Harlequin Desire June 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Katherine Garbera

“Welcome back.” Gabe eyed Cole’s return to more casual attire.

  “Thank you,” he said as they rode the elevator down to the lobby. “Now, if the weather will magically warm up so I can get some hours in on my food truck, I will be a very happy man.”

  “No, you won’t,” Gabe said as they strode across the massive, busy, sky-lighted lobby and through the automated glass doors of the Midtown Manhattan building.

  Cole said nothing in response. There was nothing to say. It was true. He was miserable without her. Again. And this time at his doing.

  The brothers climbed into the rear of one of the company’s vehicles as the driver held the door open for them. “Thank you,” both said to Harvey.

  They fell silent as Harvey reclaimed his seat and eventually pulled away from the parking spot in front of the building. The mood was tense. Neither was looking forward to this visit to the Cress family townhouse.

  It was time for the truth to be revealed.

  Cole looked out the tinted window at the city as they neared the prominent and historic Lenox Hill section of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. His brother was silent as well, the investigative file resting on his lap. But Cole didn’t bother to wager what occupied Gabe’s thoughts. He was too focused on his own.

  This will not go well.

  The driver slowed the SUV to a stop in front of the five-story, ten-thousand-square-foot townhouse. Both men opened their rear doors and exited before Harvey could. “Give us an hour,” Gabe said as Cole stood on the pristine sidewalk and looked up at the towering structure.

  For such a huge part of his life, it had been home.

  Now he was a visitor.

  He opened the wrought-iron gate to jog up the steps, glancing back as his brother did the same. He rang the bell.

  “Where’s your key?” Gabe asked, reaching into the pocket of his camel wool coat.

  “Respect is earned when respect is given,” Cole explained. “Do you want our parents to feel they can just stroll into our home whenever they please?”

  Gabe made a face. “You’re right,” he said, releasing the key back into his pocket.

  “Ain’t I always?” Cole asked.

  Gabe volleyed back. “Not lately.”

  Another Jillian reference.

  “I’m regretting talking to you about her,” Cole said just as the elaborate front door opened.

  Felice, the new housekeeper, smiled as she stepped back to pull the door wide for them to enter the marbled vestibule. “Hello, Mr. Cress and Mr. Cress,” she said. “It’s good to see you both.”

  They gave her warm smiles in greeting before walking the length of the entry hall to step into their parents’ lavish, spacious living room in its shades of light gray and steel-blue against the pale walls.

  “Your coats?” she asked, already extending her arm.

  Each removed his outer gear and turned it over to her.

  “Mr. Cress is awaiting your arrival in the library,” Felice said before turning to hang their coats in the closet. “Everyone is in their suite, preparing for dinner.”

  As the men made their way across the hardwood floor to the open kitchen and den area, Cole’s steps slowed as he remembered the excitement he’d felt at knowing Jillian worked there. He had enjoyed teasing and flirting with her as much as when he’d finally bedded her. He smiled at the closed pantry door, pleased no one knew just how much fun he and Jillian had shared in there.

  She was gone. A short and plump man in a red chef’s coat was in her place.

  The brothers rode the elevator upstairs to the second floor, where the movie theater and library were located. His parents occupied the entire third floor as their private suite, complete with a sitting room, massive walk-in closets, their joint home office, a pantry, and a spa bath. On each of the fourth and fifth floors, a huge den centered three-bedroom suites and another well-stocked pantry.

  There was no denying the beauty of the home flushed with luxury and every creature comfort to be desired.

  Cole and Gabe shared a last look before the elevator slowed to a stop.

  Their father stood near the rear glass wall that ran the entire exterior of the home. He glanced over his broad shoulder to eye them before he turned. “Come in, boys,” he said, his deep voice booming without even trying.

  As they neared him, Cole saw his father’s eyes dip to the file Gabe held. He didn’t miss the way Phillip Senior rolled his shoulders back as if to steel himself.

  “Are you staying for dinner?” Phillip Senior asked. “Chef is preparing Peking duck. I haven’t had it in years.”

  “Listen, Dad, this is not an easy conversation to have, but it has to happen...” Gabe began, sitting in one of the leather armchairs and waving an invite to their father to take one of the seats across from him.

  “Getting right to it?” Phillips Senior said with a chuckle. “I assume the file is the reason the two of you requested this private meeting that we couldn’t have at the offices.”

  Cole eyed him, searching for the love and respect he’d once held for him years ago. “Did you have people in the family followed by a damned private investigator?” he asked with a hard stare.

  “Cole!” Gabe snapped.

  He had just blown their carefully crafted plan out of the water.

  Phillip Senior did take the seat before looking over at Cole, who was still standing. “I should have known with your involvement, niceties would be amiss,” he said.

  “The question still stands,” Cole said, summoning the same strength he wished he’d had that day when he had just run from the restaurant and walked home.

  “When will the hate fade, son?” Phillip Senior asked.

  Cole’s emotions tightened his throat. “I wish I hated you, then I wouldn’t be so damn disappointed.”

  Gabe remained silent as if sensing a long-overdue moment between his brother and his father.

  Some emotion he couldn’t identify crossed Phillip Senior’s broad face. He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “I never hired a private investigator in my life,” he said.

  Cole turned from him, trusting nothing he said to be the truth.

  “Well, we did,” Gabe said.

  Cole glanced back just as his brother leaned forward to sit the file on the table between them. “We felt you were deserving because you pried into our lives—”

  “I did not!” Phillip Senior shouted.

  “Regardless, we have discovered something that you need to know.”

  Cole turned to face them as Gabe removed his hand from the file and sat back.

  “You have a son, Lincoln—”

  “Lies!” Phillip Senior roared, jumping to his feet and swatting the file away with the back of his hand. “How dare you accuse me of such a lie! Is that what you think of me, Gabe? I know he hates the very air I breathe but do you believe that of me?”

  Cole released a bitter chuckle. “Ask me, do I believe it after walking in on you screwing a waitress while our mother was downstairs in the restaurant,” he said, his words dripping with contempt and his eyes stinging with the heat of his anger.

  “What?” Gabe stormed in shock.

  Phillip Senior pushed his chair onto its side before taking two large steps across the floor to lunge at Cole. He grabbed the front of his shirt in his fists. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!” he yelled in his face, spittle flying.

  Cole released another bitter laugh before his eyes went cold. “Liar,” he said in a quiet voice that was damning.

  Gabe squeezed between them and pushed to put distance between them. “Enough,” he said.

  “More than enough.”

  The three men swung their heads in the same direction to find Nicolette standing at the top of the stairs. Each man’s chest heaved from emotion and exertion. They each turned and walke
d away from one another, seeking the control they had lost. Silence reigned, but the tension was omnipresent.

  Cole moved to stand at the rear wall and look out at the snow beginning to fall and coat the backyard below. His eyes went to the garden Jillian had begun and how it had been taken over by weeds and overgrowth.

  Neglect had a way of doing that.

  He let his forehead rest on the cold glass. His heavy breaths fanned it. He had denied himself Jillian’s attention and was beginning to feel and look as abandoned as the garden.

  A flash of blue against the glass caught his eye and he watched in the reflection as his mother went to his father’s side. “I knew about the affair,” she admitted, pressing a hand to her husband’s cheek to stroke it lovingly.

  Cole’s eyes widened. It was his turn to be stunned. He turned to eye them—united and in love. He had been a fool, thinking he’d sheltered and kept her free from hurt when all the while she had long since given her husband the forgiveness Cole would not. He didn’t know how to feel, but pleased was nowhere on the list of possibilities.

  Cole turned from them and fought the urge to valiantly punch his fist through the glass until the entire rear wall shattered. Instead, he lightly tapped it against his leg.

  “What affair? When?” Gabe asked.

  “Fifteen years ago,” Nicolette supplied as she guided Phillip Senior to another chair to sit.

  “And did you know Cole knew about it?” Gabe asked. “Just how many secrets does this damn family have?”

  “No, I didn’t know Cole knew,” Nicolette insisted.

  That was of little reprieve.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said.

  Gabe blocked his path. “No! Don’t run from it. Make them stand in their mess and realize it created more mess,” he said before stepping past his brother to eye their parents. “You two have this weird bubble where first and foremost there’s only the two of you. Even now, you comfort a man who betrayed you and ignore a son who protected you.”

  Nicolette look confused at first and then her expression changed as if Gabe’s point of view was now her own. “My Cole Man,” she said, reverting to her childhood nickname for him.

  He shook his head, denying his mother the opportunity to appease her sudden guilt. He had feelings of his own with which to grapple. “I’m done. This is it for me. I will never keep another secret for anyone, so you have tonight to tell the family about Lincoln or I will,” he said before turning and striding away.

  His booted feet ate up the stairs as he descended them. Reaching the first floor, he moved quickly to the closet and yanked his coat from the wooden hanger, causing it to tumble to the floor.

  “You good, bro?”

  Cole glanced at Gabe coming down the last few stairs to also reach for his coat. He’d also picked up the hanger Cole had sent to the floor in his haste.

  “Yeah,” he lied. “You?” Discovering their father had once cheated on their mother had to have affected his brother, too.

  “No,” Gabe admitted, opening the door and entering the vestibule. “Affairs. You keeping one hell of a secret from me. A half-brother we have never met. No, I am not good.”

  Cole was glad to see Harvey already parked on the street and awaiting them.

  “I called him,” Gabe said, answering the unspoken question.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  “Great,” Cole said as he pulled his cell phone from the inner pocket of his coat.

  For a moment, he wished it were Jillian.

  He shook his head at his mother’s number. “Nope,” he said, sending the call to voice mail before dropping the phone back into his coat pocket as he bent his body to enter the back seat of the SUV.

  He shivered from the cold and was thankful when Harvey slammed the door closed and rushed around the vehicle to do the same for Gabe.

  “We never did get him to admit he had us all investigated,” Cole said just as Gabe’s phone rang. “Unless it was Mom.”

  “Actually, my bet is on her after the stunts she pulled with Monica and Jillian,” Gabe said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I’m glad to be out of there. I’m going home. Eat some dinner. Love on my woman and go to bed, because reality sucks right now.”

  Cole shook his head with a snarky laugh when Gabe showed him their mother was calling him now.

  “Bonjour,” Gabe said in greeting as he checked the time on his gold watch.

  Cole ignored his brother’s conversation in French as he looked out the window. He was stunned by the knowledge that his mother had been aware of his father’s infidelity. Discovering that she’d known, forgiven his father, and seemed to still forge a loving relationship, was forcing him to rethink a lot of things—and to wonder even more.

  What private circumstances could have led to his mother forgiving him?

  That, he didn’t know. But he was now well aware that the role of the blind hapless victim within which he’d placed his mother had been wrong.

  How long had she known?

  Cole pinched the bridge of his nose, ready to get home to nurse a bottle of rare Scotch from his well-stocked bar.

  “Vous ne pouvez pas vous attendre à ce que nous prétendions que c’est tout normal et juste manger le dîner avec tout le monde qui est désemparé de ce qui se passe?” Gabriel said.

  Cole gave him a glance, agreeing with what he’d said. You can’t expect us to pretend it’s all normal and just eat dinner with everyone who is clueless to what’s going on?

  He was sure his brothers had known of their arrival and were wondering about their speedy departure. He regretted not speaking to them and taking a moment to hug his niece. He had just felt an urgency to get out of there.

  “Je suis d’accord avec Cole. Dis-leur. Ou nous le ferons. Plus de secrets!” Gabe’s hand urgently slashed the air. I agree with Cole. Tell them. Or we will. No more secrets.

  Cole pulled his phone from his pocket and swiped until he was looking down at a photo of Jillian the night of the relaunch of Cress, INC.’s website. Her smile was infectious, and that dress was burned into his memory.

  What is she doing?

  Hopefully, not Warren.

  His grip tightened on the phone.

  “Je vais lui demander,” Gabe said, looking briefly in his direction.

  “Ask me what?” Cole said as he tucked his cell phone away.

  He listened as Gabe explained that their parents wanted to read the report and reach out to Lincoln for a DNA test to confirm paternity before telling their other brothers.

  “No. No more secrets,” Cole said with a firm shake of his head. “We can all wait for the results together. We know. They should know. They will know, if it’s left to me.”

  Gabe finished the conversation with his mother and ended the call. “Family meeting tomorrow night at the townhouse at eight,” he said.

  Cole nodded as Harvey brought the SUV to a stop in front of his condo and he let himself out.

  Long after he entered his condo and lit the fireplace before pouring himself a stiff drink, he had a reckoning that would not be denied. He was plagued by thoughts of Jillian, their relationship, and where it had all gone wrong—and just what role his knowledge of his father’s infidelity may have subconsciously played in that.

  * * *

  Jillian crossed her arms at her chest as she walked around the studio apartment in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan. It didn’t compare with the moderate-size loft apartment she’d given up for her move to California, but it was more budget-friendly—and that was key. Most important, it was freedom from her parents’ home where late-night giggles and a squeaky bed frame made her life a living hell.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  She turned from her view of the building across the street to stride the short distance to the door. She gave the movers a than
kful smile for working during such frigid weather to transport her furniture from her storage unit after a request of just an hour ago. “Lunch is on me,” she said to the two men, waving her hand at a large pot of chili and cheesy cornbread on the stove.

  “Now that sounds like a plan,” the muscled owner said.

  Jillian jammed the door open with a wood wedge and moved out of their way.

  Getting the key to the apartment that morning from the property manager had been the good news she needed. She sat on the window seat and pulled her knees to her chest as she looked out at the gentrified neighborhood that had shifted from its factory roots. Now it’s where she called home.

  At the sight of a tall man on a motorcycle parking in front of the building, she straightened and pressed her hands to the window.

  Cole.

  She felt foolish when the man pulled off his helmet, revealing he was not Cole at all.

  Of course.

  He didn’t know where she lived and didn’t seem to care to find out.

  It was over.

  She’d chanced it and lost. And it hurt. If Cole had dropped to his knees, asked her to marry him, she would have. Without question.

  “And then I would have three ex-husbands,” she muttered, resting her chin atop one of her knees as she settled back on the window seat.

  “You said something, Miss Rossi?” one of the movers asked.

  She glanced at the young man with skin as dark as midnight. He really was attractive. “Ms.,” she corrected with the hint of a smile. “I have two ex-husbands making me anything but a Miss.”

  “Their loss,” he said with an appreciative eye.

  He was young and fit with a beautiful smile. Just the type to have a wonderful afternoon of fun with—if Cole didn’t already occupy her thoughts, keeping her from letting any other man occupy her bed.

  No matter how much she missed a man—one particular man—in her bed.

  She gave him a shake of her head to gently curtail any attempt at his garnering her attention. He gave her a regretful look and another flirtatious smile before leaving the apartment.

  She was thankful when the movers were done in the apartment, having finished setting her belongings where she liked and enjoying the chili she’d prepared. The space was so small that she’d felt cramped with the two men in it. As soon as she closed the door behind them, she turned to lean against it in relief as she looked around.