Helena pushed past him and rushed out the office. She’d braved it out long enough, but now she could barely see for the tears that blinded her vision. Tears for Patrick and for Brody, but most of all, tears for herself that she’d managed to fall in love with the one man on the face of the earth who’d never believe in her.
As she tore down the stairs and out the front door she realised that all the things she’d thought came first in her life came a distant second to knowing she loved and was loved in return. And if she couldn’t have that love, she would darn well have to learn to live without it. She could rebuild her life and her son’s life—brick by brick if she had to.
Suddenly it was clear that all her adult life she’d been barking up the wrong tree. Sure, it was okay to want things. But under everything remained the security of a strong and happy relationship. An equal sharing of life and love and personal philosophies.
She’d had that to an extent with Patrick but, even so, she knew in retrospect that major aspects of their relationship were missing—unbalanced. She and Mason could have those things together, had he been willing. Yet he wasn’t. He was so bent on his vendetta against her—against the wrongs he perceived she’d wreaked on him. They didn’t stand a chance. Not when he didn’t trust her. Not when he didn’t believe in her as a person, let alone as the mother of his son.
She only hoped now that she could still retain custody of Brody. Mason would enter the fray with all legal guns blazing. He’d made his stance perfectly clear. And now, with the financial evidence he’d amassed against her, she doubted she’d stand a chance in any family court. His suspicions now, intertwined with her past, would give him all the ammunition he needed.
A dry, harsh sob shook her from deep within. She could cope with starting over if she had Brody. Surely he couldn’t take Brody?
In the crisp, wet winter air she dragged one breath after another into her aching lungs. Eventually the constriction that bound her chest began to ease off, and her breathing came easier. What to do now?
She had to talk to Brody. Maybe, if he was in agreement, she could sell his share of Davies Freight to Mason on condition that he drop the custody proceedings.
But it wasn’t Davies Freight Mason was after, a little voice reminded her. It was their son.
Mason raked a weary hand through his short, cropped hair. What a day. Helena had barely uttered a word as he’d taken her home after the confrontation at the office. It drove him crazy that she continued to deny any wrongdoing. He’d have been open to discussion if she’d just been honest with him, but the evidence was damning and yet she still wouldn’t budge an inch.
He’d spent the rest of the day at Davies Freight, going over the figures again and again, searching for some clue that might show if she was telling the truth. The truth? Why would he even begin to think that she was capable of such a thing? Sure, she’d argued back, convincingly, that she was innocent. But his deep-seated mistrust of her told him a different story.
One way or another he’d been frustrated at every turn today and eventually he’d given up and headed for the oasis of his own company’s offices. He took the elevator to the top floor of the BKT building and his shoulders started to relax. Thank goodness he had staff he could rely upon to do the right thing by him and to keep things running smoothly while he split his days between here and Davies Freight.
The situation at the latter really worried him. If the business was to stay up-and-running it needed a cash infusion and it needed it right now. The thing was, who would be fool enough to get involved when the success or failure of the company was so precarious? His instincts told him it would be best to cut his losses. Wind up the company and absorb only those operations that would benefit Black Knight Transport. But there was more than that at stake.
The company was Patrick’s legacy to Brody. Patrick had often said that the boy had an old head on young shoulders and had genuinely looked forward to showing him the ropes. Could he, Mason, honour the wish of a dead man or would he simply be courting financial suicide?
As the elevator doors slid open he was no closer to finding a solution. The lights were still on in his front office and as he entered the reception room of his inner sanctum he could hear the familiar rat-a-tat-tat of his personal assistant’s fingers as they flew over the keyboard. Margaret Daniels had been with him since he’d first started the business and she’d mothered him from day one. Now widowed, and with her children grown, she frequently stayed to work late.
“Margaret, what are you still doing here? It’s past time you went home.”
“Oh, you know it’s no bother, Mr. Knight. Besides, you have an unexpected appointment waiting for you in your office.” She arched one greyed eyebrow in his direction. “When you’re finished, you have some explaining to do.”
A sinking feeling settled in his stomach. Had Helena decided to come clean? Was she waiting for him in his office to finally admit to her theft? A piece of him hoped like crazy that he was right and that he could start to put this whole episode behind him, but as he pushed open the door and saw who waited in his office his heart stuttered in his chest.
Brody.
The slender-built boy turned from Mason’s desk to face him and it was as if he was looking into a mirror—a mirror from over twenty years ago. The boy’s face, above his neatly knotted school tie, was pale but stoic, his chin held high and his black-brown eyes met Mason’s full on.
“You’re my father.”
There was no question in Brody’s voice and the shock of those three simple words stopped Mason in his tracks. Behind him he heard Margaret discreetly close the office door. Something which no doubt cost her dearly given the bald statement she couldn’t help but have overheard. He’d worry about that later. For now, there was one pressing issue to take care of, yet for some weird reason words failed him.
“I’ve known for ages, so don’t bother denying it. Dad told me just before I turned ten. He said I was lucky to have two fathers, that it was more than some boys ever got.” The boy’s shoulders squared and he stood as rigid as a post, challenging Mason to respond.
“Yes, it’s true. I am your father. I didn’t know for certain myself until today.” Mason stepped forward and put out his hand. Brody shook it like a man, but the handshake felt all wrong. Mason’s arms ached to take his son in his arms, as he’d been cheated of doing for far too many years, and acknowledge the boy as his own. He dropped Brody’s hand and gestured to the long settee against one wall.
“Take a seat. We have a lot to talk about. Not the least of which is, does your mother know you’re here?”
The boy had the grace to look shamefaced. “No, I—I kind of ran away from school. It’s just that I knew something was up. I knew Mum was stonewalling me, trying to protect me from something. The blood tests—they weren’t for glandular fever, were they? It was to prove you’re my father.”
“Yes.” Mason sat down next to his son. “We didn’t want you to know just yet. Looks like your dad had other ideas, huh?”
“He was like that. Always wanting to be one step ahead, y’know?” Brody’s eyes shone with unshed tears as he determinedly blinked them back. “I miss him.”
“Me, too. He was a great man.”
“He helped start you up, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he did. And he gave me some stiff competition until I diversified, too.”
Brody nodded. “He told me that. He said if anyone could beat him at his own game it was you. Are you going to close down Davies Freight now?”
The boy’s question shocked him. “Why would I do that?”
“It’s your only real road-transport competition. Dad reckoned you would have already done it if he hadn’t helped you get started.”
It was galling to realise, but Brody’s words were true. And he was thinking about shutting down Davies Freight, even if for an entirely different reason.
“You won’t close it down, will you? I mean, when I grow up, I’m going to run it. It�
��ll be my turn to give you stiff competition.”
The thought of mentoring his son bloomed in his chest, but the question of whether it would be at Davies Freight or not had a severe dampening effect. Given the same circumstances he wondered what Patrick would do. Would he fight to retain a flailing business, or would he read the writing on the wall and invest his energy in another direction? The answer eluded him.
Mason looked at his watch. It was late and it suddenly occurred to him that Brody’s school would be frantic by now. “I need to call your school. Let them know you’re okay.”
Brody sat back against the cushions on the couch. “Don’t worry. I asked your secretary to ring school for me.”
Mason’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “And what about your mother? Did you ask Margaret to call her, too?”
Brody squirmed a little in his seat. “No. Mum would only have yelled at me and made me go back before I got to meet you. She’s always got to do things right. It was her idea not to tell me the truth about the tests, wasn’t it?”
“She thought the news would upset you. She didn’t want you to have to deal with it so close to losing your dad.” The last word stuck in Mason’s throat.
“I’m not a baby! She should have told me!” The boy quietened a little after his outburst, sneaking a sideline look at Mason. “Are you mad at me?”
“To tell you the truth, Brody, I really don’t know.” And it was the truth. By the time his heart had resumed a normal rhythm he’d simply been blown away by the fact Brody was even in his office.
“Mum’ll be mad. I don’t suppose we can get away with not telling her?” Brody looked at Mason’s face. “Nah, I didn’t think so. So, do you want to ring her or should I?”
“Let’s just take you home and deal with it then. What do you reckon?”
The boy’s face brightened. “Yeah, that’s brilliant. She wouldn’t dream of yelling at me in front of you.”
Mason wondered if that were true. He still vividly remembered the day, not long after his mother had become so ill she could barely move from her bed, he’d taken off from school and raced home. He could still see the joy in her eyes that he’d come to look out for her, but he still felt the sting of her quiet disappointment that he’d left school to do it. She’d ordered him back to class in no uncertain terms. She’d been firm with all three of her boys that way, but they’d never doubted her love for them. Even when she grew so ill that she could no longer leave her bed.
Connor barely remembered that time. Declan had simply gotten on with the basics of looking after the family and their dad had just about worked himself to the point of exhaustion. Through it all, Mason had spent every possible minute at his mother’s side. Strange that he should think of that now. Those memories had been supplanted by other more painful ones as time had gone by.
He stood up. “C’mon, let’s go. She’s got enough on her plate right now without worrying about you.”
The lights in the house were blazing as they drove up the drive to the front door. Before the car’s engine had even stopped Helena was flying out the door toward the passenger door. She yanked the door open and pulled Brody from the car and into her arms. She hugged him so tight Mason thought the boy would suffocate, before pushing him away from her and holding him at arms length.
“I rang your school to talk to you and they said you’d gone. Oh my God, I was so worried about you. What were you thinking? You know you can’t just up and leave like that whenever you want to.” There was no mistaking the fear in her voice. The fact that Brody was perfectly safe didn’t begin to touch the terror she’d obviously gone through.
“I’m sorry, Mum.” Brody hung his head.
Helena stared at her son hard, then shook her head before turning her eyes on Mason.
“And you. Why did you have to get involved? Couldn’t you wait before starting your campaign to take him from me?”
“It’s not his fault. I went to him,” Brody protested. “If you’re going to be mad, be mad at me.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, young man. I am thoroughly mad at you. But I’ll deal with you later. Go inside, now.” Her tone brooked no argument.
Suddenly Mason was seeing a side of Helena Davies he’d never seen before. The lioness with her cub. It was an aspect of her he’d never considered. The front door slammed with a hollow thud as Brody shut himself inside. If anything, his action made Helena’s spine stiffen even further.
“Explain yourself,” she demanded.
Mason felt the familiar anger that always simmered beneath the surface when he was around her begin to bubble to the surface.
“Explain myself? I had nothing to do with it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You told me this morning you were going for custody of Brody. You had to have talked to him. Why else would he have run away from school like that? Couldn’t you have waited? Couldn’t you have damn well let me handle my son my way?”
He wanted to argue back, to point out that Brody was his son too. Yet there was an edge to her fury that hovered on a distress so deep it forced him to hold back the words he wanted to shout in defence.
Instead, he spoke quietly. “Brody was waiting for me at my office. I had no idea he’d be there.”
“You expect me to believe that? You never just accept what happens around you, Mason Knight—you make things happen.”
“I’m flattered by your observation, but in this case you’re wrong.” Mason looked toward the house just in time to catch the movement of a net curtain in one of the downstairs windows. The boy was obviously watching. “It seems that Patrick beat us both to the gun.”
“Patrick?”
“He told Brody the truth just over a year ago.”
Helena’s face paled in the reflective glare of the outside lights. “He told Brody? Why?”
Mason sighed heavily. “Goodness knows what was behind Patrick’s thinking. God knows how he even knew it was me and not some other random guy you might have slept with.”
She took a step back as if he’d physically struck her and he instantly felt shame for what he’d said.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was uncalled for.”
“But it’s what you think, isn’t it? To you, the test results only confirmed that you are Brody’s father, but deep down you thought he was some Russian roulette baby. That he could have been anybody’s. Not just yours or Patrick’s.” She crossed her arms defensively across her body, as if by doing so she could somehow shield herself—as if she couldn’t bear to take another emotional blow from him. “I didn’t deliberately keep the truth from you about Brody because I truly didn’t know. You’re not the only one that Patrick lied to by omission. We’re in this together. We could have something here, Mason. Something special. We already share a child, we could share so much more. But none of that matters, does it? No matter what I say or do, you won’t ever believe me, will you?”
Words choked in Mason’s throat. He honestly didn’t know what to say. Everything concrete told him he couldn’t trust her but a tiny niggle in the region of his chest urged him to listen to her words and to seek the truth in them. He hissed an expletive under his breath.
The crunch of her footsteps on the driveway as she walked back to the house told him he’d had his chance to speak and lost it, and with that knowledge came the weight of realisation that with his silence he’d lost far, far more.
Ten
Mason paced the confines of his study in his home nestled on the side of Mount Hobson in Auckland’s prestigious suburb of Remuera. The ice in his shot of whiskey melted, unheeded, and the lights reflected in the distance did little to soothe his fractured thoughts.
Just when had Helena managed to creep under his skin so far that he’d begun to think she might be telling the truth? He threw himself into the deep button-back chair positioned by the lit fire and stared, mesmerised by the flames licking and dancing over the wood.
He didn’t want to believe she might be right,
but again and again her words echoed in his mind.
We already share a child, we could share so much more.
What would it be like, he wondered, to share a life with her? He looked around the study, his hideaway when he was at home. On the mantel he had framed shots of his family and the walls displayed the work of his favourite New Zealand artists. The furniture in here was nothing but the best, like everything he surrounded himself with. But even so, his picture-perfect residence was lacking in the warmth that would make it a home. It was little more than another testament to his success.
He’d worked hard to be where he was today. He’d accumulated so much and now stood poised on the brink of diversifying across the Tasman into Australia as well. After that, who knew? He’d achieved so much in a very short period of time—success many men and women spent a lifetime working for. And for what? To enjoy it on his own?
Mason thought of his brothers. Both workaholics who’d been corralled in the past couple of years by a couple of gorgeous women. Connor had married his secretary, but not without a whole lot of stress on the journey. Declan had married his dead fiancée’s best friend. Neither of them had done it the easy way, but both had loved the women involved enough to work past their problems. And that’s where he differed from his brothers—he didn’t love Helena.
Even as the thought took shape in his mind, his heart thudded painfully in his chest.
Was that the problem? Despite everything, was he in love with Helena? He pushed the thought stubbornly from his mind. He would not go down that road. His father had loved Melanie, or so he’d said when he’d blamed Mason wholeheartedly for the breakdown in that relationship.
But a small voice continued to niggle at him. If he didn’t love Helena, why had he agreed to help her? He hadn’t wanted to believe her about Brody, and under any other circumstances he’d never have bought into Davies Freight. He’d have done what he’d done with the other smaller companies he’d absorbed over the years and bided his time to make an offer. Then, when they finally stood in a position where they couldn’t say no, he would have swooped in for the acquisition. So why was he working so hard to plug the holes and make Davies Freight work?
The Tycoon's Hidden Heir Page 12