The candlelight, the clink of glasses, the fine linen tablecloths all spoke of easy luxury Cassie knew was a whole different side of Cypress Corners. And she’d been right. The Clubhouse was just their father’s element.
“Hello.” Bill came to his feet and Cassie was once more relieved to have on heels. “It’s good to see you three together.”
Rick and Jake just nodded but Cassie studied her father for a long minute.
“Come give your father a kiss, Cassandra.”
She blinked. “Are you kidding?”
Bill actually walked around the table to give her a peck on the cheek. It was so out of the norm that she nearly gawked at him. He smiled at her, actually smiled, and then waved a hand toward the chairs.
“Sit, sit.” He looked at the hostess. “Send over the sommelier.”
The woman nodded and went to inform the wine steward to come to their table.
“Good,” Rick said. “I could sure use a glass or two.”
Jake looked down as a smile teased his lips. Cassie sat and put the napkin on her lap out of habit. She’d been in enough fancy restaurants with Bill over the years. That was for sure. In Europe she might have gone drinking and partying in pricey clubs but she rarely ate in formal places. This muscle memory came directly from her dutiful dinners with Bill whenever he summoned her. She blew out a breath. That wine steward couldn’t get here fast enough.
“You look good, Cassandra,” her father said.
He did, too. Hale and hardy and Chapman all over.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said.
“What have you all been doing?” he asked, his gaze bouncing among all three of them.
Rick just met his gaze. “Selling Cypress. I love the place and I’m really good at getting that across to potential residents.”
Bill nodded. “Yeah, the investors have been very happy. What about you, Cassandra? I know you weren’t happy when I sent you here.”
Cassie shrugged. “That’s true, but it’s growing on me. I’ve been trying a few things. I’m working with Jake on the adventure courses.”
“Really?” Bill gave her a look of approval and she almost fell off her chair. “And what about you, Jake? Staying alive, I see.”
“Yep.”
Jake’s short answer spoke volumes. To everyone’s relief, the steward arrived to fill the awkward silence. Wine was discussed and selected and soon poured. Taking up her glass of pinot grigio, Cassie took a long sip.
“I have something to tell you,” Bill said after a beat.
She swallowed and carefully set her glass down. “Me?”
“All of you,” Bill said.
“I thought this could at least wait until dessert,” Jake muttered.
“Tiffany and I are getting a divorce,” Bill announced. “It should be final by next month.”
Her brothers looked surprised, and then they both narrowed their eyes.
“Let me guess,” Rick said. “She’s taking you to the cleaners.”
“Chapman is bankrupt because she used it as a down payment on a facelift,” Jake put in.
Bill shook his head. “She’s not getting a penny of Chapman money. She cheated on me, and more than once.”
Cassie saw a flicker of real hurt on her father’s face. As little as he ever let his emotions show, this was a revelation.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said.
Bill waved a hand, the vulnerability gone in the next second. “It taught me a lesson, though. You can’t keep things hidden. Not forever, anyway.”
The server came by just after that cryptic statement and began to list the specials. Her mind still on whatever her father was getting at, she simply chose the salmon and her brothers both picked the porterhouse. Bill ordered the steak too and the waiter left with a promise to bring them a basket of freshly baked bread.
She and her brothers did most of the talking as the meal continue, though there really wasn’t much conversation. The food was excellent and the wine superb but she couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever their father planned on spilling after dessert wasn’t something any of them would want to hear.
As coffee was poured, Cassie felt the shift in tension at the table. Her brothers didn’t seem like they were going to broach any subject with Bill so she took it upon herself to question him. What was the worst he could do? Send her somewhere else?
That fleeting thought gave her pause. She didn’t want to leave Cypress Corners. She didn’t want to go back to only emailing her brothers and having no one real in her life. She didn’t want to leave Ty.
“Dad, I know you have more to tell us than your divorce,” she said.
Bill nodded and set his coffee cup aside. “I do, Cassandra. I have something to tell all of you.”
“Spill,” Jake said.
Bill took a few moments to look each of them in the face, and then spoke. “You have a brother. A half-brother, actually.”
Cassie gasped.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Rick asked, keeping his voice low.
“A brother?” Jake asked. “Not with that bitch Tiffany.”
Bill shook his head. “No. Tiffany isn’t his mother. His mother passed away last winter.”
“I don’t understand,” Cassie said. “Who was she?”
Bill fiddled with a teaspoon as he stared at the table. “She was someone I knew a long time ago. We…had an affair.”
Rick cursed softly and ran his hand over his hair. “How old is this brother?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Right between me and Jake.” Cassie whispered. “What’s his name?”
“Why didn’t we know about him?” Jake asked.
Bill held up his hands to hold their questions. “His name is Ben. Ben Chapman.”
“So he’s your legal son?” Rick asked.
Cassie gave her big brother props for cutting to the chase.
“Your legal son. Our brother,” she said. “Yet we’ve never even heard of him?”
“Did he grow up in Boston, too?” Jake asked.
“No,” Bill answered. “He grew up in California. Santa Cruz.”
“Does he know about us?” Cassie asked.
“He does now,” Bill said. “I spoke to him before I came down here. I’ve taken care of him all his life but we never had a relationship.”
“Sounds familiar,” Rick said.
“This is…” Jake shook his head. “I don’t even know what this is.”
“I’m sorry, kids,” Bill said.
“Did Mom know?” Cassie asked.
Bill’s gaze slid away from them. “Yes.”
His answer was short but it held a huge weight. Their mother knew their father had another child and she never told them?
“I know I was never around for you kids,” Bill said. “I know that, and I admit I took the out your mother forced on me.”
“Forced on you?” Rick growled. “What the hell are you saying?”
“We were having trouble, your mother and I. I had a fling with my secretary. It wasn’t a long affair. Just a couple of weeks. She got pregnant.”
“With our brother,” Cassie said, still trying to wrap her head around it all.
“I told your mother. We reconciled only after I promised her I’d never mention it to you kids.”
“But you left her in the end,” Jake said. “You left her and us.”
The expression on Jake’s face showed the hurt they’d all felt by Bill’s desertion.
“We fought,” Bill said. “You have to remember that.”
“I remember Mom crying a lot,” Cassie said.
Bill’s lips thinned. “I wasn’t happy, either.”
“So you left and basically cut off all contact with us, except for your bank account,” Rick said.
“It was the only way your mother would agree to a divorce.”
The table fell silent again. Cassie looked at her brothers, and saw the truth dawning on them at the same second she got it.
“She insisted you stay away in exchange for a divorce?” she asked.
Bill nodded. “I took the out she gave me. I’m sorry. I should have been in your lives.”
“We’re fine without you,” Rick said. “Then and now.”
“You’re not, but you’re all adults now. I wanted you to know about Ben and I told him about you, too.”
Cassie sat back, feeling like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Her mother had known about their half-brother? She’d kept that secret and kept their father away from them as punishment?
“I can’t believe Mom would do that,” Jake said.
“Your mother was a good woman, Jake. But she wasn’t a saint.”
Jake and Rick sank back in their chairs and they looked as shell-shocked as she felt.
“I’m heading back up to Boston tomorrow,” Bill said. “I’ll send you Ben’s contact info and you three can take it from there.”
“Washing your hands again, are you?” Rick asked.
Bill winced. “Not this time. I’m giving you space, Rick. All of you.” He smiled at Cassie. “I’m proud of you, Cassandra. It seems you found yourself right where you’re supposed to be.”
“With my family,” she breathed.
Their father nodded and came to his feet. “I’ve taken care of the bill. Stay here and talk if you like. I’ll be in touch.”
Bill kissed Cassie’s cheek and patted her brothers’ shoulders. More touch-feely stuff from him? Taken with the crap they’d just waded through it wasn’t that strange.
“I can’t believe it,” she said after he’d left.
“Which part?” Jake asked.
“All of it. It’s a lot to take in.”
Jake and Rick each covered her hands and she held on.
“Let’s go home,” she said. “You two need to see Harmony and Claire and I need… I don’t know what I need but I have to get out of this restaurant.”
Her brothers exchanged a knowing look, and then Jake lifted his chin. “Text him, sis. We’ll wait with you until he picks you up.”
With trembling fingers, she sent Ty a text. She had to have something solid to hold onto right now, when the entire world she’d grown up with had just been shaken to its core.
And there was no one more solid than Ty.
***
“Another brother?” Ty asked.
“Yep,” Cassie said. “Just a little bit older than I am. And we never knew.”
Ty gave her quiet for the moment. Her text had been a surprise tonight. He’d ignored his mother’s smug smile as he’d told her he was going to meet Cassie but when he’d seen her and her two brothers he’d known this wasn’t a booty call. No. Something had happened. Something big.
She was pale and Rick and Jake were both visibly agitated. They’d hugged her and she’d clung to them before moving to get in his truck.
“I don’t think I ever knew either of my parents, Ty. My mother knew about our half-brother all along and never told us.”
“She was hurt.”
“You know our father was never really in our lives.”
Ty nodded. “That’s the impression I got from what Rick and Jake said about him.”
She folded her arms. “And now we find out that our mother insisted on that. He was the prick who did what she said, though. Coward.”
Ty chose his words carefully. She didn’t need him throwing in his opinion about her parents. He could tell her what he believed, though.
“I don’t understand all that happened in your family but I can tell you I would never let anybody keep me from my kids.”
Cassie shot him a look. “I know. Look at all the crap you put up with from Hank to see Riley.”
The silence held until they got to the tent-cabin and went inside. When he unlocked the door she walked in and headed straight on through to the back porch. He followed and found her curled up on a chair with her arms wrapped around her knees. She’d kicked her shoes off and she looked very vulnerable right then. She’d been hurt tonight, they all had, and he forced himself to take his cue from her going forward.
“What the hell is it with family, anyway?” she asked, leaning her head back.
“Damned if I know.” He sat in the other chair. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for a while now.”
She sighed and turned to him. “I’m sorry. I’m going on about having a new brother and you’ve been dealing with losing your sister all this time.”
He shrugged. “It is what it is, Cassie. We move forward and try to make it work.”
She smiled, but it was a little sad. “You’re a philosopher too?”
He laughed softly. “Nope.”
“How do I move forward, Ty? I want to figure this out but I don’t know how.”
“What do your brothers think?”
“You saw them. They’re as freaked out as I am.” She pulled her hair back and twisted it somehow to keep it off her neck. “We’ll have to talk about it. I’m not looking forward to it, though.”
“It can’t be worse than my talk with Hank at the End Zone.”
“You never told me what he said.”
Ty didn’t really want to talk about the shit Hank had spewed that night. He owed her the truth, though. Hank had mentioned her specifically.
“He recognized you,” he told her.
She bit her lower lip. “From the pictures?”
“Yeah. He was making noise about not letting gossip and scandal around his little girl.”
“Oh, Ty. Oh, no. I’d die if anything I did keeps Riley from you!”
“It won’t, Cassie. Some pictures from months ago in a tabloid? It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Still. I’d hate to give him any reason to be an even bigger dick.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry about Hank. You have enough going on, I think.”
To his shock, her face crumbled and she let out a sob. “My mother lied, Ty. She lied about our brother every day she didn’t tell us about him. And she lied about our father wanting to stay away.”
“Come here.”
She unfolded herself and came into his arms, settling on his lap and tucking her face up against his neck.
“Hold me, Ty.” Her breath was warm and sweet against his skin. “I need you to hold me.”
He cupped her face and brought his brow to hers. “Anything you want, Cassie.”
“Anything I want?” She pulled back, her blue eyes so dark at she stared up at him. “I want you.”
Chapter 20
“Baby, I couldn’t say no to that if I was sitting waist deep in ice water.”
His words made her want everything he could give her. And to give him every bit of herself.
Grabbing her to him, he kissed her. She moaned as she took his tongue and he let out a growl. Her body was on fire for him and she was so grateful she was wearing a dress. His quick, sure hands tugged up the skirt, and then he cupped her butt through her skimpiest pair of panties.
She turned to straddle him and he moaned.
“You feel so damn good,” he said, kissing her throat.
Her hands got busy, too. She reached under his shirt and her fingernails scraped lightly over his ridged belly before she cupped him. He throbbed against her touch and pulled her closer. Right up against his hard ridge.
He worked himself free of his jeans and when her hand wrapped around him he trembled. She felt the flare of heat that was between them from the first, but there was a tenderness too. A connection. She craved it. She craved him.
“Now, Ty,” she said, moving to take him inside.
“Condom,” he bit out.
“No time,” she whispered.
“Cassie.”
“The pill. I’m on the pill. And it’s only been you, Ty.” She kissed him again. “In such a long time.”
“You too, Cassie.” He lifted her just enough to slip inside her. “Only you.”
His words turned her on as much as his touch. She held on tight to his sho
ulders and arched, riding him as he moved inside her. It felt so good to have him right there where she needed him. To have him as close as anyone could ever be. Closer than anyone had ever been.
“Cassie, Cassie.”
His breathing was harsh in her ear as she held on tighter.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed.
She felt it coming, the pleasure that only he ever gave her. It was wild and amazing and she was there for the entire ride. Shaking, she came and cried out his name.
He climaxed then, deep and high inside. Collapsing against him, she breathed in his scent and knew she’d always remember this. It was a melancholy thought after such an explosive experience.
“Ty.” She couldn’t say anything else. Just his name.
He kissed her so gently as she held him inside her and she thought she could stay there forever. The cool breeze. The chirping of the crickets. The lapping of the water. It was nothing she’d ever felt before. She didn’t want it to ever end, but they finally untangled themselves.
“I should get home,” she said.
Ty gave her a slow smile, one she’d never seen before. Something had shifted between them. He obviously felt it too but she doubted he could give it a name. She was at a loss. Was this love? Who knew?
“Sure thing.”
The next morning she woke, snug in her bed in Rick and Harmony’s guest room. The memory of her time with Ty, the talking and the lovemaking, was fresh in her mind. She had to figure this out. This love thing. She’d never felt it before with any other guy. That was for sure. She knew she didn’t want to screw it up, though.
A knock came at her door and she rolled over to peer at the screen on her phone. She saw it was after ten and figured the family was up and about. Nick hadn’t come barreling into her room this morning, though. Shoving her hair back, she stretched with a yawn and rubbed her eyes.
“Come in.” she called.
The door opened and Harmony poked her head inside. She looked worried and Cassie felt a trill of alarm.
“Cassie, I’m sorry to wake you.”
“You didn’t. Not really.” She sat up. “What’s wrong?”
Harmony’s brow furrowed. “You need to see for yourself.”
Cypress Corners Boxed Set (Books 1-3) Page 51