When she heard his intake of breath she lost her nerve and redirected the conversation herself. “I did go to see Lucas, you know. He wasn’t home.”
“Oh,” Aiden said, letting the air out of his lungs where it had been caught.
“I told Diane I’d check up on him but… I don’t know. He’d left the door open—”
“And you went inside,” Aiden finished for her.
She snuck a quick look in his direction and he laughed at her shocked expression. “You never could resist something like that. You would’ve opened Pandora’s box the moment the gods’ backs were turned, no qualms, no hesitation, and no regret.”
She laughed at that description. “Yeah, well… I went inside and it was… unsettling. I think he’s looking for his mother but… the way he seems to be going about it… it’s obsessive. It’s like he’s hunting her down.” She shuddered. “I know he has a hard time letting things go,” she began.
“That’s an understatement,” Aiden muttered. She caught him rolling his eyes and was thrust back to the awkward morning when Lucas had shown up drunk and proposed after she’d dumped him once and for all. Aiden had arrived with his younger brother, Jack, to work on their investigation into the embezzled money and Lucas’s questionable behavior had taken a turn for the worse.
“I’ve never been scared of him before and maybe I’m just being paranoid after everything that happened with my dad but… It just gave me a really bad feeling, you know?” She thought about confessing to Aiden all the times she thought she’d seen Uncle David while she was traveling but knew it was too soon.
“I know I only met him a few times,” Aiden said carefully. “And I’m hardly… unbiased, but I never did like him.”
Zoe smiled and felt warmth spreading through her but she rushed to tamp it down. He’d used the present tense but that didn’t mean anything. The fact that Lucas was the son of the man who had killed his parents and had been completely ignorant of his father’s criminal activities was reason enough for most people to prejudge him. It didn’t necessarily stem from jealousy.
“I just don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to look him in the eye again,” Zoe said with a shiver. She pictured him in her mind’s eye but the carefully pinned web tracing his mother’s progress from safe location to safer location crisscrossed his features leaving him fractured.
“You aren’t actually going to go back to see him again?” Aiden sounded sickened by the prospect.
“I’ll have to face him eventually,” she pointed out.
“If you do, I’m going with you,” he insisted. “Or take Mason. Whatever you do, don’t go alone. Even if you didn’t feel uncomfortable seeing whatever it was you saw in his apartment, you’ve had trouble getting him to understand that you’re not interested in having a relationship with him. It might not… You just never know what a guy like that might do.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said quietly. They lapsed into a comfortable silence. Zoe tried to focus on where she was headed and what she would say to Reggie when they arrived but the notion that on some level Aiden still cared about her kept forcing its way through. The fact he didn’t want her to get hurt didn’t mean he had forgiven her for how she’d hurt him or that he wanted to get back together… But it was better than him actively hating her or worse, being indifferent.
Chapter 37
Lucas was digging through the dirty laundry scattered across the floor searching for the cell phone attached to the muted ring. In the pocket of the pair of jeans he’d thrown aside before falling into bed in his boxers the night before, he found the device in question and stared in puzzlement at the screen. It was an unlisted number that he didn’t recognize.
“Dad?” he asked impulsively as he answered. He stomped one foot onto the other at his own stupidity and waited for the lecture that David would undoubtedly unleash after an exasperated sigh.
But there was no sigh and there was no answer from the other end of the line. “Hello?” Lucas asked with a firmer voice. “Who is this?”
“I heard from someone I used to know that you were looking for me,” a vaguely familiar feminine voice finally responded.
“Mom?” he asked quietly.
“Lucas.”
“Who… who told you I was looking for you?”
“I told you. An old friend let me know you were looking for me. I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch for so long and while I appreciate that you might want to see me – believe me, I want to see you too – I just don’t think that now is a good time for something like that.”
It had to be one of her old neighbors. Someone he’d talked to had lied about knowing where she was or knowing how to get in touch with her. He punched his free fist into the floor, the metal button on his jeans’ fly cutting one of his fingers.
“Why not?” he asked quickly, the flash of pain from the small wound echoing in his voice.
“What your father did was all over the national news, sweetheart,” she responded in a gentle but patronizing tone. It reminded him once more that the last time he’d really spent any length of time with her was before his parents’ divorce. He’d barely started puberty. To hear that tone again, now as a grown man was… surprisingly infuriating. “I have no intention of getting caught up in everything going on with that investigation and I do not want your father finding me.”
“I won’t say anything,” he promised and for a moment he meant it. If he could just see her and talk to her again in person, he could make her understand. David had done some bad things, but it didn’t make him a bad person. Lucas knew his father loved him even if he did think he was lazy and he knew David still loved his mother. It wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be too late. Not if you were willing to do whatever it takes.
“I know you won’t, Lucas,” she assured him. “I know you wouldn’t do anything to get me in trouble. But you’re probably being watched and I can’t take that chance. The police… The FBI… Your father… You might not intend to but you could still lead someone to me and it could put me in danger. Do you understand?”
His temper flared. “I’m not a child, you know. I’m more careful than that.” There was a pause and Lucas felt a brief rush of panic. “Mom? Are you still there? Mom?”
“I’m still here, honey. And I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how… I’ve missed you. And I know you’ve probably got a lot of questions for me about your father and what I know and when I learned things… But I don’t have much more time right now to talk.”
“Please,” he started to beg. “Please can I see you? Can you at least tell me where you are? I promise I won’t tell anyone. I won’t let anyone else find you.” He clenched the denim of the jeans tightly in his sore hand.
“I’m sorry Lucas. I just can’t do that yet. If your father were… Well, until they catch him I just won’t feel safe enough for that. I’m so sorry that you have to go through all of this alone.” Her voice was strained with emotion and Lucas felt a lump forming in his own throat. “I promise I will make it up to you someday. I love you, honey.”
“Don’t go yet, Mom,” he begged, feeling like a child again, clinging to her leg asking her not to leave him alone with the babysitter while she and Dad went out for a dinner alone together. “How… how are you?”
“I’m… okay. I miss you and think about you all the time. I’ve done what I could to keep tabs on you. It’s not enough, I know…”
“I… I miss Dad too,” he admitted. “How he was, I mean. I miss not knowing.”
“I do too,” she said so quietly he wasn’t entirely sure he heard it correctly.
“Will you… call again?”
“I’ll try,” she said but it didn’t sound like it would be anytime soon if ever. “Please stop looking for me. Please? I don’t want you to get hurt.”
He still couldn’t completely grasp why she was so afraid for herself and for him. Was she really only worried about David doing something to he
r? He loved her and would never hurt her. Well, not now that he and Barbara were through. Not now that he had gotten away clean. And there was no way his father would ever hurt him.
“Okay, Mom,” he said without enthusiasm. “Just… It’s been good to hear from you again.”
“It has. I love you Lucas.” There was a noise on the other end that he couldn’t quite make out before she said hastily, “I’ve got to go now. Bye.”
Lucas quickly tossed the phone into one of the deeper piles of clothes before he could hurl it against the wall and watch it shatter. The urge to break something didn’t ebb though and he ran his hands through the mess of stuff on his floor until he found a small battery operated digital alarm clock. With all the force he could muster, he threw it against the wall. It lay in pieces on the floor, a sizeable gouge in the plaster of the wall where it had struck. He’d never had much need for it anyway; it didn’t even work cause he’d run out of batteries and hadn’t bought more.
There was an answering knock from his neighbor on the other side of the wall and some muffled shouts that he was pretty sure were expletives. He didn’t care. And he wasn’t about to give up looking for his mother either. She didn’t want to be found? Too bad. He hadn’t wanted to be abandoned but no one cared what he’d thought.
****
“Have you presented the latest proposal to the Board yet?” Terrence Hamilton asked his son with an imposing edge to the question.
Mason held the phone away from himself long enough to sigh without his father overhearing. “Not yet. Things have been hectic since Zoe’s come back. Transitioning things over to her now that she’s accepted the position of president formally.”
“Miss Dunmore’s returned,” Terrence said in a much happier tone. “That’s right. And how is she taking to her new position? What does she think of the proposal we’ve been working on? We should arrange a video conference call so we can get her input before it goes to the Board for approval.”
“I don’t… think that would be… something we can do just yet,” Mason faltered as he ran through a list of plausible excuses to continue putting off this merger. “She’s swamped with… her new duties. And there’s the FBI and their investigation…”
“I thought they’d wrapped that up already?” He could hear the faint skepticism and knew the exact position of his father’s eyebrows. Mason still had a few centimeters before they would meet in complete frustration and he would begin yelling.
“The investigation, sure… for the most part,” Mason stammered. “But they still haven’t caught Allan Peters. They’re keeping Zoe informed as they make progress and it’s… it’s very distracting, to her. It’s still difficult… the constant reminders of her father. I just don’t know that bringing up this merger – the last thing he was working on when it all happened – would be good for her.”
“I see,” came the clipped response. “Well, we don’t have to get into the nitty-gritty details right away,” he capitulated. “But it would be a show of good faith to have a chat, anyway. Just by way of introductions. You’ve told me so much about your friend over the years but I don’t think you even bothered to introduce us to her when we came up for your graduation. Or do I embarrass you?”
Constantly but not in the way you assume, Mason responded internally. His father continued. “It’s ridiculous for you to continue acting like a teenager who’s too self-conscious to introduce his girlfriend to his parents.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Mason said forcefully.
“Exactly. This is a business deal we’re talking about here.” Mason covered the phone just in time to keep his father from hearing his derisive snort. Who was the one who had hinted that there should be more joined than just two companies? And to Zoe’s father, no less. “I expect to hear from you before the week is out with a time next week that will work for you and Miss Dunmore. Don’t disappoint me son or I’ll have to rethink the arrangement we came to for employee stock options again.”
Terrence Hamilton hung up but the photo of him that appeared whenever he called hadn’t yet faded from the screen of Mason’s phone. He flipped the bird at the forced smile on his father’s lingering face.
“What did the phone do to deserve that?” Amelia asked with a smile from the door of his new smaller office.
“It had enough reception and battery power for my father’s call to get through,” he muttered as he slid the phone gently away along the desktop. Amelia laughed and he felt himself smile too, his frustration ebbing.
“Care to share? I can top most infuriating parent stories to the point where you will want to call him back and apologize,” she teased, perching on the edge of his desk. He had room for only one guest chair in the office and he’d been using it to hold the box with the things he’d managed to accumulate during his time in Zoe’s office (it was surprisingly full). He hadn’t unpacked it yet having so few surfaces available to put them. Of course, as he looked up at Amelia leaning towards him over his computer monitor, he wasn’t entirely sorry for the inconvenience; if she were comfortably seated a few feet further back, he’d have had to rearrange the computer screen to get half the view of her he had now.
“I haven’t told Zoe much about the merger her dad was working on when he died,” he admitted guiltily.
“She mentioned that the Board had hoped it would be finished by now and the necessary accommodations started before the year was out,” Amelia said casually. She scooted further onto the desk so she was settled more comfortably.
“I haven’t even told her the name of the other company yet,” he confessed.
“Well, it might help for her to know that much,” Amelia quipped.
“Hamilton Group.”
“As in…”
“Ah-huh. The merger her father was arranging was with my father’s company,” he leaned forward on the desk, his arms crossed to cushion his forehead.
“Is that not a good thing?” she asked, peering down at him trying to make him look up at her.
“Well, my father isn’t exactly the most… tactful person. He said some things to her father about… other… mergers… he thought should be… encouraged.” Mason prayed Amelia understood his meaning so he wouldn’t have to spell it out. He’d tried saying it aloud before to practice for telling Zoe but choked on the absurdity of the words. You know all those times we joked about just getting married and to hell with the sex part? My father kind of wants that to be the case for real.
“I see what you mean,” Amelia said in an even tone, withholding any sense of judgment. As soon as Mason looked up at her to see what she really thought she burst out laughing and he felt himself flush deeply. He picked up a paper clip and threw it at her.
“It isn’t funny,” he said adamantly. “It’s humiliating.”
Amelia reached up to find the paperclip in her hair but she couldn’t see it and succeeded only in getting it further entangled.
“It is a little funny,” she managed to say as she pulled a chunk of hair around so she could see it better. “It is not as though he can actually demand such a thing and even if he could Zoe would never go for it. If he were to see the two of you together as friends he would have no doubts about the future. It will not be you and Zoe but there is a good chance your children and hers could end up with one another. Tell your father he will just have to wait a generation.”
Mason smiled and got up from his seat. Watching her struggle from the corner of his eye, he came around the desk and reached out to help her with the paperclip. “Hold still or you’re going to get it caught on your earring,” he warned as she shifted to keep him out of reach and show she would do it on her own.
“Ow,” she hissed as her hair and earring became linked via the paperclip.
Told you so, he said with his eyes as she threw her hands up in exasperation and turned back towards him so he could help her.
He leaned in close so he could see the situation better. His fingers fel
t particularly clumsy as he worked the curl of her hair over and around the loop of the paperclip. He was close enough to smell Zoe’s shampoo in Amelia’s hair and her body wash on Amelia’s skin. He’d smelled the floral combination hundreds of times on Zoe, but this time he drank it in deeper; it went straight to his head where it triggered a slight ringing in his ears that made it difficult to tell whether Amelia was making any noises to say she was in pain. He tried to work quickly, afraid the pounding of his pulse was as obvious to her as it had become to him.
The curl came loose but the paperclip was still intertwined with her earring. As Mason reached up to maneuver the annoying piece of metal off of its host, Amelia’s hand came up and caught his hand briefly. She didn’t let go as she gently pushed his hand out of the way and reached with her other hand to remove the earring from her lobe entirely. “I can do this part myself,” she said quietly. His touch was warm and she was reluctant to let go. Finally she loosened her grasp and he let go but only took a single step back, still close enough for his thigh to brush her knee as she bent her head over her hands to separate jewelry from office supply.
Her fingers proved more willing to cooperate than his. When she had the two articles successfully detached, Mason reached out and took the earring. “Let me help with that,” he said in a low voice that sent a delicious shiver across her skin. Given how difficult it had been for him to remove her hair from the paperclip, she had her doubts about his abilities, but the gesture was sweet and she made no protest as he leaned in towards her once more.
He surprised her and got it in on the first try. She could feel his warm breath tickling her cheek and throat. He hovered torn between impulse and propriety. She looked down at the paperclip she still held in her hands. She made a few quick bends in the metal and when he pulled back a bit to look her in the eyes, she reached up and hung the paperclip from his ear like a Christmas ornament. As his brow furrowed in surprise, she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
Promised Box Set Page 37
