“What the hell is going on here?” Eric demanded, but he was apparently already putting two and two together, because his gaze flickered up over the mantel to the portrait of the glowering man, who had never, as far as anyone knew, kept his shit in his pants and had therefore probably fathered enough bastards to populate a small town.
“Arnetta knows,” Dawson said quietly, glad to get to this central truth about his life at long last, “that her dead husband, the late, great Reynolds Warner, got one of the maids pregnant—there’s probably more than one, but we’ll stick to one for now, at least until any other bastards step forward to claim their rights—and she had a baby. Me. And when a car hit that poor maid while she was waiting at the bus stop when I was a year old, Reynolds Warner foisted me on Bishop and his wife. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” Arnetta said.
“Oh, my God,” Arianna breathed. She pressed a hand to her heart. “Oh, my God.”
Andrew and Eric exchanged darkly significant looks—they were probably running mental calculations, trying to figure out how their inheritances had just shrunk with the appearance of a new heir—and Arnetta and Bishop clasped hands, apparently giving each other strength.
How touching.
“What do you want, Joshua?” Bishop stood tall, his voice unwavering. Maybe he was getting used to the idea that Dawson wasn’t going to disappear into the woodwork again for another ten years. “How can we make this right?”
Dawson stared at him. Did he really think anything was that easy? “I don’t want anything from you, old man, and you can’t make anything right—”
Bishop flinched.
“—but I do want a paternity test to get my parentage straightened out just, you know, for the record, and then I want my rightful share of WarnerBrands International and the family’s other holdings.” He paused. “Any questions? Yes? No?”
All the air seemed to have gone out of the room, leaving everyone incapable of speech. Dawson felt immensely satisfied on the one hand and oddly deflated on the other, and the ambivalence made his head spin. He wanted this. He’d earned it. He was only asking for what was rightfully his—a place in the family, with all its accoutrements—and he would not feel guilty for it. They owed him, and there was no shame in claiming what belonged to him.
So, no. He would not feel bad. Nothing and no one would ruin this moment for him. Not even Arianna, whose steady, reproachful gaze on his face this whole time felt like two glowing-hot fireplace pokers piercing his flesh down to the bone.
“Nothing?” He waited, but no one spoke. “Well, I guess that’s it, then.”
He put his coffee cup back on the cart with a clink and used a napkin to wipe his hands, which were, he was dismayed to realize, experiencing a slight tremble.
Savoring the room’s absolute silence—only the Tomb of the Unknowns in the dead of night was more hushed than this—he tossed the napkin aside and strode for the door. Halfway there, though, he couldn’t resist one last verbal jab, which he tossed over his shoulder.
“I enjoyed catching up with you all. We really should do it more often.”
Chapter 6
Dawson walked out, his steps quicker than they needed to be. Not because he was running away or any punk-ass thing like that—just because it was time to make his exit before someone else tried to grab the last word. And his face and palms weren’t hot and sweaty from nerves—it was adrenaline and triumph that had him so hopped up right now. Nothing else. And the look on his father’s—no, Bishop’s—face, all that hurt and anguish, the sorrow and the guilt, meant nothing to him now. It was far too little, way too late.
He made it down the long hallway and through the massive foyer. Past the curving staircase and out the front door, his face grotesquely distorted by the cut glass on either side.
Taking the shallow steps one at a time, he crunched onto the gravel drive and headed for his rental. The car was his only focus. It seemed like a lush tropical oasis in the midst of a category 5 hurricane, and he was desperate to get there.
Only, he couldn’t seem to breathe, and he couldn’t work up that victorious feeling he’d anticipated. All he felt was the same old echoing hollowness deep inside him, and—this was a big surprise—bewilderment. Because he still couldn’t, even now, figure out how he and the people who’d once meant everything in the world to him had come to face off on opposite sides of this scorched battlefield.
He’d just reached for the door handle with one hand and dug into his pocket for his keys with the other, when he heard her. Actually, he felt her first, that subtle shifting of awareness that announced her like Ed McMahon announcing Johnny Carson.
He glanced around in time to see the front door bang open and Arianna storm out, just over five feet of furious vengeance ready to drop-kick him into next week even though she had to weigh half what he did.
Ah, man. That disdain in her eyes hurt. Sucker punched him in the forehead with enough force to drop him to his knees. They stared at each other, the tension stretching and coiling them into a stranglehold, until it suddenly felt crucial to reject her before she rejected him the way everyone else in his life had rejected him.
Unfortunately, she drew first blood before he could get his mouth working.
“Are you proud of yourself?”
Well, there it was: her inevitable disappointment and bitter disillusionment with him. It was almost a relief to get them out of the way, although he missed last night’s glowing warmth in her expression. But at least now she knew who and what he was, and he didn’t have to pretend to be a worthwhile human being.
Having perfected his indifferent act back in the cradle, it wasn’t too hard to smile and shrug. “I told you that you could do better than me.”
“This isn’t about you and me.” Her hands fisted at her sides. “There is no you and me.”
No, there wasn’t, but he didn’t like hearing her say it.
Diverted, just like that, he put the family drama on the back burner and focused on her. What they’d done last night. What they’d been to each other, what he’d touched and tasted, what they’d said. The memories made his blood sizzle, and he didn’t bother trying to keep it out of his gaze as it skated over her incredible body, which was hidden beneath summer cotton and flowers now, but never forgotten.
“Is that right?” he murmured.
“Yes.” Her chin hitched higher with open defiance, but she couldn’t hide the way her cheeks brightened with a flush. “You took care of that when you disappeared.”
“I’m sorry.” Had he ever produced a lamer understatement? Sorry was for forgetting to pick up milk on your way home. Sorry didn’t cover hurting Arianna’s feelings after she’d given herself to him with such amazing abandon, or the gut-deep sickness he felt at having missed the opportunity to spend more time with her. “I ran into Bishop after you went inside, and I—”
“Had to duck and run like a coward?”
This appraisal, unfortunately, hit way too close to home. “Decided to leave before the situation escalated.”
“That’s funny. You weren’t too concerned about escalation just now.”
“Just now I said a few things that were years in the making, and I said them on my terms.”
“And as hurtfully as possible. Congratulations. You must be thrilled.”
He felt his mouth twist. “They had it coming.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, great. So they hurt you and you hurt them and everything’s even. The question now is: What’re you going to do about it?”
“Weren’t you paying attention? I just did what I’m going to do about it. I want my fair share. I asked them to give it to me. If they don’t, I’ll take it.”
She paused, her eyes glinting with amusement. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“Pardon me?”
“This isn’t about your fair share, only you’re too blind to see it. This is about you wanting to belong s
omewhere. This is about you wanting to belong here.” She waved a hand at the mansion, but he couldn’t look anywhere but at her, especially when her face softened with an expression that looked like understanding. “This is about your hurt.”
He turned away, some unidentifiable emotion making his mouth dry and his tongue thick. Hurt.
Was that the word you used when the man you’d thought was your father disclaimed you because he’d never really loved or wanted you and didn’t approve of your hard-drinking, hard-partying lifestyle? When the people you’d grown up with believed you were capable of violence against women, and turned their faces away when you were accused of heinous acts? When you yourself were so stubborn and unforgiving that you preferred to take your chances with a public defender rather than ask said so-called family for help? When you had faith in both the justice system and your college buddy, the one who really committed the crime, expecting them to do the right thing by you, and they let you down in the worst possible way?
When no one in your life was who they seemed to be, and they all seemed to be taking numbers and standing in line, waiting for their chance to stab you in the heart with betrayal?
Hurt. Yeah. That was one word for it.
“I’m not hurt,” he lied, sidling closer and enjoying the corresponding flash of alarm in her glittering eyes. Lust flared, collecting in his tight throat and making his voice hoarse. “And you’re showing a lot of interest in someone you’ve written off, little girl.”
Some demon possessed him, an undeniable force he couldn’t resist. And since she wasn’t moving away fast enough, Dawson didn’t even try to resist. Reaching out, he stroked his thumb across her bottom lip, which was plump and dewy-soft, like one of Arnetta’s precious roses after a summer shower. Arianna submitted, her breath spiking. He was just about to press his luck and possibly risk his life by seeing what else she’d allow, when she caught herself and smacked his hand away.
“Don’t touch me. And don’t change the subject.”
He froze, both his hand and his spirit stung by this rebuke. Being denied the right to touch her, after last night’s orgy of feeling, taste and smell, was unnatural, and he felt the outrage he imagined a hungry baby would feel when denied his mother’s breast.
She was tying him in knots, this girl. On every level, from his emotions to his seething and overloaded hormonal response to her, she’d turned him out.
This, naturally, made him crazy. And when he was crazy, he lashed out.
“You didn’t mind me touching you last night.”
Her face went the DayGlo red of a stoplight, and her choked fury was so strong it almost silenced her. “Don’t you dare throw that in my face.”
“I don’t want to throw it in your face.” He shrugged, shifting closer until there wasn’t space enough for even a ray of the morning’s light to shine between them. “I just want to repeat it.”
To her credit, Arianna stood her ground as he loomed over her, refusing to budge. He liked that about her; he hated that about her.
“There won’t be any repeats.”
His outrage inched higher, approaching a danger zone. “Now that you know I’m an ex-con?”
“Now that I know you’re a bitter SOB who doesn’t care how much he hurts his elderly father.”
Dawson stilled, his head on the verge of explosion. “I don’t have a father. All I have is the man who did a half-assed job raising me.”
He turned toward the car, with Arianna right in his face. “Dawson.” He kept going because this was getting old and he couldn’t stand another minute of her hating him, but she didn’t give up. “Wait.”
“I’m out.” He opened the door and stuck his right foot inside, ready to drive all the way to Anchorage if that’s what he needed to do to get away from here, away from her.
But then she played dirty, putting her soft little hand on top of his where it rested on the door. “Please.”
Helpless to do otherwise, he waited, cursing himself for a punk and a fool.
“Bishop loves you.” Arianna squeezed his fingers. “I know he does. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can rebuild your relationship with—”
He shook his head but couldn’t bear to pull his hand away and break the contact between them. “Ah, now, see, you almost had me, but then you had to push it. There’s nothing there to rebuild. Never was.”
“Bishop is old, Dawson. How much longer do you think the two of you have to fix your relationship? I know he has regrets. And I know you well enough to know you’ll regret it if you leave things like this between you.”
This was another of her eerie views into the deepest corner of his soul, and man, it was like nails across a chalkboard. In stereo. Risking it at last, he stared her in the face, infusing his gaze with ice and doing his best to scare her shitless so she’d back away and drop this topic forever.
“You don’t know a damn thing about me, sweet Ari.”
And that little girl, that tiny little woman with more balls than the running bulls of Pamplona and the wisdom of a Tibetan monk, looked at him with clear eyes, spoke in a quiet voice and knocked the wind right out of him.
“I know you’re not a rapist. I never would have believed that about you for one second.”
The words went through him like a lightning strike, because here, finally, was the one thing he’d longed to hear more than anything else.
Christ.
He wanted to leave, but more than that, he wanted someone to know, understand and forgive him for that thing he’d never even done. “My buddy and I,” he began urgently, with no idea where this confession was coming from, “we went to a bar.”
“You don’t have to—”
“There was a woman. She flirted with me. I would have gone home with her, but I wasn’t that into her and didn’t want to deal with the hassle. So I left. He stayed.”
She waited, braced for the worst in every motionless part of her body.
Now that he’d gotten this far into the story, it was harder to finish than he’d thought. Way harder. He swallowed, trying to scrape some of the bitterness out of his throat. “He…slipped her something. A date-rape drug. He had fun. She didn’t. In the morning, it was my face she remembered.” Another swallow. “Not his.”
“Oh, God—”
“When the police came calling, my good buddy, who used a condom so there’d be no evidence, clammed up. Big surprise, huh? And she was a convincing witness. So I went to jail. Did not pass Go, did not collect $200. The end.”
“But how did you—”
“Get out? After years of therapy and working through it in her mind, she realized I wasn’t the one. Then she worked with the Innocence Program and got me out. Thank God.”
There it was: the worst. The ugliest things that had ever been said—or believed—about him. The allegations weren’t true, but that’d never stopped anyone from turning away from him and writing him off.
Arianna was probably like all the rest.
Except…
God, he hoped she wasn’t like all the rest.
Staring at the ground now because he couldn’t meet her eyes while she made her judgment, he waited.
To his utter astonishment, she reached up and stroked his throbbing jaw with her soft fingers. When he worked up the courage to look, he saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes and had to remind himself that it wouldn’t be too cool to drop to his knees and kiss her feet with gratitude.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” she said simply. “You didn’t deserve it.”
That put him right over the edge.
Undone, he got into the car and drove away, spewing gravel in his wake.
Arianna hurried back inside, to the unfolding chaos in the library.
Everyone had retreated to separate corners of the room, from whence they snarled at each other. Eric was at the bar, mixing up what appeared to be a gallon-sized pitcher of Bloody Marys. Andrew prowled back and forth in front of the French doors, relentless as a cag
ed panther with a nail in his paw. Huddled in the corner, whispering urgently together, stood Aunt Arnetta and Bishop. None of them looked around when she walked in.
Eric added several dashes of hot sauce to the pitcher and spoke over his shoulder to no one in particular. “It seems like a pertinent question.”
“Well, it’s not.” Andrew reached a dead end at the far wall, pivoted and came back, shoving his fists deep into his trousers.
“I’m just wondering how many more of Grandfather’s kids are going to come out of the woodwork.” With the pitcher finally mixed to his satisfaction, Eric filled a tumbler almost to the top, turned to the glowering portrait over the fireplace, raised his glass in a toast and took a healthy swallow. “Has anyone got any idea how many separate baby mamas we’re dealing with?”
Andrew, shooting a glance at Aunt Arnetta, issued a warning. “Eric—”
“Just give me a round number that I can work with.” Eric drank again, smacking his lips and being as obnoxious as possible. “Ten? Thirty? Fifty—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Aunt Arnetta muttered, exchanging a dark glance with Bishop.
“—Or is it a cyclical thing? We can expect a new Warner to pop up every third year? Or during election years? Or does it have to do with when they hold the winter Olympics?” Eric held his hands wide in a beseeching gesture. “Someone help me out here.”
Andrew stopped pacing to stare at Eric with the full might of his displeasure. “Eric? Now would be the perfect time for you to shut the hell up. Okay? Arnetta doesn’t need this right now. Neither does Bishop.”
Eric gave a sharp nod and grabbed the pitcher for a refill. “Fair enough.”
“Thank you.” Andrew went back to the French doors and stared out at the pool.
Aunt Arnetta and Bishop, taking advantage of the momentary lull, sat on the nearest sofa. Arianna crept a little farther into the room, wondering what her role here was.
“And why am I always the last one to know?” His glass full again, Eric wheeled around to demand more answers. “Why does everyone in this family know about all the skeletons in that man’s closet—” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the portrait “—but me? It’s like he’s got an elephant graveyard in there or something. Seriously. How many mistresses did he—”
Redemption's Touch (Kimani Romance) Page 6