Occasionally.
Her heart pounded as she punched in the code on her phone and the text popped up on the screen.
Dinner at my place? Then a little dessert?
She couldn’t suppress the smile curling her lips. She’d been worried for no reason. He obviously was still interested. As excited as she was, and as much as she wanted to see him, she had the distinct feeling that her life was about to get very complicated.
* * *
With the guarantee that Sutton was about to reveal information about the identity of their real father, Roman finally talked both Graham and Brooks into a meeting with the dying tycoon. Which was how, the following Friday, Roman found himself back at the Winchester estate. Once again against his will and better judgment. He just hoped that Sutton would actually deliver this time. According to Grace he hadn’t been out of bed in days and she was worried that the cancer, or the treatments, or a combination of both, had begun to affect him mentally. She’d been visiting him daily, and he’d been alternating between being himself, sinking into a deep depression and experiencing fits of irrational anger at the drop of a hat. She said it was a little like Jekyll and Hyde.
Roman didn’t even know why he had to be there. When he’d asked Sutton, all he’d gotten back was a very cryptic To keep the peace. But if tempers flared and Graham took a shot at his brother, it wasn’t Roman’s responsibility to stop him. As far as he was concerned Brooks could use a little sense knocked into him. And though Brooks was nothing more than a thug in an expensive suit, he was still a client—and a very lucrative one at that—and Roman was under contract to find their birth father. As far as he’d found, it was as though their mother, Cynthia, in the time before she moved to Chicago, hadn’t existed.
Gracie had wanted to join them but her father had forbidden it, and of course she’d backed down instantly. It had always fascinated Roman, the control her father had over her. Gracie on her own, in any other element, was one of the toughest, brightest, most capable women Roman had ever met. She’d certainly never taken any crap from Roman. But bring Daddy into the picture and her backbone mysteriously dissolved.
She’d certainly been aggressive Saturday morning. And Saturday afternoon, and most of Saturday night. He drove her home Sunday morning so she could get ready to attend the hospital reception, then she came back Monday evening and he’d made her dinner. He had talked to her every day since then, but they hadn’t seen each other since she left Monday night.
Clearly the fire that burned between them seven years ago had never gone out. But he could feel her holding back. And he understood. He couldn’t say for sure that he was still in love with her. But he couldn’t say that he wasn’t in love with her, either. Not that it mattered. She’d made it clear that it was just sex to her. That she could never trust him with her heart again. But they could still be friends.
Friends with benefits. He could live with that.
When he arrived at the Winchester estate Brooks and Graham were already there, and he was surprised to find Carson, their youngest brother, and Sutton’s recently confirmed son, standing by his bedside. Sutton held the meeting in his personal suite from his bed. Though Roman had thought he couldn’t look much worse than the last time he saw the man, he’d been wrong.
Brooks and Graham stood far from each other, at opposite ends of the room.
“It’s about damned time,” Brooks snapped at Roman as Sutton’s nurse showed him into the room, then reclaimed her seat just outside the door. According to Roman’s Rolex he was a minute early.
“Forgive my brother,” Graham apologized, looking both irritated and resigned. “I’ve yet to find anything to kill the bug that crawled up his ass.”
The comment earned him a glare from Brooks. Hell, maybe they would come to blows.
Roman took a spot at the foot of the bed between the two men. Just in case.
“Now that we’re all here, let’s get started,” Sutton said, his voice so weak Roman had to strain to hear him. He was sitting propped up by a mountain of pillows, which Roman suspected was the only thing holding him upright. It reminded him of Gracie in the limo on the way home the other night, and he instantly wanted to smile.
Graham moved to his future father-in-law’s side. “Roman tells me that you have information about our father.”
“I do.”
“I’m a little confused as to why I’m here,” Carson said. “I know who my father is. I have no relation to the man you’re looking for.”
“This concerns your mother, too,” Sutton told him.
“So out with it,” Brooks snapped, completely insensitive to his rival’s fragile condition.
“You all know that I’m a man of my word. Once I’ve made a promise I will not break it,” Sutton said.
“Which is why you never promise anyone anything,” Roman told him and Sutton shot him a vague, wry smile.
“But I did once, a long time ago. A promise that until recently I intended to take to my grave.” He looked from Brooks to his brother. “One I made to your mother.”
“Your word means nothing to me, old man,” Brooks ground out. “Just tell us what you know.”
“First you have to give me your word that what I am about to tell you will never leave this room.” He looked to Roman. “All four of you.”
“This is business,” Roman said. “I would never divulge to anyone information I obtained in a private meeting with my clients.”
Sutton looked to Graham. He nodded and said, “Of course.” Then Graham gave his brother a look that seemed to say, Do it or else.
Brooks grudgingly nodded. “You have my word, as well.”
“First I want you to know that your mother was an amazing woman. I had never met anyone like her. And I haven’t since.”
“And when was that?” Brooks asked.
“She was pregnant with the two of you,” Sutton said. “Pregnant and alone working as a waitress in a café I went to occasionally. She’d only been working there a week, and she spilled a drink in my lap. She apologized profusely, then broke down in tears, so afraid that she would lose her job...” He smiled vaguely and faded off, as if lost in thought. To anyone who didn’t know what a coldhearted and brutal businessman he was, they might think he was just an average sentimental old man.
“And?” Brooks snapped after several seconds, which earned him another look from Graham. Roman couldn’t deny feeling a little irritated, too. It was obvious that Sutton was in poor shape. Still Brooks couldn’t cut him a break, which said a lot about his integrity. As in he had none. The man lay dying in front of him, confessing a secret he’d once intended to die with, and Brooks couldn’t see past his thirst for revenge. His need to conquer.
But Sutton didn’t even seem to notice. Or didn’t care.
“Let the man speak,” Graham said with a warning tone.
Carson laid a hand on his father’s shoulder and in a patient voice said, “Go on, Sutton.”
Sutton blinked rapidly and snapped back to the present. “I could see the desperation in her eyes, and that she was carrying a child, or as I later discovered, two children. I left her a generous tip, and couldn’t stop thinking about her. When I went back a week later she was working again, and I found that I was happy to see her. But she looked so tired and stressed, as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“She thanked me for my generosity the week before. She wouldn’t admit it then—she was too proud—but she had been about to lose the room she was renting and that tip was enough to pay her rent for another month. That was before her coworker Gerty took her in. I hung around for a while, until her shift ended, and I invited her to have