“Nothing out of the ordinary Marcus. You will learn sometimes deals don’t always go as planned. That’s part of buying and selling. You buy some and some you don’t. Get used to it.”
“I would like to talk to him.”
“He just wasn’t as interested as they presented. No need to waste either parties time on nothing. Pack your bags and meet me downstairs in ten.” Carl left no room for discussion and Marc released his arm, watching him walk toward the elevator. “I’m starving maybe we will stop for breakfast on the road.”
Back in his room he changed, packed and headed out, against his uncle’s warning, to find the owner. He boarded the elevator and set out toward the main lobby. He noted the day before that the offices were beyond the main lobby desk and down a hall off the main lobby.
He left his bags at the front desk with the friendly ladies and headed across the foyer.
He caught sight of his uncle standing by the very hall he needed to pass, conversing with Kate. Those suspicious weeds wouldn’t have started growing around had their body language not been rigid and bitter, possessing matching icy cold stares like the frosted bush they had trailed through the afternoon before.
He stopped dead in his tracks. His uncle held an envelope in his hand that he continued trying to make her accept. Dressed just as she’d stepped off the elevator, she pushed it back, shaking her head. A chill so cold in her eyes it made its way through Marc’s entire body. There were words exchanged, words he could not hear nor make out, but they weren’t friendly but were sparked by anger and disagreement.
A realization set off the ticking time bomb quietly resting, waiting in his mind after all these years to finally reach the end of its wick. Putting together the envelope, their accidental run-in initiated by the fuming brunette and finally a missed meeting his uncle didn’t want him anywhere near for weeks that coincidently fell through with no reason, sent the bomb exploding anger all the way to his clenching fists.
Marc didn’t want to talk to either betraying contributors however they were blocking the hall to the office and he couldn’t simply walk by his uncle without prompting more friction between them.
Marc walked right toward the two engaged in what appeared to be an argument and took Kate by the arm planting a kiss on her trembling lips.
“Will you excuse us?” Surprising both of them he managed to guide her down the hall and around the corner. When they were out of sight he let her go.
“Marc, what are you doing?” she asked with a smile forming. “That was awfully blunt right in front of your uncle. We don’t even know where this is going.” She looked anything but concerned.
“Using you, like you used me.” His tone was cold.
The sweetness he’d cuddled with that morning traveled away like she had six years ago.
“Don’t look so shocked Kate. I’m not the fool you seem to think I am. Did Carl pay you to sleep with me?”
Her eyes grew round horrified. “Marcus!”
“Is that a yes in disguise? Whatever is going on between you two probably dates back to my father.”
She quietly glared at him.
“I’m not far off am I?”
Her arms crossed slowly in front of her like rope binding them below her chest. “I refuse to be a part of this Marc. If you have something going on with your uncle, take it up with him. Don’t throw accusations at me.”
“Accusations I’ve always suspected.” But never wanted to believe. Didn’t believe. Until now.
She stood tall and didn’t shy away like a scared kitten. “I didn’t sleep with you for money from your uncle. If that’s your first instinct on a conversation I’m having with your uncle we should both do ourselves a favor and stop here.”
“Consider it stopped.”
She nodded. “Watch it Caliendo, your reflection is starting to look a lot like that of your fathers. I guess my decision all those years ago was the right one.” Without a blink she walked past him and left him alone in the hall.
The office door was only feet down the hall, but confusion muddled around his head. He was exactly where he had planned on being, down the hall to the office without his uncle’s suspicion. He stared after Kate. He hadn’t thought any of that conversation through sounding like an accusing, unfiltered Izzy. But how far from the truth was he?
***
Marc was beyond furious by the time the silent, tense eight hour drive had ended and he parked the vehicle in the underground parking lot at the resort. He popped the trunk for his uncle but refused to get his own luggage, leaving him alone in the parking lot. He was at his limit. One second Marc was doing everything right and the next he was brushed under the rug. Marc couldn’t figure him out. As usual when Carl didn’t want to get into detail, he had brushed off the detailed conversation he had shared in that office. He was giving it the benefit of the doubt. Come clean; tell me what is going on. Nothing.
Marc didn’t know what to think. His father’s warning, and then the hotel owner telling him that he and his uncle shared a lack of thirst for power that his father had possessed. What the hell was he supposed to do with all of that!
If his uncle wouldn’t talk to Marc about it then he was going to go to the next best source, Eliza. And if the two of them or either one were undertaking shady deals like his father, he didn’t want his name attached to it. He would pack a bag and go back south.
However, now wasn’t a good time to face his mother. He was exhausted and angry. In all his life he couldn’t remember being this furious, except when Kate had left. Maybe that was what was spawning this reaction so unlike him that he felt the need to cool off in his suite until his thoughts could rationalize. He was the spitting image of his mother’s level-headed, lack of temper, but not at the current moment.
Unfortunately his mother was stretched out by the pool, her nose dipped in a book in the main area of their living quarters. He hoped he could sneak past her but she was too observant and glanced up at him with a huge, smiling, delightful greeting asking him how the trip was.
“We didn’t buy a hotel,” he said straight-forward and continued his pace.
“Your uncle already told me.” He stopped a few feet away from her. Of course he had. She waved her hand at him. “Who needs another hotel anyways? Just more responsibility. I want to know how your day was. With Kate,” she added.
She wasn’t the least bit curious about the reason behind the deal falling through. He suspected because she knew exactly why they didn’t get it. Funny, he had no idea.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
She frowned. “Oh no Marcus, what happened?”
“Nothing,” he snarled, definitely not about to get into Kate details with her.
She sat up straighter, surprised by his attitude. “Marcus, what has gotten into you today?” She stared up at him with puzzlement. How could she possibly be puzzled? She knew. He knew she knew.
“Do you really want to know?” he asked.
“Of course I do. Tell me.” That was his mother, always there to listen and guide.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m tired of all the bullshit here.”
“Marcus!” He hadn’t even noticed Emma, Violet and her kids across the pool in the shallow end splashing around. He would have never missed a detail like that if he wasn’t so distracted.
Violet ushered the kids out of the pool. “Go to your rooms and get changed for bed.” Violet and Emma, neither dressed for swimming, walked their way towards the loud voices.
“What’s going on?” Violet asked, crossing her arms.
“I want to know exactly what is going on with Carl and you.” He stared at his mother. “I don’t want excuses or brush offs. I want the truth Mother and you are going to give it to me.”
She looked even more shocked with his abruptness. “Marcus, please, where on earth is all this coming from?”
“I am tired of being screwed around! ‘Be a part of this Marcus,’ ‘no don’t worry about
that detail Marcus,’ ‘here’s only half the truth,’ if it’s even the truth.” He threw his hands in the air. “You and Carl are taking me this way and that way.” His hands were flying one direction and then the next and he felt like Izzy dramatically trying to get her point across. “You want my involved and then you don’t. You want me to take Dad’s position, but not all of it. Let’s just get all the facts out here so I know where I stand.”
He watched the surprise and shock slink away from her face and knowledge and guilt creep in.
“Marcus, let’s talk about this later,” she said. “Maybe once you have calmed down.”
He shook his head. He had been all keen for that but now that it was out there he wasn’t about to walk away. “No, I want the answers now.”
Eliza looked up at her daughters. “I would prefer to discuss this with Carl present.”
“I’m here.” His deep voice came from behind them. Marc didn’t turn. He watched his mother glance past him her eyes speaking to him in a language Marc couldn’t read. Marc wasn’t sure if he wanted his uncle present or not.
She looked at her daughters. “Girls, could you give us some privacy please?”
Marc held his hand up to stop them from moving. What difference did it really make if they stayed or left? They were finished hiding secrets from each other. The truth was for them all, they were a family in this together. “You two stay.” He looked at his mom. “You can explain to all of us why you insisted I come back to take over with praise one second, then dismissal the next. Tell me what Dad was referring to when he said Carl wasn’t who he appeared to be. I’m not like Dad if that’s what you are trying to create. I don’t want to be involved in dishonest deals. I didn’t come back to hurt people for money.”
She slowly rose to her feet, her eyes absorbed with concern. She closed the distance between them, then standing before him, only inches shorter than him, with her shoulders squared. “I didn’t realize you felt this way Marcus. Why didn’t you come and talk to me sooner? You have always talked to me.” She touched his hand. “I didn’t realize Robert had said anything to you.”
“Do you know what he is referring too?”
She nodded.
He hadn’t thought differently. “Robert left us with a lot of messes to clean up after he passed. And Carl and I have been trying to sort through it quietly without involving any of you children.” Her eyes made rounds to everyone, each daughter, Carl and back to him. “Robert was not an honest man. He’s hurt people too, with his actions and we have been trying to repair the damage.” Marc didn’t think now was a wise time to mention his father had requested he acquire the responsibilities they’d both taken on. “Marcus I want you to run a clean resort and all the transactions and investments you make I want them to be honest ones. I’m sorry I did not come and talk to you sooner,” she looked around again. “To all of you and explain our decision.” Marc relaxed, the pent up anger he wasn’t used to withholding slowly parted like the fall wind breaking leaves away from the branches. If they had been honest with him, he felt the last months would have gone much smoother. It still didn’t explain his father’s warnings about his uncle. Marc wanted to glare at him. He had better not be manipulating his mother. These were all her words, and what were his uncle’s thoughts?
“Marcus you are very much like your father.” That was a lie right across her lips. Oh good Lord they were not getting anywhere.
“Eliza,” a concerned Carl said from behind him. “Maybe now isn’t such a good time.”
“It will never be a good time,” she told him. What would never be a good time? Why all the secrets? “Marcus, I love you.” Marcus stilled. It wasn’t odd for her to profess her love, but the tone told him there was something to follow. Something not good. He watched his sister’s expressions alter. She continued. “Robert was a difficult man who craved power and wealth above all. Above me and above his family. He could be a mean man. But he wasn’t always like that.” She breathed a sigh, her mind travelling back to the time to the moments she was sharing. “There was a time long ago before his father died when he was a good man. But after the passing of his father, he changed. The power and the money he inherited changed him.” Marc realized then, that this was her greatest fear for him and contributed towards manifesting all the secrets between them. She feared Marc might follow in his father’s footsteps as his father had followed in his grandfather’s. Marc lacked his father’s desire for money and control and he hoped somewhere deep inside his mother would know that he never craved the life his father led.
“It was the lies and the secrets behind your grandfather’s office that changed him and I know your heart is good but so was his, so I feared changing it. Do you understand?”
More than he had before, although he wished she had been upfront and honest with him. He couldn’t be mad at her about her decision to protect her children. Marc wrapped his hands around his mother and squeezed. “I understand.” Marc turned to his uncle. “I’m sorry I have been short with you lately.”
He nodded.
“Momma, we can help you in any way,” Violet said. “We want to help.”
Emma agreed quickly, rubbing their mom’s arms. “If we all help, it won’t be so much on you both.”
Eliza hugged her supporting daughters. “Right now we are tying up some loose ends, such as the deal today. We knew he wouldn’t accept the offer but it had to be done in person. They didn’t only want us to buy the hotel...they wanted us to provide information your father had agreed that would destroy another’s life.” So, that was why they didn’t want him at the meeting. They were shielding him like from the dragon’s lair.
She turned to Marc. “There is more. Can we sit please?”
Marc wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. They pulled Adirondack chairs in a circle and sat together just as they would from here on in with no secrets between them. Marc remained across from his mother, Carl beside him and a sister on each side of Eliza.
She took a deep breath before she started. “At the beginning I wanted to help Robert deal with everything that had been given to him. He seemed so lost in that office, hours upon hours doing...I have no idea what.” She lifted her hands into the air and twirled them about. “He learned things, things that made him cold and angry and as the years passed, he became the man you remember. He became his father.”
No one talked about Marc’s grandparents. They both died long before him or any of his siblings had been born. Although their picture hung in the foyer of the suites, and they had built this empire in turn made the Caliendo’s a wealthy, well-known name, there wasn’t much said personally about his grandparents. He knew that his grandfather had bought the property and converted the house into an Inn, continually building into the resort they ran today. However, it was never clarified where his grandfather’s money came from: family money or illegally grossed money.
His mother continued her story. “At that time Corbin wasn’t even a year old and the hard days turned into years. Your father had changed so much and whenever I talked to him, he would fume. I felt so alone. So one night I packed a small bag of our things to leave and with a tired three year old I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but it had to be better than living alone in fear. Would I say something to set him off? Would Corbin say something to set him off? Would he come home already set off by something at the resort?”
Carl continued. “He stopped checking in with staff and customers, and left everything up to me, except his files.”
Marc had never seen the files, so he assumed at some point his uncle and mother had tucked them all away, more than likely in Carl’s suite where Marc wouldn’t snoop.
“He caught me trying to leave,” his mother continued. “And it wasn’t good. It was the worst I had ever seen him.” Marc could see the memories making her tremble. Marc didn’t know exactly what she was about to tell them but he suspected if he had known the next revelation about his father before he passed they wouldn’t ha
ve parted on the better terms of their relationship.
She shook her head. “I didn’t want to give you more bad memories of Robert. That was not my intention.” She paused, her eyes moving to share a moment with Carl that they all observed but remained quiet. There was history between them with a man they both loved. She was gathering the strength to continue her story. “It happened more than once. I can’t say it ever really ended.”
“Momma, what happened?” Violet asked. “Did Dad hit you?”
She nodded, looking ashamed. “He only raised a hand to me once.” She wasn’t making sense.
“Then what never stopped?” Emma inquired.
“I couldn’t leave after that, he wouldn’t let me, but I also couldn’t stay living the way we were. I needed help and I had no one.” His mother lost her family in a fire before she met his father. “So, I found Carl and he stood up for me and Corbin. He set Robert right in his place.”
Carl took the spotlight. “We were all very young with a lot of responsibility and no family to help guide us. Your father needed guidance even if he didn’t think so. There were things I knew that would land Robert in a jail cell so we all came to an understanding.”
Marc could never picture his uncle being responsible for sending family to jail. But then, he hadn’t pictured his father raising a hand to his mother.
“It’s hard to explain to you so you will understand,” his uncle continued. “We were all much younger than you are now and we were all we had. So the three of us worked out an arrangement that benefited all of us.”
“Marcus,” his mother said pulling his eyes away from his uncle. “I say you are like your father because you are soft-hearted and a family man. You stand up for what you believe in and your beliefs are true to your heart. You can define the difference between right and wrong. Robert wasn’t that man. He was never that man. You are that man. You may have gotten some of that from me, but you got the rest from your father.” Her words were conflicting, leaving them all confused.
“I don’t understand.”
“Carl is that man.” Marc’s breathing skipped a beat. He knew the meaning behind that statement faster than it took for his heart to jump back to beat. His sisters both gasped.
Lakeshore Secrets: The McAdams Sisters - Kate McAdams (By The Lake Series Book 1) Page 14
