashley.
Devon didn’t mind, though. He loosened his hold on me long enough to run his hands up and down my back while he murmured into my hair, and then he pulled me in once more. He tucked my face into the hollow of his shoulder, he rested his chin on top of my head, he held me safe within the circle of his arms, and he waited with the patience of a statue.
Pull yourself together, kid. You’re supposed to be fixing him, remember?
I sniffled and coughed, and pasted a couple of thoughts together. “I did see his lawyers once – or maybe they were his family’s stable of lawyers, I don’t know. I was, um, about eight years old, maybe?”
“What a cowardly troll, to send lawyers to speak in his place.”
“I remember there were four of them, sitting across a polished oak conference table from us, shuffling papers and glaring at Mom – and when she explained that she didn’t want Dad’s money, she just wanted him to see me once in a while, or even just acknowledge that he had a daughter … I’ll never forget it, they all just turned and stared at me through their wire-rimmed glasses, stared at me as if I were a bug, or a piece of shit they just stepped in with their perfect shoes …”
No, you will NOT start crying again.
“He threw away twin treasures when he left you and your mother, my Ashley.”
“Threw us away, never looked back, never paid a dime of support – his only contribution was to let us keep living in that shoebox of a house, and he and those vulture lawyers thought he was such a generous prince of a guy for doing even that much.”
“He didn’t at least give her the title to the house?”
“Oh, hell no – the lawyers insisted on the deed staying in his name, as if that crappy little place was some precious family heirloom that couldn’t possibly be turned over to peasants like us. Not to mention that since he retained ownership, he could kick us out any time he felt like it, and those lawyers made certain Mom was well aware of that possibility.”
“How on earth could any court let such a situation stand?”
“By listening to whoever spent the most on lawyers, and that was Dad – Mom didn’t have a dime to spare for legal representation, so she got just exactly squat out of him. Sucks to be poor, huh?”
I should have felt weird saying that to one of the richest men in the world, but I didn’t. I could say anything to Devon, somehow, no matter how weird or self-pitying or bitchy it was.
Devon understood.
“Ashley, may I say something to you?”
I rubbed my nose and sniffled. “Sure, go for it. After all, if you don’t chime in and say something now, I’ll start in on how pretty much every guy I’ve ever been with has dumped me too – usually when they got tired of the novelty of boning a fat girl – and then I’ll get into babbling about the starring role of comfort food in my life, and we’ll both end up weeping tears of boredom.”
I burrowed deeper into the comfort of his arms. “Man, I meant to be drawing you out on what the deal is with these panic attacks, and I end up just whining about the ancient history of my own problems; honestly, big guy, what the hell’s wrong with you, that you’ve saddled yourself with such a weird, needy girlfriend?”
Devon chuckled. “I have saddled myself with a woman who is bold, beautiful, and the owner of a wicked sense of humor – and against all odds, she seems to be quite fond of me, a miracle for which I am endlessly thankful.
“As for what I was about to say … Ashley, after your father left, you and your mother supported each other against the whims of the world, and you grew up strong and brave in her keeping. Other men have come into your life and mistreated you, but you have kept your strength, your humor, and your ability to love – you survived all your father did to you and all that life did to you, and you became the strong and lovely woman I know today.”
I laughed a little, somehow, and hugged him even tighter – if I hugged the guy any harder, I’d be behind him. “This Ashley you’re talking about sounds like one badass bitch; are you sure that’s me, really?”
“I am sure beyond all doubt that my Ashley is as badass as they come.” He held me in silence for another endless minute; when he spoke again, his voice was crisp and decisive.
“Ashley, you wish to know when and how my panic attacks began, correct?”
“I need to know that, Devon. I know it’s not easy for you to talk about, but –”
“You have done so much for me, both tonight and in all the time that I have known you, sweet Ashley, so I promise I will do you one better than telling you when my panic attacks began – I will tell you when everything began.”
He clamped his arms around me, and this time I knew it was for his comfort, not mine.
“Ashley, in the truest sense, your life began when your father left you.”
He paused, pulled in a deep breath, and whispered into my ear.
“Mine ended when my father came back.”
23. Mama
Devon took me to an eighth-floor balcony to tell me about the day Kevin Killane crashed into his life, since we both needed some air – me in particular, once I glanced over Devon’s shoulder to see that the theater seats behind us were occupied by mannequins.
Take my word for it, there is something major-league creepy about making a weepy confession to your boyfriend, only to look up and see row upon row of pale plaster mannequins dressed in high-style twenties fashion sitting behind you in the darkness, their blank faces glowing in the light from the movie screen – mannequins who are also somehow staring at you, despite the fact that they don’t have eyes.
“Devon, if you feel the need for an audience to watch movies with you, you do know that most guys would invite friends over to fill the seats, right? Not fake plaster people, although I will admit these ones are snappy dressers?”
“I believe most of them are constructed from polystyrene, actually, although some of the classic collector’s models are –”
“People collect mannequins?”
“People collect everything, Ashley, including fake people”
I somehow knew he’d start going on about all the warped stuff he collected if I let him – anything to delay the uncomfortable topic of whatever the hell his dead and unmourned dad had done to blow up his life – so I suggested we move to a new venue.
I had my doubts when Devon assured me that we’d enjoy a marvelous view of the mansion’s gardens, greenhouse, and duck pond from a balcony on the eighth floor. The cold day had turned into a freezing night, and balcony-sitting sounded like an adventure in frostbite – but I guess I should have known that his balcony would be glassed in, heated, and decked out with a selection of antique 18th century furniture.
As we nestled together into the plush cushions of a silk-upholstered couch for two, Devon summoned Mrs. Hadfield. She showed up a few minutes later with grilled mayo-free BLT sandwiches topped with peanut butter and banana slices, glasses of orange juice and ice water, a plate of oatmeal-walnut cookies, and strict instructions for me to not let the boss sit up talking all night – after all, he needed his sleep, he never thought of himself, and he also ought to hire more evening staff, because humoring his taste for disgusting sandwiches at this ungodly hour was not part of her damn job.
Take it from me, if Mrs. Hadfield became the housekeeper for Valhalla, she’d have all those fierce Viking warriors and Norse gods toeing the line and scared as hell of her in nothing flat.
Our food covered most of the small glass-and-bronze table that stood in fron
t of the couch, and Mrs. H’s grilled concoctions were as tasty as off-the-wall sandwiches could manage to be – not my favorite munchies, but hey, any sandwich in a storm.
The view of the greenhouse and gardens was magnificent, as advertised, with the security spotlights keeping the night at bay. As for the unoccupied duck pond, Devon explained that the ducks spent the fall and winter months living in a heated artificial pond in the greenhouse; his regretful tone indicated that he felt this was no more than the most basic sort of Spartan winter housing that a respectable duck could be asked to tolerate.
Both the soft-as-a-cloud couch and the sinfully warm and sexy guy I shared it with were beyond comfortable, and the idea of spending the night there in Devon’s arms was beyond tempting.
But we weren’t there for eating, duck watching, or snuggling.
Somebody had to bring up the subject of his dad, and I nominated me. “So if your father screwed you over somehow by coming back, that means he left at some point – did he take off when you were just a little kid, the way my dad did?”
Devon sighed, and he looked away to stare into the night for a single silent moment. When he turned back to me, he pressed a kiss to the top of my head and gathered me into the safe harbor of his arms.
He murmured the truth about his father into my hair.
“He did not leave when I was a child, sweet Ashley. He abandoned Mama the very day she told him she was pregnant.”
“What a grade A, gold-plated asshole – please, did she at least milk some child support out of the sleazy bastard? Sic lawyers on him, beat him up, out him as a douchebag to the tabloids?”
“She was not like you, Ashley. If I were to mistreat you, you would do all those things to me and more, but Mama was not fierce, practical, or persistent. I fear she was not strong, not in the way that you are strong.”
He tightened his arms around me as if he was afraid I’d get away. I rested my head on his chest, listening to the pounding of his heart and willing him the courage to tell the rest of the story.
“I was so young when … when Mama was lost to me, so you must understand that most of my memories of her are like dreams that vanish upon waking, or like sunlight that steals through the clouds only to fall upon a dingy window in a forgotten corner of an empty house. On bad days, I rather wonder if she ever existed at all.”
“Wonder if you want, but I’m pretty sure you didn’t spring fully formed from the thigh of Zeus – your mom was real, and your memories of her might be spotty here and there, but they’re real too. So, if she wasn’t strong my way, just how was she strong? Was she a quiet, stealth kind of badass?”
That won me a chuckle and another kiss, this time on my cheek. “She was all that I had, and all that I needed. She was reed thin, tall, pale as a porcelain doll, and always at my side. I think my earliest memory … yes, I remember ever so faintly a day when she sat by a window and held me in her lap, her waterfall of black hair tumbling down on either side of me as she told me a story. I don’t remember just which story it was, but I do recall tugging on her hair with the concentration of a scientist studying a curious new element, and she laughed like an angel.
“On other days, she sang to me. She made breakfast toast that was charred to a crisp, but I loved it because it came from her. She read to me, and I don’t remember a single one of the books, but I remember her giving a different voice to every character – I’m not entirely sure they were even children’s books, but they were hers and so I treasured them. I woke in the night crying from a bad dream or an earache or a toothache, and she cradled me in her arms and rocked me to sleep again.
“I didn’t know it then, but we were alone in the world and had nothing – yet it didn’t matter, because we were alone together and we had each other.”
He sniffed back tears. I held perfectly still, breathing in his warmth, waiting for him to find his way forward.
“Ashley, I own a fortune that totals nearly sixty billion dollars, and I swear on my soul that I would give up every one of those dollars and live destitute in the streets to have Mama back for an hour, to hear her voice and see her lovely, fragile smile, to listen to her stories and eat her horrible toast. God, I loved her.”
I held him, just held him. Sleet began spattering against the glass, the wind gusted, a grandfather clock chimed somewhere deep within the house, and we just held each other.
Devon stirred first, after ten minutes or perhaps an hour. He reached past me to pick up a crystal tumbler from the table, drained half of the water it contained in one gulp, and dropped it back onto the table with a ringing echo of glass against glass.
I snagged another sandwich, washed it down with orange juice because Vitamin C cures everything except broken hearts, and then I burrowed back into the shelter of Devon’s warmth. I pillowed my head on his shoulder this time, eased my arms back around him, and sank down against his powerful body.
His body was powerful, but the Devon inside that body needed my help, which meant that I needed to hear the rest of this story, however painful it turned out to be.
It turned out to be plenty painful. If his father had somehow walked in on us after I heard the rest of that story, I would have stabbed the filthy bastard back into the grave with a thousand knives.
“So how did a woman like that manage to attract an asshole like Kevin Killane? Did she catch his eye across a crowded ballroom floor? Did they bump into each other at the opera, a yacht race, a polo match? Or did he just abduct her off the street and spirit her away to his secret evil-rich-guy lair?”
Devon shook his head before I even finished. “No, Mama did not move in such circles. They met because his limousine broke down.”
“Um, she was a mechanic?”
He smiled, probably at the mental image of his ethereal mom getting grease under her fingernails. “Hardly. I rather doubt she knew anything more of engines than she did of ballrooms.”
Then Devon’s smile turned to shadow. He slipped his hands over mine, he twined our fingers together, and he stared down at the table as if he was looking for answers in the plate of sandwiches.
When he found his voice, it was firm, clipped, and business-like – I didn’t buy that tone for a second, but I also didn’t argue with it; I just kept my hands in his, and leaned against his shoulder as he spoke.
“Ashley, much of what you need to hear and I need to say happened before I was born, or when I was not present, or when I was far too young to remember it. While I have something like a photographic memory now, those laser-like memories began in an erratic fashion – parts of my childhood are preserved for me as if they happened only moments ago, while others have long since vanished into darkness.
“What I did not experience myself, I learned from others – overheard conversations, gossip and rumor, lies and half-truths the Killanes forced down my throat as a child, and investigations I undertook when I became an adult. At one time or another, I have employed most of the leading private detectives in the country to put this story together, and yet there always seems to be one more missing piece to the puzzle.”
“So tell me what you do know.”
“Very well.” He paused to eyeball the sandwiches again. Then he shook himself, he fixed his gaze on the windy night beyond the balcony’s glass, and he told me.
“My father had just returned from a business trip to Houston – though I imagine it was probably more of a drinking and whoring trip, knowing him – when his limousine broke down on the way from the airport to his residence here in the city.
“The nearest building was one of those twenty-four hour eateries where greasy slop is served in the guise of food, and so he and the executives detailed to ride herd on his impulses went inside this alleged restaurant to wait for both the tow truck and a replacement limousine to arrive.”
“And your mom was there eating eggs and bacon and minding her own business when they rolled in the door?”
“She was not eating there, she was working there – Mama
was a waitress.”
“Whoa, an actual honest working person, not an overbred socialite type? I like her already – I may even forgive her for being tall and thin. Anyway, I guess they sat down, she walked over to take their orders, and …?”
“And from that moment she was doomed. According to all accounts, he flashed his perfect smile, complimented her on her beauty and charm, made her laugh with his shallow wit, and reeled her in like a fish, just as he had with so many other women over the years.”
“But how did she fall for his crap? I mean, those tall, pretty girls have guys hitting on them nonstop, from what I’ve seen. Wasn’t she used to that sort of attention?”
“Not from Kevin Killane – he was a master at the art of bedding women, including experienced and cautious women, and Mama was barely more than a child at the time.”
“So how old was she?”
“A few days past seventeen – less than half his age, and with no … experience, so far as I’ve been able to determine.”
“Big guy, can we please take a break here and go to wherever he’s buried, so I can dig him up and make him more dead? Like with a chainsaw or something?”
His faint smile was heartbreaking. “I’ve killed him in my mind so many times, Ashley, and yet it’s never enough. Not for what he did, that day and later. My representatives have spoken to the executives who were with him in the diner, and they all confirm that after that she turned away and left to take their orders to the kitchen, he described to his companions in filthy, sniggering detail exactly what he intended to do to her at the earliest opportunity.”
Rage simmered in Devon’s strange eyes, an old, frustrated anger that cut him to the bone. I needed to divert this line of thought, nudge it in a different direction and move the story onward, before he imploded.
“So didn’t her family warn her about him, do anything to run him off? I mean, at seventeen she was still legally underage, right?”
Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance Page 26
