Читать книгу Unexpected Legacy - Jacqueline Diamond - Страница 17

Eight

Garrett knew that their half brother, Emerson Wells, harbored no love for the Gages. Even though the Gage patriarch had apparently been screwing Emerson’s mother for years, he’d refused to recognize Emerson as his son and bought the woman off to stay quiet and away from them—something the family had discovered when their father’s lawyer, upon his death, disclosed the existence of another heir who could contest part of the inheritance.

He never did, though Eleanor Gage had thought it wise to pay him a few million dollars to go away for good.

Naturally, if Emerson had half the clout and pride of a Gage—which he apparently did—he would have no intention of ever catering to a Gage’s wishes. So he’d denied Landon’s summons six times during the past several weeks, something that didn’t surprise Garrett. But now, they were running out of time to make concrete decisions about the Clarks Communications deal, and Garrett finally had it with begging the imbecile for a meeting. This limbo was putting everyone on edge, especially him, since not only his two brothers, but Cassandra herself, seemed to believe Garrett was the only one who could make the deal possible now.

He’d been so close to just saying, “To hell with it, I’ll do it.”

Kate would never have him anyway.

And yet a little part of him knew that he could never stop trying. Not now. Not when he knew that she wanted him, knew the delicate feel of her body against his, knew the fragrance of that devilishly sexy red hair. Kate might not know it yet, and hell, Garrett might have spent his entire life fighting it, but they belonged to one another.

The recent times they’d seen one another at his mother’s Sunday brunches, they’d spoken of trivial things, their last argument forgotten—or at least, not mentioned. But the air crackled between them. Her eyes seemed bluer when they rested on him. They softened when she saw him. He wasn’t blind to it, couldn’t be blind to those looks anymore. He had to do something, and fast.

So that’s how he’d found himself sitting in his office yesterday, dialing Emerson’s mother. He was surprised that she’d picked up after a few rings.

“This is Garrett Gage, and I realize Emerson doesn’t want to hear from us, but it’s imperative we talk to him. I assure you he’ll be happy to hear us out, if you could—”

The woman had hung up.

But Garrett hadn’t given up. He’d then punched in some numbers and got Emerson’s secretary on the line. After a moment of silence, she’d put him on hold. When she finally came back, she’d reluctantly conceded, “He’ll give you ten minutes tomorrow morning.”

Now, as he presented himself at his half brother’s office downtown, he marveled at how well his brother seemed to be doing for himself. Garrett strolled through the floor containing the executive offices and found his brother’s secretary waiting for him. “Mr. Wells will be here shortly, Mr. Gage. You can go right in.”

He grabbed a mint from the plate on her desk as she continued typing on her keyboard, and instead of taking a seat, he paced around while the woman continued typing. After taking a phone call, she hung up and left her desk, and Garrett knew exactly where he would wait for his brother. He strolled directly into the sumptuous office with the plaque Emerson Wells, President on the door. He took the seat in front of Emerson’s desk and laced his fingers behind his head as he waited, taking in his surroundings with an admiring eye. Apparently his half brother appreciated art—he had a vitrine full of pre-Columbian artifacts that stretched across an entire wall. There were no photographs on his desk; in fact, there were hardly any personal effects at all.

After a few more minutes the man arrived, and his murderous expression told Garrett he didn’t like seeing him one bit.

But he had agreed to the appointment, at last.

Emerson sighed and crossed his arms. “Which one of the three brothers are you?”

“The middle one,” Garrett said.

Emerson’s expression softened somewhat at the news, and for a moment, Garrett even sensed that he’d dropped his guard a little. His voice was still wary, though. “So you’re the one who was there when Father died.”

Garrett’s insides went icy cold at the reminder, but he still managed a curt nod, though Emerson hadn’t seemed to phrase it as a question anyway.

“He say anything about me?” Emerson asked, and Garrett flashed back to the sidewalk, the street, the concert they’d just come from that night.

Chest knotting up painfully, Garrett dragged in a long, steadying breath. “He tried to speak, but he couldn’t get much out.”

The talk about his father made the memory so goddamned fresh now, his stomach roiled. He thought back to Dave Devaney’s last breath, and to Kate. The way her face had crumpled when the police had brought Garrett home and he’d told everyone that both men were dead.

Kate wanted a family. A family she’d never had, because of him.

There hadn’t been a night since she’d said that when he hadn’t recalled her words. He hadn’t been able to face her a moment longer. She’d torn him open and apart, and for weeks he’d been grappling for ways in which he could ever make it up to her. Would he never be able to put it behind him? Was she leaving because Garrett reminded her too much of what she couldn’t have? Or because she’d never forgive him for repeatedly screwing up her life?

Shaking the disturbing thought aside, he stood up and stuck his hands into his pants pockets, assuming a casual stance as they faced each other. “I can tell you want me gone, so I’ll happily drop the chitchat. My brothers and I want to make a deal with you. We’re not interested in making friends, and we know you aren’t either. What we’re interested in is business, and judging by the luxurious surroundings and the Picasso on the wall, you’re a man who thinks of business just as we do. Am I right?”

Though he was dark-haired like Garrett, Emerson’s eyes weren’t the same. He had Landon’s silver eyes instead, and they glowed eerily with warning. “My father ran me over like a goddamned mongrel without a tail. I won’t allow the same from you.”

“I’m sorry that he felt he had to,” Garrett said, but he understood what his father was trying to protect. He hadn’t wanted his wife to ever find out he’d strayed. So he’d cut off his illegitimate son and lover from his life, only to die so soon afterward that his lawyers had still been paying off the woman for her silence when it happened.

It had been tragic, to watch his mother find out she’d been betrayed. When she could do nothing about it.

She’d been broken at the funeral—crying nonstop at first, already having found out from the accounts, and the lawyers, her husband had not been the faithful, loving man she’d always imagined. Garrett had had his own grief on his shoulders, and he’d blamed himself for the pain he saw on her mother’s face. His mother would have never found out about Emerson, or another woman, if her husband hadn’t died so abruptly and she hadn’t been forced to take over the financials of the family. The records of money sent to another woman’s account, regularly, sparked alarm, confusion, until finally, the truth had sunk in.

“He freaking ruined my life. He broke my mother’s heart and mine, too,” Emerson grated, his teeth tightly clamped as he curled his fingers into fists.

Garrett was taken aback by the hard anger in his half brother’s eyes. Would Cassandra Clarks be able to handle being married to this guy for six months? He appeared only half-civilized, and dangerous, to boot.

“Emerson, I’m sorry if the measures he took were not to your liking, but your mother liked them very well,” Garrett said. He was referring to the three million-dollar payments she’d received for her silence—after his father died. Not to mention that he’d already been providing for her to have quite a healthy living while he was still alive. Emerson couldn’t have been more than twelve at the time. Julian had barely been ten. Garrett had been fifteen and Landon eighteen.

If their father hadn’t died, Emerson would be walking the streets without the Gage brothers ever knowing he existed.

Maybe they should have tried to contact him. Maybe Emerson resented that, too. But just seeing the grief on their mother’s face had been enough to make them want to keep him as far away from the family as they could.

Maybe, all hell would break loose when Mother once again realized they were dealing with him. But Landon had said that he’d take care of Mother. Enough time had passed that hopefully she’d look beyond her dead husband’s transgressions at this point. And their mother was shrewd when it came to business, too.

“Will you meet with me and my brothers to discuss our business proposition? We really need your help.”

Impatient, Garrett waited for Emerson’s answer, but his half brother only glared at him as he slowly headed over to resume his place behind his desk.

Emerson was more rugged than all his brothers, and even with his well-groomed appearance in that gray suit, there was an air of isolation around his tall figure that made Garrett somehow relate to him. He knew that Emerson was somewhere between Julian and Garrett in age, so that put him around twenty-eight or twenty-nine. His hair was dark as Garrett’s, his face as square and tan, but personality-wise, he seemed to be a wild card.

“I’ll give you a half hour,” Emerson finally conceded, his expression unreadable as he dropped into his chair and powered on his computer. “But not today. I have too much to do.”

“Fine,” he agreed. “Tomorrow then. Be at the Daily at nine a.m.”

“No can do. I’m afraid I can only do it Friday.”

Friday wasn’t ideal. It was three days from now and only a day before the wedding. But Garrett ground his molars, shut the hell up and took the offer. Something in Emerson’s angry expression when he looked up and gestured at the door to signal the conservation was over told Garrett this offer was the best he’d get from him.

“Don’t be late,” Garrett growled as he left.

* * *

“Kate, I’m calling and calling and no answer, then I come to get the things for the shower and they’re not even baked! What is wrong with you? It’s ten in the morning and we have work to do. This is our last gig before we’re swept away with all this wedding stuff. You didn’t talk to anyone all weekend. What’s the matter? It’s Tuesday. A new day awaits!”

Kate groaned when a chirpy Beth yanked open her bedroom curtains and a shaft of sunlight sliced between Kate’s eyelids. She waved a weak hand in the air and rolled onto her stomach.

“Go away, Beth.”

“No, I’m not going away. You, my sleepy little chef, will stand up, take a shower and—”

“I’m pregnant,” Kate groaned.

“—get to work. What did you just say?”

Kate covered her face with the pillow and screamed into its feathery depths while kicking off the sheets tangled around her ankles. “I’m pregnant. God! I’m such a fool. Fool, fool, fool.”

“You’re pregnant as in...you’re with child?”

Kate sat up and cracked open her puffy eyes. “Three tests, Beth. Three. And they all agree on the fact that I’m preggo. What am I going to do?”

Sighing in misery, she covered her face with her hands, refusing to answer the string of startled, quick-fire questions Beth bombarded her with next. “Well, whose is it? When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me? When did you find out, damn it? Are you sure?”

Oh, Beth. She was like a bright little shooting star today—a bright little shooting star in Kate’s dark gray world.

Was Kate sure? Yes, she was sure. The test stick couldn’t get any pinker! The two lines, almost neon in their brightness, had been clear enough to spin Kate into a whirlwind of despair all through the night.

While miserably pondering what to do, Kate heard Beth shuffle around the room, no doubt in search of the pregnancy tests. Beth was big on evidence and that sort of thing. This came from being married to a douche bag before she’d fallen in love with Landon.

When her friend couldn’t seem to find them, Kate muttered, “They’re in the trash, Beth.”

“Oh.”

Beth disappeared into the bathroom. Kate glumly wondered what Garrett would do when he eventually found out she was carrying his baby. She remembered how handsome he’d looked two Sundays ago at brunch. He had been thoughtful and dark as sin, and staring at her so intently and so intimately, Kate had barely been able to eat anything. She’d felt eaten by him. He’d stood to follow her when she’d gone to pretend to fill her plate at the buffet, and she’d felt his hand at the small of her back. “You all right?” he’d murmured.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve been so busy with work, I keep wondering if you’re avoiding me.”

“I’m sorry. We can talk at the rehearsal dinner...that is, if you don’t...if you’re not bringing...”

“I won’t bring anyone if you won’t,” he said, staring at her intently.

“I won’t,” she assured him.

“Then I won’t,” he said back.

And oh, how she wished she had the courage to say she was sorry for what she’d said to him that day in her apartment, but the continued talk she heard from Molly and Beth regarding the Clarks and Gage wedding was driving her insane with jealousy and anger.

It killed her. How could he? How dare he tell her he wanted her in his bed while he was planning his brilliant and very convenient wedding? The desire that had whipped them up like tornadoes had now dropped them hard on land, and the whirlwind and the emotions in the air had been reduced to nothing.

Nothing but a one-night stand, that’s what it had been.

But of course, good ol’ Murphy’s law had come for a visit and made sure Kate got pregnant.

And now they were going to have a child together.

“Yes. You’re pregnant,” Beth agreed when she came back out of the bathroom.

A silence settled bleakly in the room.

You’re pregnant....

Her chest gripped with yearning. Along with the inexplicable fear of dying alone, without a family or anyone to love her, Kate had harbored another kind of fear for years. It was one of those little fears that took root in you and you never really knew why you had them—only that you did.

She’d feared she’d prove infertile when she grew up, and that she’d never be able to have the family she’d always longed for. She’d imagined, on her best days, that if she ever got pregnant, the thrill she’d feel would obliterate anything else.

Now, maybe a little kernel of thrill had taken up residence somewhere, in some quiet, motherly part of her, but it was too hidden to recognize.

Kate had proven fertile, yes. Physically capable of having a family, yes.

But she had conceived this baby with Garrett Gage.

And her considerable pride already smarted like hell since she knew she would have to tell him. Especially after this past month, when they’d both pretended at the family Sunday brunches that they were still just friends.

Kate saw that Beth had her cell phone in her hand and leaped out of bed. “No! What are you doing?”

Beth held the phone out of Kate’s reach, her expression stern as a concerned mother’s. “I’m calling a doctor. Unless you want me to call Garrett, Kate. It’s his, isn’t it? You look pale, Kate. I think—”

“Call anyone and die. Do you hear me?”

The thought of Garrett knowing this so soon, before she had time to build up her emotional walls against him...the thought of him finding out that just the thought of carrying his baby inside her made her queasy and restless...and the thought of him demanding to marry her out of duty and honor and all he held dearer than Kate...

No. God, it was worse than she could imagine.

Her worst nightmare come true.

Beth paused when she noticed the angry flush spreading up Kate’s neck. Lips pursed, she hung up, and started dialing again.

“No! Beth, don’t you dare.”

“I’m calling Molly, okay? We need to figure out how we’re handling this with the family. Don’t even try to stop me this time.”

Kate groaned. “Molly’s getting her paintings shipped to New York, and she’s got enough on her plate with a wedding in five days!”

“Fine, then Julian. Julian will help us with this, Kate, you know he will.”

An image of hunky, easygoing Julian, never judgmental, always one for cool-headed thoughts, flitted through her mind. Julian had always been the perfect coconspirator. Not only did he know how to stay quiet, it was his nature to.

But Kate still shook her head. “Beth, the wedding is in five days. Let’s just...drop this for now. Please. Please don’t tell anyone until I’m ready.”

Beth met her eyes dubiously. “But what are you going to do when you see Garrett at the rehearsal dinner? At the wedding? When are you going to tell him?”

“After the wedding. I can’t do it before. I want Molly to enjoy her day,” she said miserably.

“No, no, no, that’s not a good plan. It might be too late, Kate. He might be engaged by then to another woman!”

Pain wrenched through Kate’s insides. “I don’t expect him to stop his plans for me. Honestly. We could be better parents if we weren’t together than if we are forced to be together.”

“You’re afraid, Kate, and that’s okay. But you’re turning into a coward. Where’s the girl I know? The Kate I know would fight for him. Stop being afraid that he will break your heart. You’re breaking it yourself without even letting him know that he has it.”

Kate couldn’t reply.

But the words replayed in her head like an echo of a truth she wasn’t sure she was prepared to listen to when she had a pregnancy to deal with.

Was Beth right?

Was Kate so afraid of letting him in that she was running away, not from being hurt by him, but from loving him?

Oh, God. And now what was she going to do about Miami?