by A. C. Arthur
Felicia stood and followed Evelyn out onto the veranda. It was chilly outside, but the sun was high in the sky, giving off minimal heat in its wake.
“Just take a few deep breaths. We won’t stay out here long. But you’ve lost all your color and you look like you’re about to fall onto the floor.” Evelyn wrapped an arm around Felicia’s shoulders, rubbing them up and down, and encouraged her to take deep breaths.
Felicia inhaled and exhaled until her pulse was steady and her queasiness subsided just a little. “I don’t want half a marriage.”
“And you shouldn’t have to settle for one. I don’t know what’s wrong with that boy. No, that’s not right. I know exactly what’s wrong with him. He’s just like his daddy.”
Felicia grinned. “You said that already.”
“I mean this in a bad way. When Harmon and I were first married, his one goal was to prove to me that he could take care of me just as good as my father had. Since my family came from oil money, Harmon felt he had to compete. He had to work his fingers to the bone to keep me living in that lifestyle. I didn’t care one way or the other as long as we were together. But he insisted. Harmon always had to be good at business. He always had to prove that he was the provider for his family. Tyson is just like him in that regard.
“All his life, Tyson has been fighting to prove himself, either to his father or to his older brother, or even to himself. He’s been running this race for so long I don’t think he even knows how to stop.”
Felicia opened her mouth to speak but Evelyn silenced her with a look.
“But he has to stop. He’s a good man but not because he can make a million dollars in a year. Not because he can schmooze billionaires into investing their money with him. He’s a good man because he loves his wife and he wants to do right by her. That’s what he needs to focus on. Not business.” Evelyn’s voice rattled with indignation.
“I don’t know how to make him see that.”
“It’s not your job to keep showing him. He needs to come to his senses on his own. Or by me knocking him upside his head,” she said, tossing Felicia a playful look. “Whichever one comes first.”
Felicia laughed. “Thank you for understanding.”
“Of course I understand. I told you I lived this same dilemma.”
“How did you survive it? How did you stay with him?”
“I got pregnant with Malcolm. And that one act slowed Harmon down until all he could do was eat, sleep and dream about that baby. Then Tyson came and Harmon couldn’t have been happier, more content. Shondra was the icing on the cake. And, Lord, did he love his baby girl.”
It was Felicia’s turn to comfort now. She put a hand on Evelyn’s. “I know you miss him. I miss him, too. This has been really hard on you, and yet you can stand here and help me through this troubling time. You’re an amazing woman.”
“No. I’m just human. We have our ups and our downs but we’ve got to keep living.” Evelyn kissed Felicia on the forehead then touched a hand to the slight bump of her stomach. “Now I want you to go home and get some rest. Your number-one priority is to take care of my grandbaby. You do whatever you need to do to keep yourself calm and healthy, and let Tyson get himself together on his own. You can’t fix him, do you understand me? You can’t fix this marriage by yourself.”
Felicia nodded. “I understand.” And she did. It was now Ty’s turn to figure out what he wanted. She wasn’t giving him an ultimatum. She was making a choice. For herself and for her child.
Evelyn Braddock did not condone foolishness in her children. She and Harmon prided themselves on raising mature, conscientious and intelligent children. Her husband would be angry beyond words to see what his son was doing to his marriage. Especially since Harmon had come to terms with his own faults.
Just thinking about Harmon had Evelyn’s heart breaking. She’d loved him for what seemed like forever. The thought of living the rest of her life without him was at most times too much to bear.
However, she did have to bear it. She had to press on and live the life she was meant to. That was the burden for those still in the land of the living. Evelyn knew without a doubt that, as everyone lived, there would come a time when everyone would die. So she wasn’t hopelessly wallowing in her grief. Still, grief lived within the chambers of her heart that were once occupied by a man named Harmon Braddock.
As such she knew that she owed it to her husband’s legacy to get their son in line. Tyson was about to mess up with a good woman. A woman who was carrying her grandbaby. And she was not about to sit back and let that happen.
Meddling in her children’s affairs was not one of Evelyn’s hobbies, but when they needed to be reprimanded or have some sense slapped into them, she didn’t have a problem acquiescing.
Tyson and Malcolm had just arrived at the house. Tyson had missed lunch with her and his wife more than three hours ago. Evelyn wondered if he’d even called Felicia to apologize. Not that she blamed Felicia if she didn’t accept the apology.
Evelyn walked down the hall toward the living room, where she knew her sons sat talking, and stopped short as their voices carried to her ears.
“Connor talked to Daiyu Longwei, but she didn’t shed much light on the phone call Dad made to her just before the accident,” Malcolm was saying.
“So she denied that Dad was calling her?” Tyson asked.
At the sound of the name Evelyn had not heard for years, she stood just outside of the living room and listened.
“She couldn’t deny the cell phone records. She just didn’t give Connor any reason why Dad would have called her. She did ask him if her job were in jeopardy.”
“And what did he tell her?”
“He can’t fire her for not answering his questions, Ty.”
“True. But if she’s involved in a murder plot…”
Evelyn kept a tight reign on her temper. Hadn’t she told them she didn’t want them playing investigator anymore? Granted, she hadn’t acted on any of their suspicions personally, because the thought that someone could have murdered Harmon was just too much for her to bear.
From what she was hearing, however, her children were still piecing things together.
“Have we officially moved from an accident to a murder?”
Tyson waited a moment to answer. “We can’t ignore the facts we’ve uncovered.”
“And we can’t put them together to make any sense out of them.”
Both men were quiet.
“Okay.” Tyson spoke up again. “I think it’s time we decided where we go from here. Call Shawnie and let’s meet tomorrow. If it wasn’t an accident, we need to know sooner rather than later. And if it was, then we all need to let this go so we can move on with our lives.”
Evelyn’s heart raced. She’d thought they’d passed this point. It had been thirty years since she first heard that name and she’d thought it was over. Her sons’ words had just proven her wrong.
Chapter 11
Daiyu Longwei had a lot on her mind.
Her computer chimed with a new e-mail but she ignored it. On the corner of her desk, the phone chirped. The receptionist was calling her. She did not answer.
Instead she folded her hands in her lap and stared out the window. Something was about to happen. She could feel it. This secret that she had guarded for the last thirty-three years was about to be revealed. She had no idea how to deal with that fact.
There was a knock at her door, breaking her thoughts, and she shifted in her chair only seconds before the door opened. Not in a million years would Daiyu have been able to prepare herself for who walked in. Yet a small part of her was not even surprised. Not in the least.
The receptionist told Evelyn that Ms. Longwei was not answering her call. Evelyn didn’t care. She’d come all the way across town to meet this woman face-to-face, again, and she wasn’t about to go home empty-handed. So she’d breezed past the receptionist, daring the petite blonde to get out of her chair and stop her.
A
s a courtesy, she did knock on the door first. However, she had no intention of waiting to be invited in. Two days ago she’d overheard her sons talking about this woman and a call Harmon had apparently made to her before his accident. Well, the “accident” that her children believed could have been murder.
It had taken her two hours to accept that notion. Harmon had come a long way since they’d first met, and he’d made plenty of enemies in his work at the DA’s office. She had to assume that the list of enemies grew when he’d become a congressman. Still, she didn’t want to think of one of those enemies killing her husband.
After another wave of unbearable grief, she’d pulled herself together enough to get dressed and drive herself to Stewart Industries. She wanted some answers.
The woman behind the desk stood, and Evelyn sucked in a breath. She closed the door behind her with slow movements and without taking her eyes off the Asian beauty. It had been a long time since Evelyn had seen her, but she still looked the same. Long, dark hair hanging past her shoulders, seductively slanted eyes over high cheekbones and a round face. She looked impeccable in her conservative dark business suit.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Longwei,” Evelyn said as she moved to one of the chairs across from the desk. “I’m sure you weren’t expecting to see me.”
To her credit, when she spoke, Ms. Longwei’s voice hid the tremors Evelyn saw in her hands.
“No. I did not expect you.” She nodded to the chair behind Evelyn as she resumed her seat.
Evelyn sat, keeping her gaze level. “I’m not going to waste time with pleasantries neither of us feel. I’m here to ask some questions.”
“Oh?” Ms. Longwei said, lifting one elegantly arched brow.
“My husband called you the day he died. Why?”
“I did not speak with Harmon that day.”
The sound of her husband’s name on that woman’s lips stung, but Evelyn was careful not to let it show. “But he called you. That is an undisputable fact. That tells me that he must have been in touch with you before then. Is that true?”
“Rehashing the past isn’t going to benefit the future.”
“And lying to me isn’t going to make me go away.”
“Harmon and I had spoken before then.”
“Why? He told you it was over thirty years ago. I was there, remember?”
“What Harmon and I discussed is really none of your business.”
In a rare loss of control, Evelyn stood and slammed her palm down on the desk. “Whatever concerned my husband is my business. Now, if you know something about his death, it would serve you well to tell me now before things go too far.”
She barely blinked at Evelyn’s outburst, but Evelyn saw the moment of sadness flash into her eyes.
“This isn’t helping either of us. Harmon is gone now. We must move on.”
“Move on? My husband may have been killed, Ms. Longwei. Do you expect me to move on without resolving that?”
“I can’t help you.”
Evelyn had already straightened feeling her serene demeanor slip back into place. “You won’t help me,” Evelyn conceded. “At one point I felt sorry for you because I thought you really loved Harmon. It was such a pity that he didn’t love you the same way. Now, I don’t think your feelings for him were ever that sincere. Because if you truly loved him you would want to know what happened to him. You wouldn’t be able to sit here so calmly and refuse to give any information that might shed some light on this matter. That’s fine. After all, he was my husband.”
Evelyn left the office as dignified as she’d walked in, although her insides were quivering, her mind roaring with the fact that her husband had never stopped communicating with the woman he’d once had an affair with.
“Dammit!” Ty roared. He had just walked through every room of the condo and noticed that all her stuff was once again gone.
The last few days had been rough for him, and he’d known they weren’t much easier on Felicia. But he was trying, he really was. Once he had Brentwood situated he would be able to focus solely on Felicia and the baby.
He just needed her to bear with him a little while longer.
Obviously, she hadn’t been able to do that. For a split second he was angry with her for being so childish and walking out again. How many times was she going to run away from their issues? He couldn’t keep chasing her and bringing her back. If she didn’t want to be here, then he couldn’t make her stay.
But damn, he wanted his wife back.
Ty dropped down onto the couch and rested his head in his hands. It shouldn’t be this hard. Men had families and ran businesses every day. His father had done it quite successfully. So why couldn’t he?
Without another thought, he picked up the phone and dialed Felicia’s cell. When she didn’t answer, he left her a message to call him immediately. A few minutes later, he realized he’d used the wrong words. So he called her back and simply said, “I love you.”
But was his love enough? Clearly not. Felicia had to know how he felt about her, just like she had to know how important his work was to him. And still she was gone.
The next morning, the minute Ty got to work, he called Felicia’s cell, only to receive her voice mail again. Then he did something he rarely ever did. He called the school and left a message with the secretary for her to call him as soon as possible.
He sat and waited in his office all day, not taking any calls unless they were from her. Three times Marsha had come into his office to inquire if everything was all right. He remembered grumbling something at her and waiting for her to once again leave him alone.
Finally it was after five and he was sitting in his chair staring out his office window. From there he could see the building where his penthouse was. He should get up and go home, except the penthouse wasn’t really a home anymore. Without Felicia, it was simply four walls and a roof.
He’d spent the day in a whirlpool of self-pity and wondered if he’d be able to snap out of it this time.
“So this is what it looks like?”
Ty turned in his chair the moment he heard the familiar voice. Malcolm and Shondra walked into his office.
“This is what what looks like?” he asked, nowhere near in the mood for a sibling powwow.
Malcolm took a seat across from Ty’s desk. “A man who drove his wife away for a—what’s this—a third time?”
“Shut up!” Ty growled, glancing with irritation in Shondra’s direction.
“Oh, don’t clam up on my account,” Shondra said, coming to sit on the corner of Ty’s desk. “Felicia told me all about it when we had lunch a few weeks ago. And when I called her yesterday, she broke down again. You know, if you weren’t my brother, I’d smack you.”
“Where is she? How’s she doing?” Ty implored, ignoring everything else his sister had said.
“She’s a mess. Sort of like you. I can’t believe that you could graduate at the top of your class and still be this stupid.”
Malcolm held up a hand. “Come on, Shawnie. We said we were going to come over and try to talk some sense into him. Not berate him.”
Shondra crossed her legs and glared at Ty. “But that’s what he needs. He needs to be brought down a peg or two so he can stop thinking this world revolves around him and what he wants.”
“I need my wife,” Ty said pointedly.
“Then you should have done what you needed to do to keep her,” Shondra snapped.
Ty leaped from his chair to pace along the other side of his office. “What are you two really doing here?”
“You missed lunch. Remember you suggested I set up a time for us to meet to discuss the accident?” Malcolm went to stand in front of Ty. He put his hands on Ty’s shoulders and glared at him. “You know what you need to do to get your wife back. We talked about this before. Why can’t you slow down enough to enjoy your success?”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Ty grumbled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
/> “Success has always come so easy to you. You’re the oldest and the smartest. Hell, now you’re even walking in Dad’s footsteps directly into politics. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail just to prove that I’m a fraction as good as you and Dad were.”
“What is this BS you’re talking? Ty, you are the smartest guy I know. Like Shawnie said, you graduated top in your class even if you did go to Stanford. You can turn one million dollars into one hundred million faster than I can shower and shave. You’re more levelheaded and conscientious than I could ever hope to be.”
Ty shook his head. “I am not like you and Dad. I don’t have those same goals. But I want to make a way for my wife and our family on my own. I don’t want to live off Braddock money.”
“Oh, please, you doubled your trust fund when you were just an intern at that bank,” Shondra added. “You have more money of your own than Malcolm and I combined. There’s no way you could ever be accused of living off Braddock money.”
“You know what I realized when Dad died, Ty?” Malcolm asked.
“What?”
“You can’t take it with you. No matter how much money Dad had made in his lifetime, we didn’t bury it with him. When all is said and done, all we have are the memories we make. The time we spend with our families creating lasting memories and happy moments, that’s all that’s important. All the rest of this stuff is superficial.”
“It’s materialistic and damned selfish,” Shondra added. “What you have with Felicia is real and it’s growing in the form of my niece or nephew that she’s carrying.”
Ty looked over to his sister. “She told you about the baby?”
“Yeah, she told me. You sure didn’t. Ty, you should have been ecstatic to find out you were having a baby.”
“I was. I mean, I am.”
“Then why didn’t you tell all of us immediately? Why aren’t you out buying baby stuff and looking for a house and making plans? Why are you sitting in this office day in and day out trying to make another dollar to add to the millions you already have? What are you trying to prove?”