The Heiress

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Tom’s oldest son, Chase, was the first Deveraux to spot Daisy. Champagne in hand, the magazine editor made his way toward her. “Hey, Daisy,” Chase greeted her cheerfully with a kiss on the cheek. “You’re just in time to toast the newest members of the Deveraux clan. Amy and Gabe’s wife, Maggy, are both pregnant. And the entire family is, as you can imagine, thrilled to be expanding.”

  Jack noted that news only made Daisy’s expression turn more turbulent. “Too bad that hasn’t always been the case.”

  Chase’s forehead creased. As did Amy’s, Gabe’s and Mitch’s, all of whom were standing within earshot. Watching, it was all Jack could do not to groan out loud. There was no telling how Tom’s children with Grace were going to react to the news of their father’s digression years ago. Chase was probably the best bet for understanding. The oldest son, and publisher of the popular Modern Man magazine, had sowed a few wild oats of his own before he married his childhood sweetheart and settled down. Mitch was a possibility, too. The most like his dad, he was a pragmatic businessman, who could always be counted on to see through the murkiness of any situation, get to the bottom line and do whatever was necessary to correct the situation. Third-oldest son Gabe was known for his compassion, and as a critical-care physician, he was no stranger to people’s most private problems. Amy, the baby of the family and the owner of her own redecorating business, was always pulling for a reunification of her divorced parents, despite past hurts. Might not want to start with her, Jack thought.

  Unfortunately, even if Tom and Grace’s children eventually understood and accepted what had happened years ago, Tom’s ex-wife, recently unemployed network television mornings-news show host, Grace Deveraux, probably would not. All of which, of course, Jack’s boss, Tom Deveraux, realized. Which was why Tom was glaring at Jack, as if he couldn’t believe the way Jack had let him down, now, of all times.

  Desperate to control the damage, Jack grabbed Daisy’s arm and pulled her against him, so her slender back was pressed against his chest. Bad enough, Jack figured, that Daisy had barged in here, uninvited, despite Theresa Owens warning this was not an appropriate time to be a drop-in guest. Tom didn’t need all four of his children, their spouses and his ex-wife, witnessing this confrontation, too. “You don’t want to do this,” Jack murmured persuasively in Daisy’s ear. “Not now. Not this way.”

  “The hell I don’t!” Daisy jerked free of Jack’s staying grip and whirled to face him. Temper shimmered in her eyes. “I’ve been hidden in the shadows long enough!”

  “Daisy—what are you talking about?” Amy asked, aghast. “What’s wrong?”

  Tom threaded his way through the group, while Grace hung back looking, if possible, even more distressed.

  Jack wrapped his arm around Daisy’s shoulders companionably and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I think you’ve made your point, now let’s go,” Jack said firmly. “I’ll make sure you get to talk to Tom alone first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather make a scene.” Daisy broke loose and strode forward, heading straight for Tom. “No more pretending, Daddy. The secret’s out.”

  DAISY’S TEMPER skyrocketed as Amy regarded her father in confusion. “What secret?” Amy demanded, upset. “And why is Daisy so mad at you?”

  Even more color drained from Grace’s face. A mixture of guilt and culpability shimmered in her eyes. Which meant, Daisy thought, even more hurt, that Grace had known, too. And had helped—maybe even encouraged—Daisy’s birth father to walk away…and pretend that Daisy had never existed. Or was she the reason Tom and Grace had eventually divorced? Daisy wondered. Or had there been other, even more devastating problems, too?

  “Daisy and I need to talk privately,” Tom told everyone in the room sternly.

  Deep in her heart, Daisy had hoped that there was a highly romantic and even laudable reason Tom Deveraux had never lifted a finger to rescue her from her unhappy childhood. In the wake of the cold disapproval emanating from him, however, the guilt and the grim resignation, her misguided hopes fled. Like it or not, she had to face it. She had been willfully and wrongly abandoned—by both her birth mother and birth father. Even worse, to this day, neither of her real parents wanted her in their lives. She was to Tom and Grace and Iris, and God only knew who else, exactly what she was to Richard and Charlotte Templeton—a sordid, unwanted reminder of a time best forgotten. Well, no more. She was tired of feeling ashamed, of being blamed for something that was definitely not her doing! “Don’t look to me to perpetuate any more dirty little secrets,” Daisy warned the man who, more than anyone, was responsible for her lifelong unhappiness. Because she wasn’t going to do it!

  Mitch frowned as he struggled to make sense of what was going on. “Have you been drinking?” he demanded of Daisy, striding closer.

  “Not yet. But as they say, the evening is young,” Daisy continued sarcastically, picking up the bottle of champagne and waving it in front of her like a red flag in front of a bull. “And we have much to celebrate.”

  Gabe moved forward and just as promptly removed the heavy dark-green bottle from her hand. “Look, Daisy,” Gabe said, setting the magnum aside, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you’re obviously upset, and—”

  Daisy gritted her teeth, her anger and disillusionment building to an untenable degree. There were times when she welcomed Gabe’s inherently good nature—this wasn’t one of them. “That a medical opinion, brother Gabe, or just a personal observation?” she asked with a saccharine smile.

  Trembling visibly, Grace murmured, “God help us,” and sank into a chair, covering her face with her hands.

  Tom gave Jack another look, even sterner and more commanding than before. No words were necessary between the two men. Daisy knew what the orders were—Jack was to get her out of the house, pronto. Ever the faithful, loyal Deveraux-Heyward Shipping Company employee, Jack slid an arm around Daisy’s waist and held her tight. “Obviously, Daisy is in no condition to be talking to anyone here tonight. So Daisy and I are going to be leaving now,” Jack announced firmly but pleasantly.

  “Not before I tell everyone what I came to tell them,” Daisy said, looking around at the tense, wary expressions on her half siblings’ faces. “That I’m Tom Deveraux’s love child.”

  AMY GASPED, Jack grimaced, Grace moaned. All three of Tom’s sons were shocked, silent. “It wasn’t love,” Tom corrected Daisy impatiently.

  Yet another illusion down the drain. “A mistake,” Daisy guessed.

  “And there’s no proof you’re even my child,” Tom continued, even more defensively.

  Daisy reeled at his unwillingness to claim her as his, even now. She knew what a loving father Tom was to his other children, that being a father was one of the primary joys of his life, aside from his work at Deveraux-Heyward Shipping. It was evident in everything he did and said. Hell, he’d even been a surrogate father to his housekeeper, Theresa Owen’s illegitimate child, Bridgett, over the years, out of nothing more than the goodness of his heart. Which made his refusal to claim her, Daisy thought, all the more stinging. Shoulders stiffening, Daisy regarded Tom resentfully. “You’re denying you slept with my birth mother?”

  Tom’s jaw clenched. “It was a one-night fling.”

  Like that excused and explained everything, Daisy thought even more furiously.

  “Daddy! You cheated on Mom?” Amy said.

  Tom shook his head and released a short, aggravated breath. “It was one night,” he defended himself impatiently.

  “But once, as they say, is enough,” Grace added in a low voice thick with tears.

  “Man, Dad.” Chase shook his head.

  “I don’t believe this!” Gabe murmured in horror.

  Mitch was silent, tense as he struggled to make sense of it, too.

  “But you knew you made Iris pregnant,” Daisy continued probing.

  Amy blinked and whirled to face Daisy. “Iris…?” she echoed.

  “Templeton-Hayes,” Da
isy supplied the rest. “My sister. At least the woman I always thought was my adopted sister. Turns out she was really my birth mother and my adopted parents—Charlotte and Richard Templeton—are really my biological grandparents. And Connor is my uncle not my adopted brother. Funny, huh?” Not waiting for a response from the shocked half siblings around her, Daisy turned back to Tom, still struggling to find a way to obtain her own peace of mind. “Which brings us back to you. Why did you turn your back on me?” And please, Daisy prayed silently, let it be good.

  Tom uttered another long, tortured sigh. “Because I never knew for certain that you were mine.”

  “You never asked?” Daisy regarded him incredulously. How was that possible? A wealthy, self-assured, successful CEO, he wasn’t afraid of anything. And he certainly wasn’t shy about going after what he wanted! Tom ran his hands through his short, gray-brown hair and began to pace. “Iris went to Europe to learn the antique business, after our interlude. It seemed like a good move, a way to get both our lives back on track, and I wished her well.” Tom paused and frowned. “It wasn’t until Richard and Charlotte unexpectedly and suddenly adopted a baby some nine months later that I realized it was possible she’d become pregnant during the encounter and you were mine. So I confronted Iris.”

  “And…?” Daisy questioned impatiently.

  Tom shrugged his broad shoulders restively. “She denied ever having a child. I asked for a blood test anyway.” Tom scowled, recalling, “She said I would have to sue her publicly to get it, and if I did, she would not only refuse to take the test but countersue me for slander.” He looked at the assembled group, pleading for understanding. “I was trying to put my marriage to Grace back together, Iris was engaged to be married to Randolph Hayes IV in what was shaping up to be the wedding of the year. You were well taken care of, Daisy, with people who loved you and wanted the best for you. It just seemed right to let the matter drop.” Tom paused again, looking even more conflicted. “Even now, I don’t know that you’re actually my child, Daisy. Just that you could be.”

  “Well, I am your child,” Daisy countered hotly, incensed that Tom Deveraux could be trying to duck his responsibility, even now, when she had a red accordion file full of proof sitting on the front seat of her car. “At least according to the nuns at the convent in Switzerland, where my mother stayed when she was pregnant.” At Tom’s blank look, Daisy continued explaining, “Iris confided in one of them. Sister Agatha knew all about you. How you led her on, flirted with her for weeks and weeks, and then—one night—took her to bed, and then afterward, after you got caught by your wife, told her to pretend it had never happened.”

  The skin across Tom’s cheekbones stretched taut as he glared at Daisy. “You’re making it simple. It wasn’t.”

  “Oh, I think it was,” Grace interjected bitterly, standing and addressing everyone in the room for the first time. “Your father screwed around. He got caught. It happens all the time, especially to men of his ilk.”

  Chase looked at his mother, surmising humorlessly, “Dad’s infidelity is why you two divorced, isn’t it?”

  Tears gleaming in her eyes, Grace nodded and continued matter-of-factly, “Lord knows I tried to put it behind me. I really did. But after that, after I walked in on him and Iris, I could never trust him again.”

  Silence fell as everyone contemplated what an ugly scene that must have been, both during and after the philandering.

  Mitch looked at Daisy curiously. “What does your birth mother, er, uh, Iris, and the rest of your family—the Templetons—have to say about this?”

  “I haven’t talked to Charlotte, Richard or Connor yet,” Daisy said quietly.

  “Why not?” Gabe asked gently.

  Daisy threw her hands up in mute frustration. “Because they lied to me for years. All of them.” She looked at Tom again, aware there was a part of her, regardless of how angry, that already thought of him as her father. Just as Richard and Charlotte, who had adopted and reluctantly reared her and guided her through childhood, would always remain Mother and Father to her, too. Daisy sighed, and aware Tom was still waiting, still struggling to understand her motivation as desperately as she was trying to comprehend his, continued with a weariness that came straight from her soul, “And I wanted to hear your side of the story first. Now that I have—” Unable to go on, Daisy shook her head at Tom. Her throat aching unbearably, she turned and headed blindly for the door. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she mumbled. And she fled.

  TOM FOLLOWED THEM BOTH and stopped Jack in the front hall. Knowing he could trust the Deveraux-Heyward Shipping attorney to do whatever needed to be done, he looked Jack in the eye and told him brusquely, “Go after her. Do whatever you have to do, but stay with her and make sure she doesn’t do anything even more foolish or self-destructive than what she did here tonight.” Tom inclined his head toward the elegant front room where the rest of the family was still gathered. “I’ll take care of things here, and then catch up with both of you later.”

  Jack nodded his understanding and headed out after Daisy.

  Relieved that was going to be taken care of, Tom strode back into the double drawing room. One mistake. Who the hell would have known one slip could have blown his entire life to smithereens? But it had, and now, judging from the looks on the faces of his kids and their spouses, and his ex-wife, it was about to get much worse. Grace was seated on the antique sofa, her features tight with resentment. Their children were gathered around her, while their spouses mingled uncertainly in the background, not sure whether to stay or leave, only knowing—like Tom and Grace—that this was one hell of a mess the Deveraux were in.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Tom said.

  “You should be!” Amy cried, as always, the most emotional of the group. She dabbed furiously at the tears on her cheeks. “I can’t believe you would do something like that!” she fumed resentfully. Beside her, Grace seemed to concur.

  “Was there just the one indiscretion?” Gabe asked warily, struggling to understand.

  Chase regarded Tom with his customary cheekiness. “Or should we brace ourselves for other illegitimate heirs, to liven up our family gatherings?”

  Tom glared at his sons. Gabe’s lack of faith and Chase’s sarcasm weren’t helping. Before Tom could censure them, however, his second-oldest son Mitch put in his two cents’. “Chase and Gabe have legitimate questions,” Mitch pointed out, taking his usual businesslike approach. “News like this could affect our reputation in the community. There are some who might not want to do business with Deveraux-Heyward Shipping if we’re embroiled in one scandal after another.”

  “There won’t be any more scandals,” Tom said, disappointed in his family’s seemingly united stand against him. “Nor will there be any more illegitimate children showing up on our doorstep. Now, if you kids will excuse us, your mother and I have a lot to talk about.”

  As soon as everyone left, Tom closed the doors to the double drawing room, and turned to Grace. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. It was lame, but he didn’t know what else to say.

  Grace glared at him with years of pent-up resentment, the look in her eyes making him feel about two inches tall. “You should be, you son of a bitch,” she retorted just as quietly.

  Tom wished she would just haul off and slug him and get it over with, instead of continuing to punish him, day after day, year after year. “Don’t hold anything back,” he advised just as sarcastically, wondering how much longer Grace was going to continue to make him pay for this.

  Since the divorce, they’d been civil to one another at family functions, for the sake of the kids. Every time they had tried to do more than that, either be friends or something more, the issue of his infidelity would come up and they’d end up fighting again. Tom was tired of the discord. He sensed Grace was, too. But as for how to move on, move past this…

  Grace stood and went over to the table where she had left her handbag. Her cheeks pink with distress, she picked it up and head
bent, began to rummage through it. Tom studied her, thinking how pretty his former wife looked in the silky turquoise pantsuit. Her blond hair was much shorter these days—worn in attractive layers that framed her face and the nape of her neck—but her figure was still trim, her beautifully girl-next-door face unlined. As always, when he was near her, he found himself wanting to nurture and care for and protect her. Not that she would allow it. Not after what he had done.

  “I always knew this was going to happen someday,” Grace said.

  Grace glared at him. “I hoped it never would.” She fished out her keys and held them in the palm of her hand. “What are you going to do about Daisy?”

  Tom shrugged. Now that he knew what Daisy thought was the truth, he hadn’t a clue. Daisy was one troubled young woman. Tempestuous, wild and unpredictable, and already the talk of Charleston, even without this revelation. The Templetons had spent years trying to control her. To no avail. Tom wondered if what Daisy had been told by Sister Agatha was true. Was Daisy his child? Or had Iris been with someone else in that time frame? And even if he was Daisy’s father, Tom admitted to himself, would he have any better luck, trying to parent Daisy, than Richard and Charlotte Templeton had had, during their tenure, as Daisy’s adopted mom and dad? Aware Grace was still waiting for his answer, Tom said bluntly, “I don’t know. I’ll give her until morning to simmer down, and then see if I can reason with her. And go from there.”

  Grace arched her elegant eyebrows in skeptical fashion. “Good luck with that.”

  He would need it, Tom admitted. And even then it might not be enough. Just as his apologies over the years hadn’t been enough. “Grace…”

  She paused en route to the foyer. Wheeling halfway to face him, she said, “What?”

  “You can’t leave.” Tom held out a beseeching hand. “Not like this.”