“What the hell are you doing here, Randolph?” he spits venomously.
For the first time, my pulse stutters. He just called me Randolph.
He knows. And if he knows, Weatherly knows.
Shit!
That’s what this is all about.
TWENTY-NINE
Weatherly
I watch Tag’s face as my father’s words sink in. I see the guilt wash in like a pale, frothy wave. If there was ever a teeny tiny part of me that thought maybe he had intentions of coming clean eventually, that teeny tiny part just died a teeny tiny, miserable death. It’s clear that Tag didn’t want me to know.
“Jesus, Weatherly,” he begins, pushing past my father. I stop him in his tracks.
“Don’t. Just don’t. Whatever you came here to say, it doesn’t matter.” I didn’t imagine that it would be so hard to say those words. My throat constricts as though it’s trying to close in around them, to stifle them. To keep me from uttering them. To keep me from ending things. Forever. “This is over. And you need to leave.”
“Weatherly, whatever you think—”
“It’s not a matter of what she thinks, you son of a bitch! It’s a matter of what she knows.
“Listen, O’Neal,” he says, whirling angrily toward Dad. “I get that you’re her father and all, but she’s a grown woman. This is between Weatherly and me. It’s none of your business.”
“None of my business? None of my business?” Dad hisses through gritted teeth. “You’ve been trying to take everything from me and my family, you marry my daughter for her vineyard, and you think that is none of my business? You couldn’t be more wrong.”
“I didn’t . . . It’s not what . . . This is all a big misunderstanding. If you’ll give me a few minutes with Weatherly—”
“She doesn’t want a few minutes with you, or didn’t you hear that? She’s done with you. And when I get done with you, you’ll wish you’d never met the O’Neals.”
“Look, do what you want. Think what you want. I don’t give a shit. She’s the one I care about. She’s the one I need to talk to. I need to tell her that I tried to buy Chiara so that my mother would always have a home. So that she wouldn’t be uprooted in her condition. She’s dying, for chrissake. I didn’t want her to have to move when you found out she could no longer be your housekeeper and your cook.”
“I would never have—”
“Don’t give me that load of crap! You’re a ruthless businessman who sees only bottom lines. You don’t see people or lives or futures. You see dollar signs. And she would be a liability in your eyes. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not, O’Neal!”
“However you try to paint this, you’re still the bad guy here. You lied to my daughter. You tricked her into marrying you so that you could get your hands on her property. Well, I’ve got news for you, smart guy. Chiara is protected. It doesn’t convey through marriage. It—”
“You think I don’t know that? You think I didn’t do my homework? That I can’t afford to hire a fleet of lawyers to research this, to find a loophole? I knew exactly what I was doing when I married your daughter. I knew what I was doing when my company donated five million dollars to her charity, too.”
My heart flutters at his words. “That was you?”
Tag turns to me now. His face softens and I’m reminded again of how amazing he can be, of how happy I was with him. For a while. Before he broke my heart.
“Of course it was me. I knew it meant a lot to you. And I figured you’d marry Michael if you had to, just to save those kids.”
“And you couldn’t have that, could you?” my father sneers. “You couldn’t risk anyone getting to it through my daughter before you.”
“I can’t deny that. I didn’t want anyone else involved with Chiara, anyone who might influence Weatherly. Anyone who might pose a threat to the only home my mother has known in nearly thirty years. But donating to Weatherly’s charity is hardly the act of a monster.”
“Then why marry her? Why do this to her if your intentions were so pure?”
“At first, it was just a stall tactic. I had to buy some time. When she told me about Safe Passage, I knew that could be the answer. She wouldn’t have to marry then. I could buy Chiara from her and my mother would be safe. I knew she would never make Mom leave. I knew she wasn’t like you. But then . . .”
My father glares silently at Tag, waiting. I’m the one who prompts him when his pause drags on.
“But then what?”
“But then I started to really want to marry you,” he says quietly, his smoky gray eyes sucking me in, fogging my resolve.
“If what you say is true, then why hide who you were? Once you made the donation, why hide that you’re Jameson Randolph’s son?”
“I knew she’d hate me. I knew this would happen. And I didn’t want it to.”
“Just how long did you think you could keep it from her? How long did you think you could hide it?”
Tag shrugs. “As long as I needed to. It’s surprisingly easy to cloak ones identity when money is no object.”