“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.