Читать книгу The Heiress - Cathy Gillen Thacker - Страница 9

WE HAVE TO STOP MEETING like this, Daisy Templeton thought.

Not that she and Jack Granger were really socializing. Just that, for the last month or so, the two of them had been showing up at the same locations in Charleston, South Carolina, at the same time with disturbing regularity. Sometimes, the handsome attorney said hello and engaged her in the kind of brief chitchat one had with an acquaintance. On other occasions—like tonight—the sexy bachelor kept his distance, remaining clear on the other side of the airport baggage claim.

Daisy knew Jack Granger hadn’t been on her return flight from Switzerland in any case. The tall sandy-haired southerner with the nicely chiseled jaw would have been impossible to miss. But, as company counsel, he certainly could have been somewhere for Deveraux-Heyward Shipping. He was dressed in a dark-blue pin-striped business suit, white shirt, tie. As always, his clothes were sharp, if a little worn.

He had been standing there, arms crossed, leaning up against the far wall, when Daisy walked through the security gate that separated arrivals and departures from the rest of the Charleston, South Carolina, airport. Dark aviator sunglasses on, a cell phone pressed to his ear, he appeared to be waiting for someone or something. But unlike everyone else—Daisy included—who was gathered around the motionless baggage claim, waiting impatiently for their luggage, Jack Granger didn’t seem to care whether the ear-splitting warning buzzer ever sounded. He appeared more interested in whatever was being said to him on the other end of the line.

Not that it should matter to her what Jack Granger was doing, Daisy reminded herself as the red light flashed and the conveyer belt finally began to move. Others crowded in. She wedged her way in once she saw her case, grabbed it by the handle, lifted it off the conveyor belt, pulled up the handle, then wheeled it toward the automatic doors.

The August heat was intense, the South Carolina air was warm, moist and scented with saltwater. Grateful to be back home, even if she wasn’t happy about what she had to do next, Daisy headed quickly for the long-term parking lot, and the car she had purchased six weeks ago after she had been disinherited. Her adopted parents hated the beat-up red sedan with the dented fender, yellowing hood and two pine-green doors, but for Daisy, the reconditioned, decade-old vehicle was a crowning symbol of her achievement. She had paid for the car in cash, using money she had earned as a professional photographer. And it had facilitated her during her search for the truth about her heritage. Now that she was back in the States again, she was going to take herself to confront her biological mother and father.

Eight o’clock, the traffic was light as she headed for the downtown Historic District of elegant homes, to the Hayes residence, where Daisy’s older sister, Iris, resided. The stately lemon-colored three-story home, with the black shutters, double wraparound verandas and mansard roof, was one of the larger homes on Concord Street, opposite Waterfront Park.

Her heart pounding with a mixture of anger and anticipation of the blowup to come, Daisy slammed out of her car, the red accordion file filled with proof in one hand, her fringed buckskin carryall slung over her shoulder, and marched up the steps. Iris’s maid, Consuela, answered the door, and ushered Daisy to the antique-filled morning room, where her much older “sister” was seated.

Iris had on a sleeveless pale-blue summer sweater and slim white skirt, high-heeled shoes that made the most of her slender, elegant, forty-seven-year-old form. A cardigan had been tied neatly across her shoulders. A strand of pearls and matching earrings were the only accessories aside from the heavy diamond wedding and engagement rings Iris still wore, a year after she had been widowed by one of the city’s wealthiest—and in Daisy’s opinion, most repulsive—men. Copies of Vogue and Town and Country magazine were spread across her lap. Mozart was playing on the stereo.

Iris took one look at the expression on Daisy’s face and dismissed her maid with a silken-voiced “That will be all, Consuela. And please, shut the doors behind you.”

Consuela nodded and disappeared as silently as she had come in.

Daisy’s heartbeat kicked up another notch as she regarded the woman who had secretly given birth to her, and then, just as heartlessly, abandoned her child. “Hello, Mother.”

For the first time, Iris’s poise faltered. She put aside her magazines. “Daisy. I didn’t know you were back.”

You mean you were praying I would never come back. “Just got in.”

Iris wet her lips nervously, swallowed hard enough for Daisy to see it. “I don’t know what you found out over there—”

Aware her legs were beginning to tremble with a combination of exhaustion and nerves, Daisy eased into a tapered-back Hepplewhite chair, circa 1790. Unable to help herself—hadn’t she promised herself on the plane she would give Iris a chance to explain, before she tore into her?—Daisy countered ever so quietly, “How about the truth?” How about the end of all my childish dreams? She was only twenty-three, but she felt so much older, now that she knew about all the lies.

“But it’s not anything like what it must seem,” Iris continued.

“Really,” Daisy replied. She studied the mixture of guilt and regret on the older woman’s face, and knew that her long-held hope of finding out to whom she really belonged was not going to bring her the peace of mind, the love and acceptance she had sought. “Then suppose you explain all the documents I have in this file.” Daisy patted the pleated red folder clenched between her fingers on her right hand. “The birth records that say I was born in Switzerland to American citizen Iris Templeton, and not to two tragically killed parents in Norway—as I was always told. Or the travel visa to Norway and then the United States with my name on it, issued to Charlotte and Richard, by the U.S. embassy. Or the story of the scandalous predicament that got you in trouble and landed you in the convent, recounted to me by the long-retired and still very remorseful Sister Agatha.” Suppose you tell me about all the lies. About your affair with a very married man.

Silence fell as the color drained from Iris’s beautiful face. Tears glimmered in her eyes as Iris pressed a hand to her pearls and spoke with difficulty. “I was very young when it happened.”

Not that young. “You were twenty-three—the same age I am now, college-educated and wealthy to boot. I think you could have handled having me if you had wanted to,” Daisy concluded resentfully.

New color dotted Iris’s flawless cheeks. Iris looked Daisy square in the eye. “It wasn’t that simple, Daisy.”

“Right,” Daisy agreed bitterly, tears sparkling in her own eyes, too. She wondered why she had ever hoped, even for one overly idealistic second, that the always contained Iris would tell Daisy what was in her heart, then or now. “You had a fortune to amass, a gross old man to marry.”

Pique simmered in Iris’s pale-green eyes. “I tried to do right by you.”

Daisy blinked, the self-serving audacity of those closest to her as astounding as ever. “How?” she demanded incredulously. “By lying to me? Having everyone else lie to me?” Iris had known how important it had been to Daisy to discover the true circumstances of her birth, that Daisy had been looking, off and on, for the past five years. And never once lifted a hand to help her, or even act as if she understood Daisy’s quest to discover just what it was about her that made her so secretly loathsome in Daisy’s “parents’” eyes. Now, of course, it all made sense. Richard and Charlotte Templeton had seen Daisy as the living proof of their only real daughter’s scandalous indiscretion, and probably worried Daisy would “go wrong,” too. Whereas Iris had been protecting herself and her reputation. What Daisy had needed or wanted or felt hadn’t mattered, still wouldn’t, she admitted miserably. No, when it came to protecting the family’s good name, Daisy and other individual members were completely dispensable.

Iris turned her glance away. “Your adoption was for the best,” Iris stated stiffly.

“For you, maybe,” Daisy replied, her heart aching all the more as she looked around, observing what Iris’s bargain with the devil had earned her. A hefty bank account, all the clothes and cars and jewelry she could ever want and one of the most luxurious mansions in Charleston’s nationally recognized Historic District. “Not for me. Never for me.” But, Daisy realized, Iris was not going to apologize for that, any more than Iris would apologize for pretending to be nothing more than Daisy’s older sister all these years.

Deciding she’d learned as much as she was liable to learn at that juncture, Daisy stood and headed for the door. Iris followed her as far as the front door, before stopping and drawing her folded cardigan closely to her bare shoulders. “Daisy, for pity’s sake. Think of the family’s standing in the community and don’t do anything to create a scandal.”

Daisy shot the woman who had given birth to and then promptly disclaimed her a hard look over her shoulder. “A little too late for that, don’t you think?” As far as she was concerned, the damage—and to be honest there had been a hell of a lot of it—had already been done.

JACK GRANGER HAD BEEN hoping and praying Daisy Templeton wouldn’t show up at Tom Deveraux’s mansion that evening. He didn’t want the impossible task of trying to control the wayward heiress. But it appeared it had fallen to him, nevertheless. Trying to ignore how attractive she looked in the short, pink-floral sundress, fringed suede knee-high boots and dangly turquoise bead earrings, he blocked her path. She was a good bit shorter than he, slender and fit, with sexy legs. Her eyes were blue like a stormy ocean and her sun-kissed blond hair tumbled down around her fair freckled shoulders in loose waves. Her profile was flawless, her chin hitched in determination. She was also eight years younger than he was, in actual years—probably a lot more than that when it came to life experience. And that, plus a lot of other things, made the capricious beauty clearly off-limits to him, Jack reminded himself sternly as he tore his eyes from her soft naturally pink lips. Bracing himself for the emotional argument likely to come, he inclined his head in the direction of Tom Deveraux’s Historic District home and told her flatly, “You can’t go in there.”

Daisy’s eyes gleamed with audacity as she stomped even nearer. “Oh, really.” She propped her hands on her hips. “Says who?”

Jack was close enough to inhale her orange-blossom fragrance. “Says me,” he told her firmly.

“Funny.” Daisy’s soft, kissable lips curved into a taunting smile as she swept around him and headed for the front door. “The last I heard, Jack Granger, you were legal counsel to Deveraux-Heyward Shipping not the bouncer.”

Jack caught up with her before she had a chance to ring the doorbell and again blocked her way. “I still am.”

“Uh-huh.” Daisy looked him up and down in a way that stirred his blood. “Then why are you here tonight, screening guests? Do you provide the same service to the airport?”

She was looking at him with a mixture of suspicion and disdain. So she remembered seeing him at the baggage claim. What she didn’t know was that he had been at the airport only to see if she had made it safely back to the States, and what—if anything—she planned to do upon her return from Switzerland. When she had gone straight to see her sister, Iris, he had hoped—unrealistically, he now saw—that she would leave any confrontations with Tom Deveraux until tomorrow.

“Why aren’t you inside with the others?” Daisy continued. “Why were you sitting out here in your SUV watching that mansion and that party—” Daisy pointed to the Deveraux clan, visible through the windows, milling about in the formal front rooms “—like some little match boy looking in?”

Because that’s exactly what I am, Jack thought. A kid from the docks, who just works for these people. Aware he’d get nowhere if he let his emotions get the best of him, Jack did his best to contain a weary sigh. He faced Daisy stoically. “Because Tom asked me to try and talk to you if you showed up here tonight.” Looking for trouble.

Bitterness clouded Daisy’s Deveraux-blue eyes. “And why did he think I might do that?” she asked in a dangerously soft, sexy voice. She regarded Jack carefully, as if trying to gauge how much he knew. And whether or not it might be possible to get him on her side, instead of his boss’s.

As the seconds—and silence—drew out, Jack ignored the vulnerability suddenly emanating from Daisy. He had a job to do here—it was Tom he was protecting, not her. Jack shrugged and continued to keep his own emotions out of it. “Tom knew you were headed back from Switzerland. That you’d be tired—” and perhaps overwrought “—when you got here.” Not to mention confused, angry, hurt.

Jack had been instructed to provide the strong shoulder to cry on and the voice of reason until Tom could get to Daisy and deal with her tomorrow once she settled down.

“Then he also knows what I found out while I was over there.” Daisy’s vulnerability disappeared as suddenly as it had bloomed. “Perfect.”

Jack ignored the reproach in her tone. “It’s not what it seems, Daisy.”

“Of course not.” Daisy shook her head in mute disapproval. “Which is why Tom Deveraux is suddenly so desperate to keep me away from him and his family.” Daisy reached around Jack and punched the doorbell. Seconds later, Theresa Owens, Tom’s housekeeper answered the door. She was wearing a navy-blue uniform-dress with a white collar. Her auburn hair was drawn into a knot on the top of her head. “I need to see Tom,” Daisy said without preamble.

Theresa hesitated. “This really isn’t a good time, Ms. Templeton. The family is having a private dinner this evening.”

Daisy smiled in a way Jack didn’t begin to trust. “You mean they’re all here,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Even the former Mrs. Deveraux?”

“Yes.”

“Splendid.” Head held high, Daisy pushed past Theresa and advanced through the foyer.

Jack swore silently to himself. Short of dashing after Daisy, tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her out to the curb, there was no way to stop her from making a scene. All he could do now was try to limit the damage. “I’ll handle this,” Jack promised Theresa as he strode after Daisy, who was already following the laughter and marching into the double drawing room, where, from the looks and sound of it, a wonderful, warm and intimate family party was going on.

Tom’s oldest son, Chase, was the first Deveraux to spot Daisy. Champagne in hand, the magazine editor made his way toward her. “Hey, Daisy,” Chase greeted her cheerfully with a kiss on the cheek. “You’re just in time to toast the newest members of the Deveraux clan. Amy and Gabe’s wife, Maggy, are both pregnant. And the entire family is, as you can imagine, thrilled to be expanding.”

Jack noted that news only made Daisy’s expression turn more turbulent. “Too bad that hasn’t always been the case.”

Chase’s forehead creased. As did Amy’s, Gabe’s and Mitch’s, all of whom were standing within earshot. Watching, it was all Jack could do not to groan out loud. There was no telling how Tom’s children with Grace were going to react to the news of their father’s digression years ago. Chase was probably the best bet for understanding. The oldest son, and publisher of the popular Modern Man magazine, had sowed a few wild oats of his own before he married his childhood sweetheart and settled down. Mitch was a possibility, too. The most like his dad, he was a pragmatic businessman, who could always be counted on to see through the murkiness of any situation, get to the bottom line and do whatever was necessary to correct the situation. Third-oldest son Gabe was known for his compassion, and as a critical-care physician, he was no stranger to people’s most private problems. Amy, the baby of the family and the owner of her own redecorating business, was always pulling for a reunification of her divorced parents, despite past hurts. Might not want to start with her, Jack thought.

Unfortunately, even if Tom and Grace’s children eventually understood and accepted what had happened years ago, Tom’s ex-wife, recently unemployed network television mornings-news show host, Grace Deveraux, probably would not. All of which, of course, Jack’s boss, Tom Deveraux, realized. Which was why Tom was glaring at Jack, as if he couldn’t believe the way Jack had let him down, now, of all times.

Desperate to control the damage, Jack grabbed Daisy’s arm and pulled her against him, so her slender back was pressed against his chest. Bad enough, Jack figured, that Daisy had barged in here, uninvited, despite Theresa Owens warning this was not an appropriate time to be a drop-in guest. Tom didn’t need all four of his children, their spouses and his ex-wife, witnessing this confrontation, too. “You don’t want to do this,” Jack murmured persuasively in Daisy’s ear. “Not now. Not this way.”

“The hell I don’t!” Daisy jerked free of Jack’s staying grip and whirled to face him. Temper shimmered in her eyes. “I’ve been hidden in the shadows long enough!”

“Daisy—what are you talking about?” Amy asked, aghast. “What’s wrong?”

Tom threaded his way through the group, while Grace hung back looking, if possible, even more distressed.

Jack wrapped his arm around Daisy’s shoulders companionably and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I think you’ve made your point, now let’s go,” Jack said firmly. “I’ll make sure you get to talk to Tom alone first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather make a scene.” Daisy broke loose and strode forward, heading straight for Tom. “No more pretending, Daddy. The secret’s out.”

DAISY’S TEMPER skyrocketed as Amy regarded her father in confusion. “What secret?” Amy demanded, upset. “And why is Daisy so mad at you?”

Even more color drained from Grace’s face. A mixture of guilt and culpability shimmered in her eyes. Which meant, Daisy thought, even more hurt, that Grace had known, too. And had helped—maybe even encouraged—Daisy’s birth father to walk away…and pretend that Daisy had never existed. Or was she the reason Tom and Grace had eventually divorced? Daisy wondered. Or had there been other, even more devastating problems, too?

“Daisy and I need to talk privately,” Tom told everyone in the room sternly.

Deep in her heart, Daisy had hoped that there was a highly romantic and even laudable reason Tom Deveraux had never lifted a finger to rescue her from her unhappy childhood. In the wake of the cold disapproval emanating from him, however, the guilt and the grim resignation, her misguided hopes fled. Like it or not, she had to face it. She had been willfully and wrongly abandoned—by both her birth mother and birth father. Even worse, to this day, neither of her real parents wanted her in their lives. She was to Tom and Grace and Iris, and God only knew who else, exactly what she was to Richard and Charlotte Templeton—a sordid, unwanted reminder of a time best forgotten. Well, no more. She was tired of feeling ashamed, of being blamed for something that was definitely not her doing! “Don’t look to me to perpetuate any more dirty little secrets,” Daisy warned the man who, more than anyone, was responsible for her lifelong unhappiness. Because she wasn’t going to do it!

Mitch frowned as he struggled to make sense of what was going on. “Have you been drinking?” he demanded of Daisy, striding closer.

“Not yet. But as they say, the evening is young,” Daisy continued sarcastically, picking up the bottle of champagne and waving it in front of her like a red flag in front of a bull. “And we have much to celebrate.”

Gabe moved forward and just as promptly removed the heavy dark-green bottle from her hand. “Look, Daisy,” Gabe said, setting the magnum aside, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you’re obviously upset, and—”

Daisy gritted her teeth, her anger and disillusionment building to an untenable degree. There were times when she welcomed Gabe’s inherently good nature—this wasn’t one of them. “That a medical opinion, brother Gabe, or just a personal observation?” she asked with a saccharine smile.

Trembling visibly, Grace murmured, “God help us,” and sank into a chair, covering her face with her hands.

Tom gave Jack another look, even sterner and more commanding than before. No words were necessary between the two men. Daisy knew what the orders were—Jack was to get her out of the house, pronto. Ever the faithful, loyal Deveraux-Heyward Shipping Company employee, Jack slid an arm around Daisy’s waist and held her tight. “Obviously, Daisy is in no condition to be talking to anyone here tonight. So Daisy and I are going to be leaving now,” Jack announced firmly but pleasantly.

“Not before I tell everyone what I came to tell them,” Daisy said, looking around at the tense, wary expressions on her half siblings’ faces. “That I’m Tom Deveraux’s love child.”

AMY GASPED, Jack grimaced, Grace moaned. All three of Tom’s sons were shocked, silent. “It wasn’t love,” Tom corrected Daisy impatiently.

Yet another illusion down the drain. “A mistake,” Daisy guessed.

“And there’s no proof you’re even my child,” Tom continued, even more defensively.

Daisy reeled at his unwillingness to claim her as his, even now. She knew what a loving father Tom was to his other children, that being a father was one of the primary joys of his life, aside from his work at Deveraux-Heyward Shipping. It was evident in everything he did and said. Hell, he’d even been a surrogate father to his housekeeper, Theresa Owen’s illegitimate child, Bridgett, over the years, out of nothing more than the goodness of his heart. Which made his refusal to claim her, Daisy thought, all the more stinging. Shoulders stiffening, Daisy regarded Tom resentfully. “You’re denying you slept with my birth mother?”

Tom’s jaw clenched. “It was a one-night fling.”

Like that excused and explained everything, Daisy thought even more furiously.

“Daddy! You cheated on Mom?” Amy said.

Tom shook his head and released a short, aggravated breath. “It was one night,” he defended himself impatiently.

“But once, as they say, is enough,” Grace added in a low voice thick with tears.

“Man, Dad.” Chase shook his head.

“I don’t believe this!” Gabe murmured in horror.

Mitch was silent, tense as he struggled to make sense of it, too.

“But you knew you made Iris pregnant,” Daisy continued probing.

Amy blinked and whirled to face Daisy. “Iris…?” she echoed.

“Templeton-Hayes,” Daisy supplied the rest. “My sister. At least the woman I always thought was my adopted sister. Turns out she was really my birth mother and my adopted parents—Charlotte and Richard Templeton—are really my biological grandparents. And Connor is my uncle not my adopted brother. Funny, huh?” Not waiting for a response from the shocked half siblings around her, Daisy turned back to Tom, still struggling to find a way to obtain her own peace of mind. “Which brings us back to you. Why did you turn your back on me?” And please, Daisy prayed silently, let it be good.

Tom uttered another long, tortured sigh. “Because I never knew for certain that you were mine.”

“You never asked?” Daisy regarded him incredulously. How was that possible? A wealthy, self-assured, successful CEO, he wasn’t afraid of anything. And he certainly wasn’t shy about going after what he wanted! Tom ran his hands through his short, gray-brown hair and began to pace. “Iris went to Europe to learn the antique business, after our interlude. It seemed like a good move, a way to get both our lives back on track, and I wished her well.” Tom paused and frowned. “It wasn’t until Richard and Charlotte unexpectedly and suddenly adopted a baby some nine months later that I realized it was possible she’d become pregnant during the encounter and you were mine. So I confronted Iris.”

“And…?” Daisy questioned impatiently.

Tom shrugged his broad shoulders restively. “She denied ever having a child. I asked for a blood test anyway.” Tom scowled, recalling, “She said I would have to sue her publicly to get it, and if I did, she would not only refuse to take the test but countersue me for slander.” He looked at the assembled group, pleading for understanding. “I was trying to put my marriage to Grace back together, Iris was engaged to be married to Randolph Hayes IV in what was shaping up to be the wedding of the year. You were well taken care of, Daisy, with people who loved you and wanted the best for you. It just seemed right to let the matter drop.” Tom paused again, looking even more conflicted. “Even now, I don’t know that you’re actually my child, Daisy. Just that you could be.”

“Well, I am your child,” Daisy countered hotly, incensed that Tom Deveraux could be trying to duck his responsibility, even now, when she had a red accordion file full of proof sitting on the front seat of her car. “At least according to the nuns at the convent in Switzerland, where my mother stayed when she was pregnant.” At Tom’s blank look, Daisy continued explaining, “Iris confided in one of them. Sister Agatha knew all about you. How you led her on, flirted with her for weeks and weeks, and then—one night—took her to bed, and then afterward, after you got caught by your wife, told her to pretend it had never happened.”

The skin across Tom’s cheekbones stretched taut as he glared at Daisy. “You’re making it simple. It wasn’t.”

“Oh, I think it was,” Grace interjected bitterly, standing and addressing everyone in the room for the first time. “Your father screwed around. He got caught. It happens all the time, especially to men of his ilk.”

Chase looked at his mother, surmising humorlessly, “Dad’s infidelity is why you two divorced, isn’t it?”

Tears gleaming in her eyes, Grace nodded and continued matter-of-factly, “Lord knows I tried to put it behind me. I really did. But after that, after I walked in on him and Iris, I could never trust him again.”

Silence fell as everyone contemplated what an ugly scene that must have been, both during and after the philandering.

Mitch looked at Daisy curiously. “What does your birth mother, er, uh, Iris, and the rest of your family—the Templetons—have to say about this?”

“I haven’t talked to Charlotte, Richard or Connor yet,” Daisy said quietly.

“Why not?” Gabe asked gently.

Daisy threw her hands up in mute frustration. “Because they lied to me for years. All of them.” She looked at Tom again, aware there was a part of her, regardless of how angry, that already thought of him as her father. Just as Richard and Charlotte, who had adopted and reluctantly reared her and guided her through childhood, would always remain Mother and Father to her, too. Daisy sighed, and aware Tom was still waiting, still struggling to understand her motivation as desperately as she was trying to comprehend his, continued with a weariness that came straight from her soul, “And I wanted to hear your side of the story first. Now that I have—” Unable to go on, Daisy shook her head at Tom. Her throat aching unbearably, she turned and headed blindly for the door. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she mumbled. And she fled.

TOM FOLLOWED THEM BOTH and stopped Jack in the front hall. Knowing he could trust the Deveraux-Heyward Shipping attorney to do whatever needed to be done, he looked Jack in the eye and told him brusquely, “Go after her. Do whatever you have to do, but stay with her and make sure she doesn’t do anything even more foolish or self-destructive than what she did here tonight.” Tom inclined his head toward the elegant front room where the rest of the family was still gathered. “I’ll take care of things here, and then catch up with both of you later.”

Jack nodded his understanding and headed out after Daisy.

Relieved that was going to be taken care of, Tom strode back into the double drawing room. One mistake. Who the hell would have known one slip could have blown his entire life to smithereens? But it had, and now, judging from the looks on the faces of his kids and their spouses, and his ex-wife, it was about to get much worse. Grace was seated on the antique sofa, her features tight with resentment. Their children were gathered around her, while their spouses mingled uncertainly in the background, not sure whether to stay or leave, only knowing—like Tom and Grace—that this was one hell of a mess the Deveraux were in.

“I’m sorry about that,” Tom said.

“You should be!” Amy cried, as always, the most emotional of the group. She dabbed furiously at the tears on her cheeks. “I can’t believe you would do something like that!” she fumed resentfully. Beside her, Grace seemed to concur.

“Was there just the one indiscretion?” Gabe asked warily, struggling to understand.

Chase regarded Tom with his customary cheekiness. “Or should we brace ourselves for other illegitimate heirs, to liven up our family gatherings?”

Tom glared at his sons. Gabe’s lack of faith and Chase’s sarcasm weren’t helping. Before Tom could censure them, however, his second-oldest son Mitch put in his two cents’. “Chase and Gabe have legitimate questions,” Mitch pointed out, taking his usual businesslike approach. “News like this could affect our reputation in the community. There are some who might not want to do business with Deveraux-Heyward Shipping if we’re embroiled in one scandal after another.”

“There won’t be any more scandals,” Tom said, disappointed in his family’s seemingly united stand against him. “Nor will there be any more illegitimate children showing up on our doorstep. Now, if you kids will excuse us, your mother and I have a lot to talk about.”

As soon as everyone left, Tom closed the doors to the double drawing room, and turned to Grace. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. It was lame, but he didn’t know what else to say.

Grace glared at him with years of pent-up resentment, the look in her eyes making him feel about two inches tall. “You should be, you son of a bitch,” she retorted just as quietly.

Tom wished she would just haul off and slug him and get it over with, instead of continuing to punish him, day after day, year after year. “Don’t hold anything back,” he advised just as sarcastically, wondering how much longer Grace was going to continue to make him pay for this.

Since the divorce, they’d been civil to one another at family functions, for the sake of the kids. Every time they had tried to do more than that, either be friends or something more, the issue of his infidelity would come up and they’d end up fighting again. Tom was tired of the discord. He sensed Grace was, too. But as for how to move on, move past this…

Grace stood and went over to the table where she had left her handbag. Her cheeks pink with distress, she picked it up and head bent, began to rummage through it. Tom studied her, thinking how pretty his former wife looked in the silky turquoise pantsuit. Her blond hair was much shorter these days—worn in attractive layers that framed her face and the nape of her neck—but her figure was still trim, her beautifully girl-next-door face unlined. As always, when he was near her, he found himself wanting to nurture and care for and protect her. Not that she would allow it. Not after what he had done.

“I always knew this was going to happen someday,” Grace said.

Grace glared at him. “I hoped it never would.” She fished out her keys and held them in the palm of her hand. “What are you going to do about Daisy?”

Tom shrugged. Now that he knew what Daisy thought was the truth, he hadn’t a clue. Daisy was one troubled young woman. Tempestuous, wild and unpredictable, and already the talk of Charleston, even without this revelation. The Templetons had spent years trying to control her. To no avail. Tom wondered if what Daisy had been told by Sister Agatha was true. Was Daisy his child? Or had Iris been with someone else in that time frame? And even if he was Daisy’s father, Tom admitted to himself, would he have any better luck, trying to parent Daisy, than Richard and Charlotte Templeton had had, during their tenure, as Daisy’s adopted mom and dad? Aware Grace was still waiting for his answer, Tom said bluntly, “I don’t know. I’ll give her until morning to simmer down, and then see if I can reason with her. And go from there.”

Grace arched her elegant eyebrows in skeptical fashion. “Good luck with that.”

He would need it, Tom admitted. And even then it might not be enough. Just as his apologies over the years hadn’t been enough. “Grace…”

She paused en route to the foyer. Wheeling halfway to face him, she said, “What?”

“You can’t leave.” Tom held out a beseeching hand. “Not like this.”

Grace shook her head, refusing his plea to stay, and at least try to work things out. She regarded him with a mixture of contempt and displeasure. “Daisy isn’t the only one who needs time to cool off.”

GRACE KNEW she shouldn’t have walked out on Tom like that. She should have stayed and tried to work out a way to deal with this very explosive situation. Publicly, it could be disastrous, if word got out right now. She had a new TV show in the works. She didn’t need this kind of bad publicity in the wake of her firing from Rise and Shine, America!

It had been bad enough going from one of the most watched women on morning television, from the coveted cohost position she had held for fifteen years, to being unemployed. But now this…

Grace didn’t know if she could handle living in the same city with Tom again, if she had to confront his illegitimate child—and therefore his infidelity—day after day after day.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to forget and forgive.

But that she couldn’t.

Lord knew she had tried. But every time he had touched her or tried to kiss her or hold her, she’d ended up flashing back to the day she had found him making love with Iris. Every time she had run into Daisy, or Iris, or any member of the Templeton family, she had experienced the same sick feeling inside her. Along with the feeling that she would never be smart or sophisticated or sexy enough to hold Tom. Not in any real or lasting way. Because if Tom could cheat on her once, the practical side of Grace knew, he could cheat on her again. And eventually, after nearly nine years of trying to work things out, and failing, she had known their marriage had to end. So she’d told him she wanted a divorce. And, in the end, he’d had no choice but to give her what she wanted, because she wasn’t coming back, not to him, and not to his bed.

Lately, of course, that had begun to change. In the wake of her job loss and public humiliation, she had flirted with the idea of trying again. Seeing if maybe she and Tom couldn’t find a way to work things out, to resurrect the love they had once shared. But now, with the resurgence of Daisy in their lives—as his illegitimate daughter no less—she knew she had just been fooling herself. She had to move on. Put him out of her heart and mind forever. And there was only one way, Grace knew, that she would ever be able to do that.