CHAPTER 6
Sun streamed into the bookshop/coffeehouse in Brighton, and the heat of the sun on my face and the delicious coffee in my hand and the fact that I wasn’t at work meant I was feeling pretty great.
That was until my grandfather started airing his concerns, again, about Caine and how it was a supremely bad idea for me to be working for him.
This was our place. The coffeehouse/bookshop, I mean. It was this quiet little place I found when my friend Viv was renting an apartment in Brighton and I suggested it as the place Grandpa and I could meet without worrying about running into anyone who’d know him and let leak that he was meeting a pretty young thing in secret. If that happened, his family, aka his wife (the grandmother I’d never met), and his grandson, Matthew, and his wife, Celia (my half brother, and my sister-in-law, whom I’d also never met), would ask questions and then they’d find out that Grandpa was in touch with the black sheep of the family’s illegitimate daughter and all hell would break loose. Or at least that was the way he made it sound.
Honestly his family sounded high maintenance, and having lived with my father for nine years, I knew that my assessment was probably right.
I didn’t really want to meet them.
I sighed and relaxed back into my seat. “Grandpa, the job is not that bad, I promise. It could be worse. Caine made it out like it was going to be hell on earth. But here I am, enjoying some free time with my grandfather.”
Grandpa smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach his lovely light gray eyes. They were the same eyes as my dad’s. Everything about my father was like Grandpa. They were both classically handsome and distinguished-looking. They were also very tall and broad-shouldered. They were the kind of men you paid attention to when they walked into a room. Once you started to get to know my father, that sense of power around him slowly dissipated. But not with Grandpa. I had a feeling you did not want to get on my grandpa’s bad side. He was like the Clint Eastwood of high society—no matter how old he got, you still wouldn’t want to mess with him.
“I know you, sweetheart.” He studied me carefully. “You’re looking for something out of this, and I’m worried you’re not going to find it.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged and then surprised myself by admitting, “I’m in awe of him.”
“Of Caine?”
“Yes. He didn’t let it destroy him. The tragedy he endured made him determined. Now he has more success and wealth and power than the man who helped take everything from him. He never used his private pain. No one knows about it; he just tried to put it behind him and make his life better. It’s not his fault if he’s going after all the wrong things. Still, it’s the attitude behind his actions that I respect. I’m in awe. He overcame a lot.”
In full, what Caine overcame was family drama, betrayal, death, and suicide. From what I’d pieced together from my father and Grandpa, Caine was thirteen, living in South Boston with his mom, who was a saleswoman for a store in Beacon Hill, and his dad, who was a construction worker. His mom—her name was Grace—met my dad when he came in to purchase a present for his then wife. From the way he told it, Grace was a bored young mother who felt like her life was passing her by. It was easy to seduce her with his culture and money and charm. They began an affair and he got her into a wild scene. She got hooked on cocaine and one night in some crappy hotel room she overdosed while he was in the shower. Instead of helping Grace, my father panicked and got the hell out of there. Grace died. My father used his money and influence to cover things up and make sure the Holland name wasn’t dragged into a scandal and that he wasn’t charged for drug possession or, worse, involuntary manslaughter.
Caine’s dad, Eric, wouldn’t let it go, though, and my father had to tell him the truth about his affair with Eric’s wife and his part in her death. He looked around the crappy apartment father and son were living in and offered Eric a lot of money to just let the whole thing go. Eric took the money. And three months after Grace OD’d, Eric donated all the blood money to charity and a few days later walked into his neighbor’s house, a man who happened to be a cop, and took that cop’s gun, put it in his own mouth, and pulled the trigger.
Caine was put in the system. A boys’ home first and a couple of placements after that.
My father, the weak bastard, was disowned by my grandpa when he discovered the chain of events, and his first wife divorced him once he was without means. That year instead of coming for his annual visit to see me and fuck over my mom, he lied and said he couldn’t live without us anymore. He then mooched off my mom for years until his nervous breakdown when I was twenty-one.
I didn’t know what he was doing now that Mom was gone. The last I saw him was at her funeral, and when he tried to talk to me it took everything within me not to spit in his face.
Maybe if he’d been the hero I always thought he was when I was a kid, maybe if he’d stepped up to become a man, a provider, a decent father, I would have been able to forgive him. But he was a liar, and a lazy one at that, and he had my mom so tied up in knots she couldn’t see who he really was. I lost her because of him.
So no.
I would never forgive him.
“Lexie.” My grandpa pulled me out of my dark thoughts. “I don’t want you falling for Caine Carraway. It’s too dangerous to you. You’ll get hurt. And if he hurts you”—his voice lowered to a warning rumble—“I’ll have to kill him.”
I leaned forward and patted my grandfather’s hand in reassurance. “I’m not there to fall for him. I’m just trying to be there for him somehow. I get him—even if he doesn’t realize it, I really do get him. I would like to be his friend if he’ll have me. But … it would be nice for him to fall for someone. Say the woman he’s currently dating—Phoebe Billingham.”
Grandpa looked surprised. “Grant’s daughter?”
I nodded.
“He could definitely do worse. That might be a good match.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” Liar, liar, liar. I frowned at my jealous subconscious. “But he’s not very romantic around her. I’m trying to nudge him in the right direction.”
“You don’t nudge a man like Carraway anywhere,” Grandpa warned.
My phone suddenly started vibrating on the table. I leaned forward to have a look at caller ID and frowned.
It was Caine.
On a Saturday.
“Oh man,” I whined, and picked up the phone. “Mr. Carraway?”
“I need you to come into the office with lunch. We’re nearing the end on the deal with Moorhouse Securities Company, so we’re working overtime. I’ve got a lot of hungry people in here. We’ll need—”
“Cai—Mr. Carraway, it’s Saturday.”
His sardonic tones rumbled down the line, “Observant.” He then went on to rattle off a list of sandwiches and drinks.
“But …” I stared forlornly at my coffee. “It’s Saturday.”
“Ass in the office, Alexa.” He hung up.
I looked glumly over at my grandpa, who had his “I told you so” face on. “So maybe he is trying to kill me,” I grumbled as I got up to leave.