He wondered, and not for the first time, if he’d have followed his path if he’d been brought up here instead of in New Zealand. Had Alison Parker had any idea of what she was doing when she’d stolen him from his crib in the nursery at the hospital and taken him to raise as her own? She couldn’t have been in a rational state of mind—he understood that. She’d given birth to a stillborn son the same day Logan and his twin brother were born. The loss had unhinged her. After her death a couple of months ago, he’d read her old diaries in a growing state of shock.
It had been clear, even to him, that she must have been suffering some kind of psychosis after the loss of her own child. Replacing her dead baby with one of two living children born to someone else had made perfect sense to her at the time. As she’d written in her diary, why should they have two healthy babies when her own had died? Surely it was only fair that they each have one? As twisted as it was, he could see how her grief-stricken mind had justified her actions that day.
And she’d done her best by Logan. When her husband had died on a black ops mission, she’d left the United States to return to her home country of New Zealand, where she’d raised Logan as a typical Kiwi kid. Surfing in the summer, skiing in the winter, he’d grown up with the best of everything she and her parents could provide, and if anyone asked why he looked different from his cousins, with his dark blond hair, fair skin and pale gray eyes, it was explained that he resembled his father. He was family and had always felt accepted as such.
But even so, Logan had always felt a lingering sense of disconnection, too, as if he didn’t quite belong. And after finding that box with his mom’s old diaries and his original baby ID bracelet with his real name on it together with the one of her dead son, he’d finally understood why. He hadn’t told anyone back at home the real reason for his trip to America. They all thought he was here to expand Parker Construction’s business interests. And maybe, if everything went well, he would.
The time to make his way to the Richmond Developments headquarters came around all too quickly. After his walk, Logan returned to the hotel to gather his briefcase and went downstairs to summon a cab. At Richmond Tower, Logan checked his appearance in the shiny reflective walls of the elevator and approved the professional look he’d gone for to strike just the right note. In his briefcase were scanned copies of Alison’s diaries and the baby bracelets. He’d arranged this meeting with his birth father on the pretext of discussing a business opportunity with him. And it wasn’t a complete lie. Logan strongly believed that Richmond Developments was missing a very important niche in the market. The world was looking to repurpose more and more, and conserving old buildings and their histories was the wave of the future. People needed something to be grounded in—as he well knew.
The elevator doors slid open onto a plush reception area. The two women at the front desk both looked up and smiled at him. But behind the smiles, there was confusion, also. The younger of the two stood up.
“Mr. Richmond?”
“I’m Logan Parker to see Mr. Douglas Richmond,” Logan said firmly.
“You’re Mr. Parker,” she said in a confused tone of voice.
The other receptionist tugged on her arm and muttered something, and the younger woman forced a smile to her face. “I’ll put a call through.”
Logan had discovered he had a twin and that his twin worked here in the family business. He’d hoped that by coming here and meeting his family in their place of work that it would dilute what could be a somewhat fraught reunion. What he hadn’t really stopped to consider was the interest there might be in his twin’s mirror image suddenly turning up unexpectedly.
“A Mr. Parker is here to see Mr. Richmond,” she said discreetly. “Yes, sir. I’ll bring him through myself.”
She rose from her chair and walked up to Logan. “Please come with me, Mr. Parker.”
He followed her down a long corridor, past an open-plan office area where people were industriously busy at their workstations. When the receptionist reached a set of large wooden double doors, she knocked before swinging them both open.
“Mr. Parker to see you, sir,” she announced before turning back to Logan. “Go on in.” She gestured for him to go inside.
“Thank you.”
Logan stepped through the doorway and felt as if he’d entered the lion’s den. He squared his shoulders. Whatever happened next would determine the course for the rest of his life.
Three
An older man rose from his executive chair behind a large mahogany desk. Despite his tan, his face paled visibly.
“Keaton? What are you doing?”
“No, sir, I’m Logan Parker.”
The older man’s face paled visibly.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, obviously defaulting to anger.
“As I said, I’m Logan Parker. Although you may remember me by another name,” Logan said firmly as he stepped forward and offered his hand.
“Another name? Explain yourself.”
“I was born Kane Douglas Richmond,” Logan said as calmly as he was able.
“That can’t be. Our son disappeared more than thirty years ago. Isn’t that right, Nancy?”
When he first walked in, Logan hadn’t seen the woman standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the large corner office. He turned to face her and heard her sharply indrawn breath.
“Kane? Douglas, could it be...?”
Her knees buckled slightly as she looked at him, and she put a hand out to the chair beside her to steady herself. Tears began to roll down her face and she shook as she reached out a hand.
“Kane. Oh my goodness. Douglas, it’s him. It’s our baby boy come back to us after all these years.”
Douglas Richmond moved quickly from behind his desk and guided his wife into a chair before turning to face Logan.
“What’s the meaning of this? Who are you?” he demanded again.
“Sir, I’m sorry. I probably should have told you who I was ahead of our meeting, but I wasn’t sure you’d see me if I claimed to be the son who was stolen from you decades ago.”
“And that’s what you’re claiming?”
“Douglas, can’t you see it? He’s identical to Keaton,” Nancy said, reaching up and grasping hold of her husband’s hand. “It has to be Kane. Our firstborn.”
But Douglas Richmond was determined not to be convinced. “I understood you requested this meeting to discuss business. What do you really want from us?”
“Yes, I did,” Logan admitted. “And that’s something I’d still like to talk over with you. But first, I would like to show you these. I can understand that you’re both shocked—I was, too, when I discovered my true identity.”
Logan placed his briefcase on a chair and opened it. He took out the diary copies and the ID bracelets from the hospital and placed them on his father’s desk.
“These belonged to the woman who raised me. Please, look at them at your leisure. If you prefer, I can leave them with you now and return at a later time.”
It was clear his father and mother were completely shell-shocked by his arrival. To be totally honest, he was, too. Looking at his dad was like entering a time machine—one that projected him thirty years ahead. And his mom, too. He had her coloring—the exact same shade of pale gray eyes. Despite their obvious distress at his sudden appearance in their lives, he could feel a tenuous connection with them already. One born of recognition, of blood. Even so, perhaps it was a good time to leave. To let them absorb the information he’d brought with him.
“I can see my arrival here has unsettled you both. Let me give you some time.” He dropped his business card on the diaries. “You can reach me on my mobile number. I’ll wait at my hotel for your call.”
He turned toward the door.
“No, don’t go!” Nancy cried out and struggled to her feet.
She
came across the carpeted floor, stopped directly in front of him and reached her hands up to his face, cupping his cheeks.
“Nancy, you can’t be sure it’s him,” Douglas said cautiously.
“Don’t you dare tell me I don’t know my own son,” she said fiercely, never taking her eyes off Logan for a second. “This is my boy. You grew within my body. I birthed you, held you, nursed you and then you were stolen from me. But now you’re returned to us, and our family is once again complete.”
Logan didn’t know what to do or say, but his silence didn’t deter Nancy.
“Douglas, call in Keaton and Kristin. They need to meet him. They need to see their brother.”
To Logan’s surprise, his father did just that. He placed two calls in quick succession requesting that his two other children come immediately to his office.
“Take a seat, young man. I’m sure we won’t have to wait long,” Douglas said gruffly before resuming his seat behind the desk. He didn’t take his eyes off Logan for a minute.
Logan sat and remained still. Nancy had taken the chair next to him. Both his parents kept staring at him, his mother with a look of sheer wonder on her face, his father with disbelief. It couldn’t have been more than two minutes before there was a peremptory knock at the door and another man walked in. Logan rose and turned to face the newcomer.
“What the hell is going on?” his mirror image asked with a look of shock on his face.
Logan stared at his twin brother. His identical twin. It was uncanny staring at another person who was the spitting image of yourself. They even had the same haircut.
“Keaton, meet your brother, Kane, or, as he’s known, Logan Parker,” Nancy said in a slightly unsteady voice.
“I don’t know who this impostor is, but I don’t have a brother,” Keaton said firmly.
Logan felt the words as though they were a physical blow. All his life he’d wanted siblings. Now that he’d discovered he had two, it had become all the more important to him that they believe he was who he said he was—their long-lost brother.
“If it’s any consolation,” Logan said, “until very recently I had no idea you existed, either.”
There was a commotion at the door, and a young woman came in. Probably his sister, judging by her resemblance to Nancy.
“What’s going on? Who’s this?” she said before coming to an abrupt halt as she saw her brother standing there with his double.
“Kristin, this is your brother,” Nancy said. “Your other brother.”
“He can’t be. My other brother is dead.”
“I can assure you, I’m very much alive,” Logan replied.
“How can that be possible?” Kristin said, turning on her mom. “You told me when I was little that he was dead.”
“What your mother said was that your brother was gone. The rest was your own interpretation,” Douglas said gruffly. “Obviously there is a strong resemblance—”
“Resemblances mean nothing,” Keaton said insistently and took a step closer to Logan. “I don’t know who the heck you are, but you have a nerve coming here and trying to pull this off. How much money do you want?”
Logan snorted. “Money? I have plenty of money. What I don’t have, and what I’ve been cheated of my entire life, is my family.”
“So, you thought you’d appropriate ours?” Kristin said snidely.
Logan reached for the hospital ID tag he’d put on his father’s desk. “If I was an impostor, would I have this?”
Kristin took one of the tiny bracelets. “Anyone could fake this.”
Logan firmed his lips into a straight line. This wasn’t turning into the warm family reunion he’d hoped for.
“Look, I’ll do whatever it takes to prove I am who I believe I am.” Logan stared back at Keaton. “Just tell me where and when I need to be at the lab for the DNA test, and I’ll be there.”
“You’re very confident of your claim,” Keaton said.
“I’m not in the habit of lying or misleading people,” Logan answered firmly. “Look, until my mother—at least, the woman who raised me—died recently, I always believed that she and her late husband were my parents, even though I didn’t look much like either of them. Mum met her husband when he was stationed at Antarctica with the joint forces support force. She was a New Zealand nurse stationed there, too. She followed him to the US and they married here. It was only after she passed away that I found these.” He gestured to the diary copies on the desk. “And the ID bracelets.”
“To the best of my knowledge, Alison Parker learned her husband had been killed on deployment and went into labor with her own son. He was still-born. I can only surmise that her grief, doubled, drove her over the edge. She states in her diary that while the nursing staff were doing a shift changeover, there was an emergency in another room and the nursery was left unattended for a brief time. She entered the nursery from the maternity ward where she’d just been discharged and simply lifted me from my crib, hid me in her overnight bag and took me home.
“She later traveled from Seattle to Los Angeles and applied for a passport for me in her dead child’s name at the New Zealand consulate. The military helped with her return to New Zealand on compassionate grounds. And, because she was known to have been pregnant, no one thought anything of the fact that she had a baby with her. She’d come to the US on her New Zealand passport, which was in her maiden name. I can only assume that any attempt to trace her was thrown off by that.”
Nancy stiffened in her chair. “That definitely explains it. Remember, Douglas, the hospital staff and police virtually ripped the hospital apart looking for Kane. They investigated everyone who’d been in the hospital during the time he was born and there was one woman they’d had difficulty tracing but they’d excluded her from the investigation because when they found her on security tapes she wasn’t carrying a baby, only a bag.” She swallowed a sob back. “And you were in that bag.”
Before anyone could say anything else, there was another knock at the office door.
“I’m sorry I’m late, everyone. I just got back into wor—”
All eyes turned to the woman who’d just come into the office. A woman Logan recognized instantly. His late-night lover. But she wasn’t the warm, sexy creature who’d approached and kissed him then invited him up to her room. Instead, she was a cool, remote corporate type—wearing an enormous diamond on the ring finger of her left hand.
And, as she looked from his brother to him, he saw the exact moment that she realized exactly whom she’d propositioned last night.
“Keaton? What’s going on?”
Logan watched as she crossed the office to stand at his brother’s side.
“That’s what we’d all like to know. This guy claims to be my twin brother.”
* * *
Honor fought the urge to flee. This couldn’t be happening. There couldn’t be two Keatons, and the longer she stood here the more strongly the truth reverberated through her. She’d slept with a stranger. Sure, he’d looked like her fiancé, but no matter which way she looked at it, she’d cheated on Keaton. And not just cheated, but cheated on him with his brother.
The bitter taste of bile flooded her mouth and she swallowed it back. This couldn’t be happening. Fidelity was her line in the sand. She’d seen exactly what unfaithfulness could do to a family and she’d vowed, always, to be faithful. And yet somehow, she’d made the most monumental mistake of her entire life.
Douglas reached across the desk and grabbed one of the duplicate diaries stacked there.
“I suppose I’d better read these. In the meantime, Nancy, could you look into how we can have DNA testing expedited?”
“Yes, dear, I’ll check on it right away.” She started toward the door but paused and turned back to Logan.
Honor watched as her future mother-in-law took the hand of the man with whom
Honor had committed her biggest mistake. The man who, with only a few words, could destroy her carefully, painstakingly constructed future. Under the bright office lights, a myriad of diamonds glinted on Nancy’s fingers, each one a gift from her husband and a testament to his love for her. Honor began to worry at her own diamond ring with her thumb. How on earth was she going to work through this?
Nancy leaned closer to the newcomer and said, “Don’t worry, my son. It’ll work out. I know in my heart you’re telling the truth. A mother always knows.”
Honor watched as Nancy went through the door to her connecting office. It had always amazed Honor that Nancy and Douglas believed in working closely together even after all this time. It had added to her sense of security knowing that even with all life had thrown at them thirty-four years ago with their firstborn being kidnapped, her future in-laws continued to stand strong together. It was what she’d always hoped for, for herself and Keaton. And, while she wasn’t on his management level yet, she was working steadily toward it. When Douglas and Nancy retired, she and Keaton would be the power couple here at Richmond Developments. And when that happened, she’d be living her dream.
But only if the truth of what she did last night was never revealed.
Something stabbed sharply in her chest. How could she keep what she’d done a secret? Even knowing it would destroy her relationship with Keaton and likely see her have to find another position elsewhere, she knew, deep down, that she ought to come clean. And what of the stranger? Would he keep their one night of illicit passion secret, or was he the kind of man who’d use their secret to gain leverage with the Richmond family?
Right now, she had no way of knowing what kind of person he was. Obviously, she knew he was a talented and generous lover, but what was he like as a man? He’d accepted her offer to come up to her room without a backward glance. Having sex with a complete and utter stranger didn’t really do much to recommend him, but then again, she’d been complicit in that. Forget that she thought she’d been making love with the man she’d pledged to marry. As Keaton’s fiancée, she should have known all along that this man was not the same person.
Seducing the Lost Heir Page 3