Something odd which had happened to me however, was the unexpected carnal need I’d developed for Olivia, shortly after she’d confessed her feelings for me. There had been this fiery look in her eyes, accompanied by a softness that I’d just wanted to keep to myself.
Everything had been perfect, up until that moment when my fears could no longer stay silent and I’d had to go and ruin it.
When Olivia had mentioned that Greg had been blackmailing her, I’d wanted to know what he wanted but his information had been based on pure speculation. Nonetheless, if someone had been keen enough, it wouldn’t have taken long to discover the affair was with me, and not Patrick.
When Olivia had told me his accident had been caused by someone, I’d wondered if he’d made some enemies during his short stay in New York. But it didn’t make any sense.
From the file I’d gotten from my private investigator when Olivia had started working for me, it didn’t seem to suit his character to go do something so dangerous that it’d get him killed. I was curious to know what the police would uncover in their investigations.
Deciding to focus my mind back to work, I took the envelope and slowly opened it. When I turned it over and removed the contents, my eyes widened in shock as A4 sized photographs containing images of me and Olivia kissing in the rain fell on my desk.
I scanned through them one by one, wondering who, when and how. Had Greg taken these and had them mailed to me before he’d died? He was the only one who’d come close to discovering the truth and judging from this evidence, he seemed to have hit the jackpot.
Could he have followed us, taken the photos and had them mailed to me just hours before someone had killed him? It didn’t seem to fit the timeline. By the time he must have taken the photos, printed them out and sent them to me, it would have been too late. He would have already been at the hospital, and it wasn’t possible they would have taken this long to reach me. So it couldn’t have been him.
It could however, very possibly be, the person who had killed him. If this person was capable of murder, there was very little such a person was incapable of. I searched the envelope for some sort of message, but there was nothing else inside other than the photographs.
What did this person want from me? Why had it taken him so long to send me these photos? Was he a threat to my family? To Olivia? Oh God, I immediately took my phone and dialed her number at the thought.
She answered on the first ring. “Mrs. Gallagher,” she said.
The sound of her voice was soft and calm. “Hello Olivia,” I said, picturing her seated behind her large desk.
“Hello.”
I trailed my mind back to the matter at hand and said, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I need to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Did Greg say anything to you before he died?”
She was silent for a while then asked, “You’re calling me to ask about Greg?”
“I’m sorry, Olivia, but I need to know.”
“He said,” she seemed to choke on the words, “He said he was sorry for everything.”
“He didn’t say anything else?”
“No, why are you asking about this?”
I looked at the pictures in my hand. I didn’t want to get her involved if she was not in any danger. Whoever had sent those pictures seemed only interested in me. “I just wanted to confirm something, I’m sorry to have distracted you from your work. Have a good afternoon,” I said and hang up.
I was still trying to figure the whole thing out half an hour later, when Eric walked in through the door. His visits were becoming more frequent and his presence still bothered me.
“Eric, I can’t talk to you right now,” I said as I put the photographs back in their envelope.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
I tightened my jaw, resenting how he seemed to think his visits made it easier for me to be around him when in fact, he continued to irk me.
“What happened to your personal assistant?”
I looked up at him, wondering why he’d be interested in Olivia and then I looked at the envelope.
“I see you received my little present.”
“You sent these?” I asked, holding up the envelope.
He smiled as he approached my desk. “Well, I needed some leverage for myself.”
“Leverage for what?” I asked as I got to my feet.
“Kathy’s grown weak and desperate. She doesn’t seem to yield any power over you anymore. Her pathetic attempts to reach out to you created an opportunity for me and I took it.” He seemed highly pleased with himself.
“Eric, what are you talking about? What does this have to do with my mother?”
“She wanted to see you happy, there was a threat, so she told me to get rid of it.”
His words started taking meaning but I refused to believe him or any of what he was saying. “Did you have anything to do with Greg’s accident?” I asked in denial but the look on his face said it all. “You killed Olivia’s brother?”
“I didn’t care for him until I realized why Kathy wanted him out of the picture. He was a threat to your happiness. Old Kathy has grown soft with age. Suddenly she seems to care about what makes you happy.
“So she told me to get rid of him, but before I did, I wanted to know why she wanted him gone so I followed you. Imagine my surprise, when I saw you and your young and pretty personal assistant lip-locking in the middle of the night, out in the streets as if you had no care in the world.” He sat down on one of the seats facing my desk and leaned back into the leather.
“Let me get his straight, Kathy told you to kill Greg?” I asked because I wanted to be sure. Had my mother lost her mind?
“Yes,” he said.
A leopard couldn’t change his spots, I had known Eric was still the same filthy bastard I’d grown up resenting. “And she told you to do this because she knew about me and Olivia?” Was there anything that woman didn’t know? How was she still one step ahead of me?
“Look, it doesn’t matter. I just want what’s mine.”
“And what is that?”
He got to his feet and leaned over my desk as I pulled back in disgust. I was glad the desk was standing between us.
“I’m just asking for what I’m entitled to. A seat on the board, a better position in the company here in New York and last but not least, I know this little part is going to make Kathy very happy,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “I want you to merge Price Healthcare and Winston Enterprises.”
I wasn’t surprised by his conniving ways.
“Kathy has always treated me like a lapdog because of you. She’s never thought I was capable of anything because you always overshadowed me, but now, she’s going to see what I can do.”
“And you think blackmailing me into giving you what you want is going to achieve that? You think you’ll finally have her love and approval?”
He pulled back and started pacing. “Do you have any idea what she took me from?” He stopped and looked at me. “Of course not, you’ve never cared to find out. Well, I’m going to tell you. Kathy took me from her cousin, a drug addicted sonofabitch with a mean streak. My mother had died during childbirth so there was no one else to take care of me. My old man, he wasn’t afraid to express his frustrations with life on me using his belt or pretty much anything else he got his hands on. Kathy gave me a chance at life and I swore I’d make her proud but I couldn’t do that with you constantly taking over my spotlight.”
“It was never yours to begin with, Eric.”
“You’ve had things handed to you all your life. You don’t know how it’s like to work your ass off for something.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Price Healthcare for instance, it was a half a billion-dollar company that was just handed to you.”
I took a deep breath, unsure I had the patience to continue talking to him anymore because he seemed to believe wha
t he was saying, and it felt like I was wasting my breath, so I let him ramble on.
“You had everything, Amelia. Kathy may never have known how to express herself but she’s always been proud of you. She’s always loved you. But you don’t care, you never have. She loves your family and all you’ve ever done was push her away, create distance between them. You’ve been punishing her for years for something she couldn’t help.”
He clearly had no idea what he was talking about. He didn’t know Kathy the way I did. “You’re her family, how much effort has she put into getting close to your kids?” I asked.
“That doesn’t matter. My kids are grateful for what they have and they know she cares.”
“Because she sees them, talks to them as often as she can, because she’s interested in their lives, what they’re doing, what they’re studying, who they’re dating?” I asked.
“Maybe not that, but she cares. I know she does.”
“The only person Kathy cares about is herself. You’d be wise to open your eyes and see this for yourself.”
He gritted his teeth and approached me. He took the envelope and angrily slammed the photographs on my desk. “When Kathy sees that I can get her what she’s wanted all along, she’ll start to care.”
He was psychotic.
“A seat on the board, a position in Winston Enterprises here in New York and a merger with Price Healthcare.”
“And you think I’m just going to hand these things over to you because you have pictures of me in a compromising situation with a Price Healthcare employee?”
“Yes, if you don’t want them plastered all over the media. I’m talking the internet, magazines, newspapers and every other form of media station out there. The world will be talking about this. Patrick and your kids are going to be at the center of it and your beautiful, young Olivia will be on a very unpleasant receiving end of this whole scandal. Oh, and you should know, I have a video of your little dance in the rain.”
He smirked as though realizing he had me exactly where he wanted me.
“You just admitted to killing Greg, Eric.”
“I also said your mother sent me to do it. You can’t implicate me without implicating her.”
“What makes you think I won’t go to the police with any of this?”
“Kathy is your mother. You’d never do that to her, or your kids. Your high family values betray you,” he said as he walked out of my office.
I sat back on my chair, running his words through my head. I didn’t care much about what Patrick would think, after all, the divorce proceedings were well on their way. What worried me was how Jonah and Adrianna would take the news if they found out, and how this whole thing would affect Olivia and her family.
It wasn’t really a big deal that I was with a woman in those photographs; it was the particular woman I had been photographed with. She was a young beautiful employee who, the media would say I’d exploited and taken advantage of, or they could twist the story to say she’d taken advantage of me to get money or a position in my company.
God, what had I done? No, wait, this was my mother’s doing. The shock started to register now that I was alone. Kathy was responsible for Greg’s death. How could she have known? At the thought, I called James to pull up the car so that I could go talk to her.
Chapter Fifty-One
I was a little nervous to face my mother. Our last exchange had not been very pleasant and now, after what I’d come to learn, I was dreading being in her presence again.
I had always known she was capable of anything but I’d never thought she could commit murder and worse, manipulate someone as emotionally starved for her affection as Eric into doing it for her. What purpose did Greg’s death serve her?
On my way to her house, I wondered what reasons she’d offer for having committed such a heinous crime. Eric had probably revealed a tad too much. He’d probably never meant to tell me the truth about the crime, but his greed had blinded him because he’d seen an opportunity he could exploit.
But what if this had been Kathy’s plan all along? She’d always had her eye on Price Healthcare. What if she was the one behind what Eric was doing? No, it didn’t make any sense. She no longer had any say over what happened at Winston Enterprises. Even if she wanted the merger, it would serve her no purpose now. The only people who would benefit from it would be my kids.
When I pressed the doorbell, one of my mother’s employees answered it and let me in. I went to wait in the large living room and poured myself a glass of scotch for my nerves while I waited.
I had no idea what she did with her time. I didn’t even know if she had any friends. She’d always been a stranger to me so I knew absolutely nothing about her life. But it would seem she kept a close eye on mine.
How had she known about me and Olivia? How had she known Greg had been blackmailing Olivia? What more did she know? Was she willing to hurt Olivia? The last thought gave me chills as she walked into the room.
“Amelia?” She sounded surprised.
I turned to face her to notice she looked different from the last time I’d seen her. She’d always had this ageless grace and poise, but now, I could see the lines forming below her eyes and a bit of a tired look across her face. She looked almost, fragile.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said as she approached me.
I took an involuntary step back when she reached out to touch me, refusing to let her physical appearance fool me. “Hello Kathy,” I said.
“Are you still upset with me?” she asked.
Well, there seemed to be absolutely nothing wrong with her memory and I could bet she was still as acute as ever. I took a gulp of the shot of scotch I’d poured myself and placed the glass down, as the burning sensation made its way down my throat.
“Eric has been coming by to see me,” I said, ignoring her question.
“Oh, he mentioned something about wanting to repair your relationship.”
“There was never a relationship to start with.”
“Well, that’s too bad. I guess his visits have been fruitless then,” she said as she came around me.
“How long have you been spying on me?” I asked, turning to face her because I wanted to see the look on her face when I discovered the truth.
“Spying on you?”
“Eric told me everything. He sent me this.” I handed her the envelope. She hesitantly looked at me, took it and opened it. I watched her blank expression as she looked through the photographs. “Did you tell him to take these pictures?”
“No, of course not.”
“He claims to have a video too, which he’s going to expose if I don’t agree to his terms.”
“Which are?”
“He wants to be made a member of the board; he wants a position here in New York, and a merger with Price Healthcare.”
She seemed a little surprised by the demands.
“He’s not going to expose anything,” she said, almost as though she was a hundred percent certain.
“He admitted to having killed Olivia’s brother under your orders.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know. I need to hear the truth from you.”
She placed the photos back in the envelope and placed it down on a table. She went and poured herself a glass of scotch and when she offered to refill mine, I turned it down. “I don’t have anything to do with that,” she said, pointing to the envelope before she took a gulp of the scotch and emptied the glass.
“Did you know about me and Olivia?” I asked, starting from the very beginning.
“Not at first,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“During our last conversation, there was something different about you. You’d always been cold to me, but never hostile. I wanted to know what was going on and I knew you’d never voluntarily tell me, so I took initiative.”
“You started spying on me.”
“I may have put you under light surveillan
ce.”
“May have?”
“You have to understand, I didn’t realize how unhappy you were or how much losing Isabel still affected you.”
My hands shook in contained anger because she had no right to speak Isabel’s name.
“I’ve always wanted to be part of your life, Amelia. When I brought you back to New York, I thought we could find some way to start over. But you were so distant, so rebellious. I never knew how to reach out.”
My memory trailed back to the past. There was nothing she was telling me I wasn’t already aware of, but she was twisting the truth to fit herself. “You pushed me away when I tried to bridge the gap between us. Dad died and the first thing you did was send me to Germany.”
“I wanted you to learn to be independent, to be strong on your own so that you’d never have to rely on anyone for anything.”
“I guess your plan worked out a bit too well then, huh?” I said, refusing to let her try to appeal to me for understanding. “When I came back from Germany, I was all those things. You made the mistake of thinking I was someone you could control.”
She turned to face away.
“Dressing me up, inviting me to those ridiculous parties to parade me around in attempts to find me a suitor? That’s why you didn’t let me properly mourn Isabel. You saw vulnerability, weakness and manipulated the situation and filled her place with Patrick.”
“I thought he could make you happy.”
“Stop it!” I said, gritting my teeth. She had an excuse for everything. “You destroyed my life. I do not know how you always somehow manage to crawl your way back in every time I kick you out.”
“Amelia, can’t you see? Can’t you see that I’m trying to make it up to you?” She moved closer to me and I took a step back.
“How? How could you possibly make it all up to me?” I asked.
“By giving you a second chance at what you had with Isabel.”
I looked at her in utter shock.
“I admit, I wasn’t very supportive and to be honest, I could never really understand, but out of your marriage with Patrick, you had a full life and got two beautiful kids. I wasn’t as good a mother to you as you are to them. When I found out about you and young Ms. Olivia—,”
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