“She’s nine months old, Lucas.”
He paused, and some of the intensity went out of his eyes.
The waiter arrived, opening the ornate bottle of water and pouring it into two glasses over ice.
“You’re right,” said Lucas as the man left the table. “Before she decides if animal welfare is more important than inner-city youth programs, we need to get her potty trained and teach her to use a knife and fork. Back to the nanny conversation.”
“Before the weight of the world crashes down on the poor girl’s shoulders, we need to let her have a little fun.” Devin raised her glass for a sip. “Back to the nanny conversation.”
Devin clipped the portable baby monitor into the waistband of her jeans as she pulled the door shut between Amelia’s nursery and the ensuite that connected it to her own bedroom in the mansion. She’d promised Lucas they could discuss what they’d each thought of this morning’s nanny interviews once Amelia was down for her afternoon nap.
On the way past the mirror, Devin checked her reflection. Her hair was messy from Amelia playing with it, and she had a streak of dirt across one cheek. Who knew where that had come from. And the left shoulder of her blue T-shirt was one big wet blob where Amelia had sucked on it while rocking to sleep.
Telling herself it wasn’t vanity, and it certainly wasn’t because she cared about Lucas’s opinion, it was simply good grooming, she pulled a hairbrush from the vanity drawer and dragged it through her hair. Then she gave her face a quick wash, rubbing in some moisturizer with sunscreen, in case they decided to chat on the porch.
Finally, on her way back into her own room, she grasped the bottom hem of her T-shirt to pull it—
She stumbled to a halt. “Steve?”
The man was standing in front of her bedroom window, curtain lifted with his left hand, gazing out at the ocean.
“Hi, Devin.” He turned his head.
“You startled me.”
He’d also annoyed her. What did he think he was doing lingering around her bedroom?
And he’d closed the door behind him.
Okay, that was just creepy.
“I need to talk to you.” He let the curtain drop, and his cold expression did nothing to make her feel better.
“Can we do it in the hall?” she asked, moving toward the bedroom door. “Amelia just fell asleep.”
Devin wasn’t exactly frightened, but it was definitely disconcerting to have him invade her space this way.
“I’d rather talk in private,” he said.
Well, she’d rather talk in public. She didn’t stop moving.
“What happened after I left?” There was a trace of impatience in his tone.
Devin paused with her hand on the doorknob, turning back. “After you left what?”
“Your house. The other day. I know he stayed.”
“Lucas?”
“Yes, Lucas.”
“He was soaking wet.”
Steve had stayed long enough to hear Lexi offer Lucas the use of her son’s clothes.
“He was there all night,” Steve accused, anger flaring in his dark eyes.
Okay, he’d gone way over the line with that crack. Devin was getting angry. She twisted the knob. “I think you’d better leave.”
Steve took a couple of steps toward her, putting his hand up to block the door shut. “This isn’t your home, Devin.”
She didn’t bother answering.
“You’re a smart woman. You have to know what he’s doing. You have to know you’re going to get hurt.”
“That’s none of your business.” She didn’t know what Steve suspected about her relationship with Lucas. But she wasn’t about to explain herself.
He paused beside her, lowering his voice, eyes cool and detached. “I tried to make this easy for you. I offered my help. I paid for your lawyers.”
“Lucas slept on the couch, Steve.” She didn’t know why she bothered telling him that. It wasn’t because she was trying to change his mind about helping her. As of this second, she wasn’t taking anything from Steve ever again.
He shook his head. “It would have worked, Devin.”
She was tempted to ask what would have worked, but she held her tongue. The sooner this conversation was over, the better.
“This might not be my house—” she steeled her strength and looked him directly in the eyes “—but it is my room for the time being, and I’m asking you to leave.”
He stared down at her. There was a chill in his brown eyes that sent a shiver straight up her spine.
But after a long pause, he stepped back, and so did she. He reached for the door, opened it and left without a word. She swiftly closed it behind him and found her hand shaking and her stomach in knots.
She stood in the bedroom for a few minutes, wondering what to do next.
Then she heard a car start up in the driveway below. She moved to the window to watch Steve pull away. Once his taillights disappeared beneath the canopy of oaks tress, she breathed a sigh of relief, pulling her shirt over her head.
She changed into a white sleeveless blouse, tucked her feet into a pair of worn sandals, then headed downstairs to find Lucas.
He was on the deck off the great room, sitting on a padded chair at one of the round tables that overlooked the yard. Fruit and croissants had been served, along with a carafe of coffee. Lucas was sipping a cup.
“She asleep?” he asked, rising briefly as Devin took the chair opposite.
Devin nodded, debating whether to tell him about the bizarre conversation with Steve. Though she was becoming more inclined to trust Lucas over Steve, she wasn’t really ready to trust anyone in this strange family. Besides, how would it help to tell Lucas? He already thought Steve was plotting against him, which he was. Nothing new there.
“I thought nanny number three had potential,” said Lucas, holding up the coffee carafe in a question.
Devin pushed her cup toward him to say yes. “Was she the one with the braid?”
“No. The one in the hat.”
“No uniforms,” said Devin, adding sugar to her coffee.
Lucas lifted the plate of croissants, offering them to Devin. “What’s wrong with uniforms?”
She took a croissant. “I don’t like them.”
“So, you’re going to have a dress code?”
“No. A uniform would be a dress code. I don’t want Amelia to feel like she’s in an institution.”
“A uniform is only a dress code if it’s not optional. By banning uniforms you are, in fact, instituting a dress code.”
“You’re being deliberately obtuse. The nanny can wear anything she wants.”
“Unless it’s a uniform.”
Devin tore into her croissant. “Nobody wants to wear a uniform.”
Lucas selected a grape. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“I liked the one with the braid,” said Devin. She took a sip of the hot coffee. “I think her name was Beverly.”
Lucas’s phone rang. He checked the number and then pushed a button, turning his attention back to Devin. “She seemed disorganized to me.”
“How so?”
“First off, she was late. And then that big, ugly orange purse with—”
“You’re giving demerits for style?”
“You did.”
Static crackled on the baby monitor.
A man’s muffled voice came over the speaker. The words were indistinct, but Devin felt her entire body go cold.
The man spoke again.
Steve.
She swore out loud, jumped up and shoved her chair out of the way. It clattered to the floor of the deck.
She took off running through the great room, down the hall to the foyer and the main staircase, while Lucas called out her name, rushing behind her.
She pounded up the stairs and sprinted down the hall. Then she rounded the corner to find two male staff members chatting outside Amelia’s nursery. The doors to both rooms were closed, and the
men looked up in surprise at Devin’s entrance.
She quickly brushed passed them and cracked open the nursery door.
Amelia was sound asleep and completely alone.
“Is everything all right, ma’am?” one of the men asked.
“Devin?” Lucas’s voice came from the end of the hall.
Devin’s heart was pounding and her lungs drew in deep breaths. She gathered her wits. “Everything’s fine.”
Lucas marched forward.
“Can you please excuse us?” he asked the two men.
They quickly withdrew.
“What the hell?” Lucas demanded, voice low. “You’re white as a ghost.”
“It’s okay,” Devin gasped. The men’s voices outside the nursery had obviously been picked up by the monitor.
“What happened?”
“I thought—” she began, wondering how much to tell him. She realized she was going to sound like a hysterical idiot. But she couldn’t come up with anything to replace the truth.
“You thought what?”
“Steve was here,” she admitted.
Lucas’s brows knit together in obvious confusion. “You thought Steve was here?”
“No,” Devin corrected. “Steve was here. Earlier. I came out of the nursery and found him in my room.”
Lucas’s brows drew together. His eyes went stormy, and his mouth thinned.
“He seemed annoyed that you’d stayed over at my place. He knew you were there all night, and—”
“Hold on a minute,” Lucas interrupted. “Did he tell you that, or did you tell him?”
“He told me.” Devin resented the implication that she’d rushed to Steve with the news. Then again, why should Lucas trust her any more than she trusted him?
She continued, suddenly wanting to get the whole story out. “Then he said he had tried to make this easy for me. I got the impression he wasn’t going to make it easy for me anymore. I didn’t know what he meant. But then I heard a man’s voice.” She paused. “On the baby monitor. And for a minute, I thought…”
“You thought Steve might harm Amelia?”
“I thought he’d come back. Beyond that, I didn’t know what to think.”
Lucas wrapped a large, warm hand over her shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. “Steve is not going to hurt Amelia.”
Devin nodded, but it was only to be agreeable. Her radar was up when it came to Steve. If she had her way, he’d never be near Amelia again.
“I mean, even if he would, which believe me, he wouldn’t. He’s a jerk, but he’d never go that far. We’ll increase security, Devin. We can get Amelia a bodyguard instead of a nanny if it makes you feel better.”
Devin closed her eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath.
“Okay?” he asked.
She gave a jerky nod.
His hand tightened on her shoulder, and the next thing she knew, she was being drawn into his embrace.
“It’s going to be fine,” he promised her in a gruff voice.
His arms felt wonderfully strong as they wrapped around her. His chest felt broad and solid against her cheek. And though she knew depending on Lucas was the most dangerous thing she could do, for just a moment, she let herself sink into his strength.
Lucas couldn’t bring himself to believe that Steve was a real danger to Amelia. But he was beyond furious with him for approaching and intimidating Devin. And he’d done it right here in the mansion. The man’s audacity knew no bounds.
Lucas had immediately contacted Theodore Vick, the Demarcos’ head of security and assigned extra full-time protection to Devin and Amelia. He’d also talked to Byron about Steve pulling his legal support from Devin and what it could mean. Despite his down-home manner, Byron was a shrewd strategist, with an impressive network of contacts and a gift for sleuthing out information. If anyone could ferret out Steve’s new plan, it was Byron.
Now, Byron appeared in the doorway of Lucas’s office on the lower floor of the mansion.
“Anything?” asked Lucas without preamble. He’d spent the morning trying to focus on a problem with new high-tech foreign ownership regulations in Sweden. But he hadn’t had much success forgetting about either Devin or Steve.
Byron shut the door behind him and entered the room. “Did Steve’s mama drop him on his head when he was a baby?” he asked conversationally.
Lucas wasn’t sure how to interpret that question, so he didn’t offer an answer.
“If not, she should have,” said Byron. “There is something terribly wrong with that boy.”
Lucas stood from his chair and came around the desk that was positioned at one end of the rectangular room. The sliding glass doors were open to a small patio, and Byron motioned for him to pull them shut.
Now Lucas was very curious. “What did you find out?”
“You remember this?” Byron tossed a red-labeled videotape on the square meeting table that took up one corner of the room.
“Is that the one from Granddad’s will?”
Byron gave a curt nod. “Let’s just refresh your memory a tad, shall we?” He slid the tape into the old VCR that was connected to Lucas’s television set. Then he took up the remote and gestured to the chairs around the meeting table.
“Did we miss something the first time through?” asked Lucas, lowering himself into one of the charcoal-gray, sling-back leather chairs.
“It was right there under our noses the whole time.” Byron pressed a button on the remote, and a poorly lit picture came up on the screen.
It was a younger-looking Granddad, sitting in this same office, vintage railway photos on the wall in the background.
Byron fast-forwarded through part of the tape.
“Here we go,” he said, switching the video back to Play.
Granddad’s familiar, gravelly voice came through the twin speakers. “The reason for this is that you boys need to understand the difference between work and family. This great company you’ve inherited was built on a foundation of family. Your grandmothers and great-grandmothers may not have had their names on the stationery, but they played pivotal roles in the building of what is now Pacific Robotics.” His old eyes softened. “Lucy was my rock. She was there through good times and bad, through success and failure, always believing I could do the impossible. And, you boys, you need to find your own rocks.” Granddad folded his hands on the desk and leaned toward the camera. “And if leaving my estate to a future great-grandchild gives you inspiration to get out there and look, so be it. I can live with that.”
Byron clicked a button to stop the tape.
“I don’t get it,” said Lucas, tapping the tabletop in front of him. “We’ve seen this all before. What’s the point?”
“You gotta want it,” said Byron. “Look between the lines. That’s what Steve did.”
Lucas gave his head a small shake, still not following.
“Steve and his lawyers have rustled up a set of legal precedents for videotapes being used as a preamble to a will.”
Lucas gestured to the blank screen. “Granddad only reiterated that his firstborn great-grandchild inherits.”
Byron nodded. “You got that right. Your granddaddy hoped you boys would find yourselves some pretty gals, fall in love, get married and have children.”
“Yes, he did,” Lucas sighed in exasperation. It was a ridiculous way to structure an inheritance.
His grandfather should have left his shares to the person who would do the best job of managing the company. This crap about family being the rock of a man’s existence was just the ramblings of an old man. Single men could be great managers, and married men could be terrible managers. There was much more to it than marital status.
“And Steve has entered a brand-new petition that asks for this videotape to be considered the spirit of your granddaddy’s will.”
“He can do that?” As far as Lucas was concerned, the will was already settled.
“It appears as though he can,” said Byron. “It seems
the court can decide to balance the letter of a will with the spirit of a will.”
“But, the shares are already in Amelia’s name.”
“It’s like an appeal.”
“He could get the will overturned?”
“He might. He’s swearing Konrad only married Monica to get the gal pregnant. That’s a clear violation of the spirit of the will. And Steve’s got a lot of lawyers hunting up precedents to back him.”
“Amelia could lose her shares?”
She could.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Does he have a chance in hell?”
“I’m told he does. And it gets worse.”
Lucas paused, eyes narrowing.
“His star witness?” asked Byron. “The person who’ll get up there and testify that Konrad and Monica’s marriage was a sham?”
Lucas brought the end of his fist down on the table, rattling the water glasses as he swore out loud.
Byron nodded.
“Devin,” said Lucas.
“Devin,” Byron confirmed. He rose and ejected the tape from the machine, stuffing it back into its cardboard cover. “When she takes you on over custody, that lady will sit up there on that witness stand and hand Steve his evidence on a silver platter.”
Six
Devin had said yes when Lucas offered to join her on her evening jog around the grounds. She was still rattled from her encounter with Steve, and company didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
A security guard was posted in the hallway outside the nursery, and one of the housekeepers was watching the new video baby monitor. Deep down, Devin knew it was overkill. But she didn’t care. It was hard to forget the fact that Steve had simply sauntered into the mansion and into her room.
She realized he was a member of the Demarco family, so there was no reason for anyone to stop him. But Lucas assured her the staff had been instructed to announce all guests, including family members, from here on in.
They’d followed the pot-lighted mulch pathway as it wound through the grounds. In contrast to the last time they’d jogged, Lucas kept his pace easy, chatting about maintenance on his sailboat and upcoming events for the new hospital wing. Devin found herself relaxing.
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