by J. R. Ward
William rolled his eyes. "About what? Her demand that her rooms be redecorated for the third time? Or is it that trip to New York she wanted to take--again? She's your wife. If she wants these things, she needs to discuss them with you."
Lane narrowed his stare, tracing every one of those features.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, Lane, I'm going to--"
"You don't know, do you."
His father indicated an elegant hand to the Rolls-Royce being pulled out of the garage. "I'm going to be late--and I don't play guessing games. Good day--"
"She's pregnant." As his father frowned, Lane made sure that he enunciated his words clearly. "Chantal is pregnant, and she says it's yours."
He waited for the tell, waited for that single pinpoint of weakness to show . . . used all his experience in poker to read the man in front of him.
And suddenly there it was, the admission spoken in the subtle twitching under the left eye.
"I'm divorcing her," Lane said softly. "So she's all yours, if you want her. But that bastard child is not living under my mother's roof, do you understand? You will not disrespect Mother like that. I will not have it."
William coughed a couple of times, and re-outed the handkerchief. "A piece of advice for you, son. Women like Chantal are as truthful as they are faithful. I have never been with your wife. For godsakes."
"Women like her aren't the only ones who lie."
"Ah, yes, a double entendre. The conversational harbor for the passive aggressive."
Fuck it, Lane thought.
"Fine, I know about your affair with Rosalinda, too, and I'm very sure she killed herself because of you. Considering you have refused to speak to the police, I'm assuming you know that fact as well and are waiting for your attorneys to tell you what to say."
The flush of rage that rose up from the French collar of his father's pressed and monogrammed shirt was a red stain that turned his skin ruddy as a tarp. "You better realign your thinking, boy."
"And I know what you did to Edward." At that point, his voice cracked. "I know you refused to pay the ransom, and I'm pretty sure you had him kidnapped." Steering away from anything further about the financial issues, Lane continued, "You always hated him. I don't know why, but you always went after him. I'm only guessing you finally got bored toying with him and decided to end the game on your terms, once and for all."
Funny, over the years, he had often pictured himself confronting his father--had played out all kinds of different scenarios, tried on all sorts of righteous speeches and violent yelling.
The reality was so much more quiet than he would have imagined. And so much more devastating.
The Rolls-Royce came to a stop beside them, and the family's uniformed chauffeur got out. "Sir?"
William coughed into that handkerchief, his gold signet ring gleaming in the sunlight. "Good day, son. I hope you enjoy your fiction. It is easier to contend with than reality--for the weak."
Lane grabbed the man's arm and yanked him around. "You are a bastard."
"No," William said with boredom. "I know who both my parents were--a rather important detail in one's life. It can be so dispositive, don't you agree?"
As William ripped out of the hold and walked toward the car, the chauffeur opened the suicide door to the backseat and the man slid in. The Drophead was off a moment later, that handsome profile of its passanger remaining forward and composed as if nothing had happened.
But Lane knew better.
His father clearly hadn't been aware that Chantal was pregnant--and the man was very, very definitely in the running to be responsible.
Likely in first place.
Dear Lord.
Lane returned to Mack's truck, and resumed his casual, I'm-not-waiting-for-anything waiting.
Under more normal circumstances, he would probably have been ranting about the fact that his wife and his father had consummated some kind of a relationship.
But he didn't even care.
Focusing on that still-closed door of the business center, he just prayed his brother was okay. And wondered how long he needed to wait before he broke in.
For some reason, he heard Beatrix Mollie's voice in his head, back from the day before when the woman had been loitering outside Rosalinda's office.
It comes in threes. Death always comes in threes.
If that were true, he prayed his brother wasn't the number two . . . but he sure as hell had some recommendations for the universe on who should be.
*
Edward's body was screaming by the time he heard, off in the distance, the rear exit open and close.
In spite of the pain, he waited another ten minutes just to make sure the business center was empty.
When there were no further sounds, he gingerly shifted his feet out from under the desk and bit his lower lip as he tried to straighten his legs, move his arms, get himself unkinked. And he made it far enough to have to shove the office chair out of his way--thank God the thing was on rollers.
But that was it.
He tried to stand up. Over and over again: With all manner of grunting and swearing, he attempted every conceivable strategy of transitioning back to the vertical, whether it was gripping the top of the desk and pulling, sitting back on his hands and pushing, or even crawling like a child.
He made little to no progress.
It was like being stuck at the bottom of a thirty-foot well.
And to top it off, he had no cell phone in his pocket.
Further curse words ricocheted through his head, the f-bombs landing and making craters in his thought patterns. But following that period of air strikes, he was able to think more clearly. Stretching over as best he could, he grabbed hold of the phone wire that ran from the wall up through a hole in the bottom of the desk.
Good plan, except the trajectory was wrong. When he pulled it, he was only going to move the handset farther out of reach.
And he had to call Lane--not just because he wasn't going to be able to make it to the exit. If he didn't reach his brother soon, the man was liable to get impatient, break down the damn door and blow their cover.
Bracing himself, Edward rocked forward once . . . twice . . .
On three, he heaved his torso up, drawing on some reserve of strength he didn't know he had.
It was ugly. His bones literally rattled together under his skin, hitting one another hard without any buffering of muscle, but he did manage to snag the receiver from its cradle--and drag the rest of the phone forward on the desk until it fell off the edge and landed in his lap.
His hands were shaking so badly that he had to dial a couple of times because he kept messing up the sequence, and he was near to blacking out when he finally put the handset up to his ear.
Lane answered on the first ring, bless his heart. "Hello?" the guy said.
"You need to come and get--"
"Edward! Are you okay? Where are--"
"Shut up, and listen to me." He gave his brother the code and made Lane repeat it. "I'm behind the desk in Father's assistant's office."
He hung up by slapping the receiver around its base until it found home, and then he closed eyes and sagged against the drawers. Funny, he'd been laboring under the misconception that sweeping out the barn aisles regularly meant his stamina and mobility had improved. Not the case. Then again, his pretzel-under-the-desk routine might have been a challenge for anyone.
As he heard the rear door open and shut for a second time, he had a sudden urge to re-try the whole get-to-his-feet thing, just so that he and Lane could be spared the embarrassment that was about to come. But the flesh was unwilling even as his ego got up on its high horse.
A moment later, he cut Lane off before the man spoke even a syllable. "I got it," he said roughly. "I got what we need."
He had to salvage his pride somehow.
Lane's knees cracked as he crouched down. "Edward, what happened--"
"Spare me. Just get me up into that chair. I need to log out or we'll be compromis
ed. Where has Father gone? I know he left out the back."
"He got in his car with the driver and I watched him leave. He's off to the track."
"Thank God. Now get me up."
More ugliness, with Lane grabbing him under the armpits as if he were a corpse and dragging him off the imperial purple carpet. When he was finally seated, a sudden drop in blood pressure made him light-headed, but he shook that off and turned on the monitor again.
"Go to his desk," he ordered Lane. "Top drawer in the middle. There's a sheaf of papers in there. Don't bother reading them, run to the Xerox machine and get us a copy. He just signed them." When Lane only stood there, as if he were wondering whether he had a medical emergency to deal with first, Edward slashed his hand through the air. "Go! And put them back exactly where they were. Go!"
When Lane finally got his ass in gear, Edward refocused on the computer screen. After transferring one final document, he began signing out of the network carefully, closing everything that he had opened.
Lane hightailed it back no more than a second after he was finally finished.
"Get me out of here," Edward said roughly. "But set the phone back up here first."
It was the height of impotence that he required his strong, able-bodied younger brother to put things back in order and then heft him to his feet and shuffle him out of the office like he was a geriatric.
And what do you know, Lane gave up trying to help him walk just as they came across that family crest in the carpet. "I'm going to have to pick you up."
"Whatever you must."
Edward turned his face away from his brother's shoulder as his weight was popped off the floor. The ride was a rough one, his pain level ramping up and shifting to all kinds of new places. They made better progress, however.
"What was the paperwork for?" Edward demanded as they moved fast down that hall of conference rooms and offices.
"You're going to have to walk once we get outside."
"I know. What was the paperwork about?"
Lane just shook his head as they came to the back door. "I need to put you down."
"I know--"
The grunt of pain was nothing he could hold in, much as he would have preferred to. And he had to wait to be sure that his legs accepted his weight, his hand biting into Lane's forearm as he used his brother's steady body to help stabilize himself.
"You okay?" Lane asked. "Are you good to get over to the truck?"
As if he had a choice.
Edward nodded and pulled the baseball hat down lower over his face. "Check outside first."
Lane popped the door and leaned out. "Okay, I'm taking your arm."
"How chivalrous."
God damn him, but Edward got his legs moving toward that truck like the business center was on fire and that old F-150 was the only shelter he had: No matter how much it hurt, he just gritted his teeth and made it happen.
When he was finally stuffed into the passenger seat with the door closed, his stomach rolled so badly, he had to close his eyes and breathe through his mouth.
Lane jumped in beside him and cranked the engine. There was a grind of protest from under the hood as things were put in gear, and then they . . .
When there was no forward motion, Edward glanced across. "What?"
In slow motion, his brother's head turned toward him, a strange reserve hitting Lane's too handsome face.
"What's wrong?" Edward demanded. "Why aren't you driving us out of here?"
Releasing his seat belt, Lane said, "Here, read this. I'll be right back."
As the set of documents fluttered over Edward's legs, he barked, "Where the hell are you going?"
Lane pointed at the papers and got out. "Read."
When the driver's-side door was slammed in his face, Edward wanted to throw something. What in God's green earth was Lane thinking? They had just broken into their father's--
For some reason, he glanced down at what was on his lap.
And saw the words "Mortgage" and "Instrument."
"What . . . ?" he muttered, gathering the pages up and putting them in order.
When he was finished reading them, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back. In exchange for the good and fair consideration of "$10,000,000 USD or ten million US dollars" to Mrs. Virginia Elizabeth Bradford Baldwine . . . Sutton Smythe had an income stream of sixty thousand dollars a month until the full sum was repaid to her.
The kicker, of course, was the default clause: If the monthly interest wasn't paid on time, Sutton could foreclose on the entire Easterly estate.
Everything from the mansion, to the outbuildings, to the farmland would be hers.
Not a bad risk profile, considering at last valuation about four years ago, the place had been thought to be worth about forty million dollars.
Edward cracked his lids again and riffled to the signature page. It had been previously notarized--regular practice at BBC on the QT. And William Baldwine had signed on the line that was marked Virginia Elizabeth Bradford Baldwine with his own John Hancock and three letters: POA.
Power of attorney.
So even though his mother's name was the only one on the deed, and she no doubt had no knowledge of the agreement, and wasn't going to see a penny of the money, everything was nice and legal.
Damn it.
When the door on his side of the truck opened, he cursed and shot a glare at Lane--
Except his brother wasn't the one who'd done the duty with the handle.
No, Lane was standing off to the side, under a magnolia tree.
Miss Aurora had lost weight, Edward thought numbly. Her face was the same, but far leaner than he remembered. Then again, that was true for the both of them.
He couldn't meet those eyes of hers.
Just couldn't.
He did look at her hands, though, her beautiful dark hands, which trembled as they reached for his face.
Closing his lids, his heart thundered as the contact was made. And he prepared himself for her to make some comment about how horrible he looked--or even say something in a tone of voice that told him exactly how mortified she was at what he had become.
She even took off the baseball cap.
He waited, bracing himself--
"Jesus has brought you home," she said hoarsely as she cradled his face, and kissed him on the cheek. "Precious boy, He has returned you to us."
Edward couldn't breathe.
Precious boy . . . that was what she had always called him when he was little. Precious boy. Lane was her favorite, always had been, and Max she had tolerated because she'd had to, but Miss Aurora had called him, Edward, precious.
Because she was old-school and the firstborn-son thing did matter to her.
"I prayed for you," she whispered. "I prayed for Him to bring you home to us. And my miracle has come finally."
He wanted to say something strong. He wanted to push her way because it was just too much. He wanted . . .
Next thing he knew, he had leaned in to her and she had wrapped her arms around him.
Much later, when everything had changed and he was living a life he couldn't have imagined on any level, he would come to recognize . . . that this moment, with his head in Miss Aurora's hands, with her heart under his ear, with her familiar voice soothing him and his brother watching from a discreet distance, was when he began to truly heal: For a brief instant, a split second, a single breath, his pilot light flicked on. The spark didn't last long--the flare died when she finally stepped back a little.
But the ignition did, in fact, occur. And that changed everything.
"I prayed every night for you," she said, brushing his shoulder. "I prayed and I asked for you to be saved."
"I don't believe in God, Miss Aurora."
"Neither does your brother. But like I tell him, He loves you anyway."
"Yes, ma'am." Because what else could he say to that?
"Thank you." She touched his head, his jaw. "I know you don't want to see me--"
>
He took her hand. "No, it's not that."
"You don't have to explain."
The idea that she felt she was somehow a second-class citizen made him feel like he'd been shot in the chest. "I don't . . . want to see anyone. I'm not who I once was."
She tilted his face up. "Look at me, boy."
He had to force himself to meet her dark stare. "Yes, ma'am."
"You are perfect in God's eyes. Do you understand me? And you are perfect in mine as well--no matter what you look like."
"Miss Aurora . . . it's not just my body that's changed."
"That is in your hands, boy. You can choose to sink or swim based on what happened. Are you going to drown? Pretty stupid now that you're back on dry land."
If anyone else had said that bullshit to him, he would have rolled his eyes and never thought about the statement again. But he knew her background. He knew more than even Lane knew about what her life had been like before she had started to work at Easterly.
She was a survivor.
And she was inviting him to join the club.
So this was why he hadn't wanted to see her, he thought. He hadn't wanted this confrontation, this challenge that was clearly being offered to him.
"What if I can't get there," he found himself asking her in a voice that broke.
"You will." She leaned in and whispered in his ear, "You're going to have an angel watching over you."
"I don't believe in them, either."
"Doesn't matter."
Easing back, she stared at him for a long while, but not in a way that suggested she was taking note of how much older and thinner he looked.
"Are you okay?" he asked abruptly. "I heard you went to the--"
"I'm perfectly fine. Don't you worry about me."
"I'm sorry."
"About what?" Before he could reply, she cut him off with her more typical, strident voice. "You don't be sorry for taking care of yourself. I'll always be with you, even when I'm not."
She didn't say good-bye. She just brushed his face one more time and then turned away. And it was funny. The image of her walking over to Lane and the pair of them talking together under the heavy dark green leaves of the magnolia tree was something that was going to also stick, as it turned out.
Just not for the reasons he thought.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The rain that was not forecasted started just after five p.m.
As Lizzie folded up the last of the tables under the tent, she smelled the change in the air and looked out to the ivy on the brick wall of the garden. Sure enough, the trefoil leaves were dancing, their faces shining up to the grey sky.
