"I'll tell him everything tonight, if there's anything to tell. But right now, I just want you…"
"Then sit tight, sweetie. I'm on my way."
I met her as she pulled into the drive. The rain had begun to slow and the sun was peeking through the low clouds. She wrapped her arms around me before she even spoke.
"Talk to me," she said, once we were inside and Moki had given her a wet and thorough welcome. "No baby, yet? That's nothing so unusual." She smiled knowingly. "I kinda doubt it's for lack of trying…"
I blushed from my hair to my toenails and she laughed. "I couldn't be happier, you know." She took my hand and gave it a long squeeze. "The day you and I first met, I thought about Jack." She shrugged her shoulders. "Call it a gift. But I wasn't the only one who saw…" She smiled slyly. "The whole family knew you were a perfect match… long before you two finally figured it out."
Tears blurred my eyes and I wiped at them, overwhelmed. "I love him so much. I want to give him everything he needs… We want to be a family, India, although it still scares the shit out of me… the idea of being a real mother myself…
What if I don't know how… if I don't have enough inside me to give…?"
She smiled, so wise beyond her young years. "Then you lean on the people who love you, Libby. You have a family now, no matter what else happens from here on out. It's what we're here for, sweetie. There's no more alone for you. Not ever."
"I love you, India," I whispered, hugging her close.
"And I love you back. "Now," she wiped her own eyes and shook her hair back. "What am I out here for? I think you and Jack are all on your own with the business of making babies…"
"He had someone look into my mother's past…"
"I know… He told me. And I agreed it was the right thing to do."
I nodded hard. "I wasn't going to read it. But there could be information in that report that I should know. Sisters, maybe. Medical history…" I bit into my lip. "If there's a chance something in there could help… I have to read it, India. No matter what I find out, I have to know." I picked up the envelope from the coffee table. "I just didn't want to do it alone."
She smiled wide, her eyes still bright with moisture. "And you don't have to." She pulled out her phone. "You have no idea… the resources I've got available. We can take whatever information the letter gives, and go from there."
I smiled back, my heart thumping hard in my chest. I slipped my thumb under the yellow flap. "Okay Dorothy… start talking…"
Half an hour later, I leaned back heavily on the sofa. I licked dry lips, and handed the sheaf of papers over to India. She'd been silent the whole time, waiting. Patient, like her brother.
She glanced through them, shifting them between her hands. "So… is there more here than you already knew?" She looked up. "I see a lot of dates, a few addresses… but does it tell you who she was… or where she is now?"
"Last page… death certificate…" I closed my eyes. "She died just a few months after she gave me away."
India shuffled through them again. "I can't make out what's listed as the cause," she said. "It looks like the ink was smudged. There's nothing else?"
"Names of her parents… but this page here…" I showed her. "They're dead too.
Even if she hadn't given me away, I'd have been orphaned anyway. There's no husband listed… There must not have been anyone left at all." I looked at India's kind, clear eyes. "She was just as alone as I was…"
"Wait a minute…" India shuffled again. "There's a doctor's signature on this." She peered at the paper. "About as legible as you'd expect… But the name of the hospital is clear enough, right here in Asheville." She grabbed up her phone. "Even if the doctor's long gone, there are still records, Libby. And a chance that someone's still there who might remember something."
"It was almost twenty-five years ago…"
She tapped furiously on the screen. A few minutes later she handed the phone to me. "And nobody's getting any younger."
43
Jack
"It's all here, in black and white," Dad said. "We don't know who, but how is fucking clear enough."
Dad had interrupted us just at the point I'd thought Spencer was finally beginning to break. But instead, he retreated further into his chair, his lips pressed silently into a thin white line.
"Huge chunks of Mason stock have been purchased over the last fifteen months. We knew it… prices had been heading up for some time…" He shook his head, looking suddenly very much his age. Reid and Blake came through the open doorway, their faces grim. "Different brokerage firms… only small amounts of stock at a time... "Dad put a hand on his chest. "It just seemed like the business was gaining strength, what with the merger coming… God help me, I didn't see. The purchases were so small, and spread over time… but when I realized how much they'd added up to…
There's no way to know for sure how wide the shares are spread." He looked at me with dread in his eyes. "Or even if they are widespread."
Blake stepped forward and eased Dad toward a chair. He stood behind him, a concerned hand on his sagging shoulder. "It's not anyone's fault," Blake said gently. "Hell, we don't know there's even a problem yet, not for sure.
We all saw the same thing… our numbers were rising. It wasn't unexpected. Things were looking damned good… It was only when we added it up. Put the whole picture together." He looked at me pointedly. "If it was an individual… even a small group… and if they already had a large number of shares in the first place…"
For a moment, it felt like the room had started to move around me. I was standing, but put a hand on the desk to steady myself. "You're telling me there's a chance we've lost controlling interest in our own company…? It's impossible. As a family, we own more than fifty one percent. Even if it was an individual who managed to buy up every other share, we'd still retain control." My mind was racing. "It would be damned near impossible for someone to get even forty percent… and no one could do it without inside help…" This couldn't fucking be happening...
Ben entered the room, with Mom at his side. She went straight to Dad and put her arms around him. Her usually smooth brow was heavily creased, her hands fluttered around him nervously. I looked around the room at all the people I loved, who had all depended on me to keep Mason Steel alive and strong. I had a wife now and someday, god willing, a family of my own. There was no way in hell…
"Warner on line one," Veronica's voice cut through on the intercom. "It's Mr. Wyler…"
I swallowed hard against the cold, sick feeling in my gut. The room, which had been quiet before, was utterly silent now. I sat and picked up the receiver.
For ten long minutes, I listened. I nodded silently, jaw clenched and aching. Every eye in the room was on me, and none of us were breathing. Bill wasted no time. Neither did I.
"We did," I answered him. "Only just now… and yes… precisely the same. I swear on my honor as a Mason, this isn't going to happen. Not for either of us." I met the eyes of everyone in the room. Everyone except for Spencer.
I hung up the phone and crossed the room to where he sat. I looked down at him. He didn't have the fucking guts to stand, to even face me. "It's not just Mason Steel," I said evenly. "Warner's been bought up too… same thing. Small amounts of stock purchased over time. Spread out, so it wouldn't attract attention too quickly." I had to work to draw a deep breath, to calm myself.
"I said I'd try to protect you, if you told me the truth. I meant it, Spencer." I kept my voice low, in spite of the anger raging inside. "Maybe I still do…"
He looked up, the corner of his eye twitching. "I tried to, boss. So many times I wanted to…" He licked at dry lips. "I just wanted everybody to be happy. I didn't think it through… I never thought it all the way through…"
He looked toward the window, his expression almost blank. He was quiet, and for a moment it seemed as if he'd forgotten us all.
"It didn't seem so wrong. Just small amounts at first… But then more a
nd more… I was nearly bankrupt by the end… but still, it wasn't good enough… Nothing was ever good enough. She just kept asking for more time… promising we could have more than just a friendship… I was such a goddamn fool.
And all the time… all the time, she was just playing me…"
I knelt down, forcing him to face me. He looked ill, broken. I put my hand on Spencer's thin shoulder. "You told me that ‘we' needed more time…
Who did you mean, Spencer…
when you said we?"
44
Libby
"All I know is something must be pretty damned bad," India said, dropping her phone back in her bag. "Ben is hard to rattle, but I couldn't get him to tell me over the phone. He just said to get into the city asap, and you too." She dug out her keys. "I guess we'll find out when we get there." Five minutes later, with Moki safely tucked into her puppy-proof playpen, we were heading for the highway.
I held my phone in my hand, my stomach tilting and squeezing with nerves. I'd already tried to call Jack, but it had only gone to voicemail. I was afraid, truly afraid for him. I'd seen the look on his face when he'd left. The haunted look in his eyes… I'd wondered if there was more to that look than only his concern for the company.
"So… what did the hospital say?" India looked at me sideways as she drove. She'd taken Ben's call outside as I'd been taking to the administrator.
"The doctor who signed the death certificate passed away last year," I said, rubbing a hand over my stomach. "It's a charity hospital, with a lot of turnover… But there might still be a nurse who was employed when Dorothy was there." Her name still sounded foreign on my tongue.
"It's such a long shot," I sighed. "Even if she had been working there when my mother died… it doesn't mean they ever met. Or even that the nurse would remember." I chewed my lip absently.
"So do you have her name? A number, at least? Any chance is better than none."
"They couldn't give it out," I replied. "But they said they would give her my number." I thumped the phone against my thigh. "There's nothing I can do now but wait… and hope to hell she calls me back."
The tension in the room made it instantly clear. Something was wrong. Really and terribly wrong.
India went to her mother. I went straight to Jack's side. The entire family was present, but no one spoke, no one even noticed when we entered the room. All eyes were on one man. At the wedding, he'd been charming enough… impeccably dressed. I almost didn't recognize him now.
"Spencer," Jack drew the word out, his voice smooth, almost seductive. "You wouldn't have done this on your own. I know you… I've trusted you for years." He was kneeling at the man's feet, speaking to him as if he were a child. "We all know it wasn't you," Jack continued. "You've been loyal to Mason… everyone in this room knows that.
Tell us whose idea it was, buying up stock in both Mason and Warner… trying to take control of them both. You may have helped them do it, Spence, but this wasn't you. I know it… and I'm trusting you to come clean with me now."
As he was speaking, India had discreetly shifted the rest of us toward the back of the office. Jack and Spencer were alone by the windows. I could tell Jack was holding his breath.
"She said she loved me," Spencer began in a whisper, tears rolling down his face. "I knew it was wrong from the start… I wanted to tell you, but I couldn't… I couldn't… Not when I'd betrayed you…"
Jack put a comforting hand on the man's shoulder. "Love can make us all see the world differently." He glanced at me with a hint of a smile. "It can make us do things we never imagined before…" He looked back at Spence. "Just tell me. I promise I can help you make this right…"
"It started three years ago." The tears were rolling fast now, his voice tight. "She said she loved me, that we could have the life we both deserved… as long as I did what she told me to do. As long as I kept my mouth shut.
But she lied to me… she lied to all of us." He was angry now, his voice louder. "She didn't want me… she didn't want anything but money and control… control over everything… all of us. She made a fucking fool out of me, Jack. But I went along with her…
She was just using me the whole fucking time."
"Who, Spencer? Tell me who…"
The door opened behind us with a soft click and every head turned in unison. Standing there was a tall, slender blonde. We'd never met. I'd never even seen a photograph. But I instantly knew her. She was everything I'd imagined. I felt India take my hand.
The woman was elegant, perfectly poised, serene. Everything I was not. And she would have been the loveliest thing I'd ever seen, if not for the look on her face.
"Elaine," Spencer spat out, as he stood and squared his shoulders.
"It was that bitch, Elaine."
45
Jack
"Charmed, as always, Spencer darling." She strode into the room without looking at him, on black stiletto pumps that put her almost eye to eye with me, and inclined her head. "Jackson…
I see the news has arrived before me," she drawled easily. She stared into my eyes, hers glittering triumphantly. "You may go now," she spoke toward Spencer without taking her eyes off me. "As a matter of fact, you can all go… This is just between you and me," she purred into my face.
"No one leaves," I heard my own voice boom out. My fists were balled tight. The fucking nerve of her… "There's no one here who's unaffected. And there is nothing between the two of us."
"We welcomed you," Mom came forward, her hands shaking. "We brought you into our family and welcomed you as our daughter… and this is what you do to us? To my son… to our family? You try to take everything generations of Masons have fought to keep…?"
Elaine threw her head back and laughed. "You never loved me. None of you did. I just happened to fit the mold is all." She swept her hair back and smiled. "You wanted a well-bred daughter in law and that's exactly what you got. To maintain the family image… to breed pedigreed grandchildren." She turned back to me.
"And you. You didn't want a wife," she spat out the word hatefully. "You wanted a houseful of children… and someone to wipe their snotty noses for you. I was foolish enough to try. How many years, Jack? And not a single child…?
I wasted my best years on you and all your empty promises. And the divorce settlement wasn't half enough to make up for that." She moved to the other side of my desk and sat down in my chair… "I took what I had coming, Jack. And I did it any way I could." She glanced from me to Libby and back again, slowly… purposefully. "After all, I learned from the best."
"You and Spencer bought up every share you could… In Mason… in Warner." My voice was calm, but my hands were in fists, my gut a tight ball of cold anger. "And along with half of my shares…"
"I now hold controlling interest in both companies," she finished. "Now they're merged into one, you're looking at the new CEO of one of the largest privately owned businesses in the south."
"You had enough to live a hundred comfortable lives, Elaine. And you ruined a good man." I looked over at Spencer, who looked ill. "If you'd had to, would you have tried to pass off his child as mine?"
"You fucking hypocrite," she shot back. "You faked a marriage! You bought a woman to give you the fucking baby you want so bad. And you passed her off to your entire family, your elite social circle as your new wife." Her lips curled into an ugly sneer as she stared straight at my parents' shocked faces. "He's the liar," she growled. "And any child that comes from her," she shot a glance at Libby's stricken face, "is nothing but a bastard mongrel. That girl has nothing… no one. She's nothing but a…"
Never in my life have I laid hands on a woman, but I gripped her arms till my fingers bit into her flesh and pulled her out of my chair.
"Not one more fucking word." I could feel her feet dangling above the floor. "You will never speak one fucking word about my wife ever again, or so help me… I won't be responsible." I let her go abruptly, suddenly disgusted at the feel of her in my hands. "Libby
is my wife, from the day I met her until the day that I die." I looked across the room to her brilliant green eyes. "She's the love of my life… We belong to each other."
Elaine was shaken, unsteady, but turned in desperation to my family. "He lied to you. Every one of you. Can you imagine what people will say? These things can't be kept a secret forever… the truth always comes out. And Jack will have made fools of you all.
The Huntingtons… the Bellfields… do you think they'll ever welcome you in their social circles again? He could have cost you everything… Vivian," she reached her hands out in appeal. "None of it was real. He lied to you…it was all just lies. He chose her," she curled her lip toward Libby, "because she could produce a child and then just disappear. She has no past, no history, no family."
I looked at their faces as Elaine finally spent herself. They looked from her face to mine. And I watched… felt the energy in the room as it shifted. Without seeming to move at all, my parents, my brothers, my beautiful, strong sister formed a protective wall around my Libby. I stood at the center and together we watched as Elaine's indignation slowly slipped away. From the corner of my eye, I saw Spencer come slowly to stand alongside us.
"That's where you're wrong," I answered her back.
"And there's nothing you, or anyone can say, that changes how we feel" Mom added. "Libby's our daughter and we love her. We knew everything from the start," she said smoothly. "And we gave our complete support," Dad finished for her.
"She's made Jack happier than I've ever seen him in his entire life," Ben spoke softly as Blake and Reid stood taller and nodded in agreement.
"She's my best friend," India said, her voice edged with warning. "And my sister. And a better woman than you'll ever be…"
I took Libby's hand in mine and pulled her in close. "Libby belongs to us… all of us. We are her family, and we are her future… And she's mine," I finished, looking down at her.
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