“Why do I find that hard to believe?” Brooks said, but Sutton went on as if he hadn’t even heard him.
“I inquired about her pregnancy, and she confessed to me that she hadn’t told the father of her unborn twins about the pregnancy before moving to Chicago from Texas to start over. The long hours on her feet were difficult, but it was the only job she could find. But she said that now, since her pregnancy had begun to show, her boss was making noise like she would no longer be an asset. She knew it was only a matter of time before she was fired.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” Carson asked.
Sutton shook his head. “Not back then. But I admired her courage and fortitude, so I offered her a job.” His eyes belied the affection he felt, and maybe still felt, for Cynthia Newport.
“As your mistress?” Brooks asked.
“As my secretary. She had no experience. She couldn’t even type, but I knew that she would learn and she did. And what started out as a friendship became something more. I helped her as much as I could after you and your brother were born. But we had to keep our relationship a secret.”
“Which is how Carson came to be,” Graham said, looking to his younger brother.
Brooks glared at Sutton. “That’s what womanizers do.”
Sutton faced him, looking almost apologetic. “It was more than an affair. We were deeply in love. Your mother was my soul mate. I would have done anything for her. I wanted to divorce Celeste and marry her, but back then I was still under my father-in-law’s thumb. He threatened to ruin me financially, and keep my daughter and my unborn child from me. Cynthia couldn’t bear to watch that happen. We knew that as long as we were together Celeste’s family would never let us be happy. So we were forced to go our separate ways.
“When she discovered she was pregnant with Carson she said nothing, would never confirm that he was mine, so I tried to forget her. I distracted myself with work, and women who meant nothing to me, thinking it would ease the need to be with her. But it never did. I always told myself, maybe someday... Then she died and I lost my chance.”
“You claim to have loved her, but you didn’t even come to her funeral,” Brooks said.
“I couldn’t,” Sutton said. “It would have caused a scene, and I couldn’t do that to her.”
Carson shot his brother a look and told Sutton, “I understand.”
“The day your mother and I parted ways, she made me promise something, something I had to swear I would take to my grave.”
“Yet here we are,” Brooks said smugly. “And you claim you’re a man of your word?”
“Enough!” Carson snapped at his older brother, and Brooks actually backed down.
Sutton looked so sad when he said, “I don’t have much time left, Brooks, and I don’t want her secret to die with me. Our personal feelings aside, as her sons, you should know who your mother really was, and what she sacrificed for the two of you. It’s all I can do to honor the memory of the woman I never stopped loving.”
“What do you mean who she really was?” Graham asked, his brow knit.
“Your mom wasn’t who you thought she was. Her real name was Amy Jo Turner.”
The brothers all looked taken aback. “She moved here from Cool Springs, a small town in Texas.”
“Son of a bitch,” Roman muttered, shaking his head. With the truth out it all made sense. He’d always suspected that Cynthia Newport was an alias, but he could never be sure and his investigation had proven inconclusive. “That explains why I couldn’t find anything on her before she moved here.”
Sutton’s nod seemed to take extreme effort. “She had no choice.”
“Why would she change her name and lie about where she’s from?” Brooks asked, sounding a little less cocky this time. “Was she a criminal? On the run from the law?”
“She was on the run, but not from the law. She was trying to get away from her father, your grandfather.”
Graham frowned. “Why?”
“He was an evil man. A violent and sadistic alcoholic. She told me about the beatings and the emotional abuse...” He shook his head, wincing, as if the words were too painful to speak. “He was a monster.”
“She had scars,” Graham said. “Physical ones. I remember asking her about them and she brushed it off, said something about being clumsy. I think deep down I knew it was a lie. Maybe I didn’t want to know the truth.”
“She wasn’t clumsy. But she did get careless, and found herself pregnant. She knew he would beat her. Two of her classmates turned up pregnant the previous year, and her father told her that if she ever got herself knocked up, he would take care of the ‘problem’ himself, with a fist to her stomach. Then he would kill the man who’d violated his daughter.
“She knew that he would do it. For everyone’s safety she knew she had to leave. But she couldn’t just disappear. She knew he would try to find her. And kill her.”
“Jesus,” Brooks mumbled as the color leeched from his face, the reality of the situation finally sinking in. “What about her mother?”
“She left when Cynthia was five. She couldn’t take the beatings and the abuse any longer.”
“And she just left our mother with him? Why?”
“She didn’t have a choice. He would have never let her take Cynthia away. And she feared that if she tried, he would kill them both.”
“So our mother changed her name,” Graham said.
“She did more than change her name. As far as everyone in Cool Springs is concerned, Amy Jo Turner went for a swim in Whisper Lake and never came back out. They found her belongings on the ground at the water’s edge, and though they never did find a body, she was assumed dead.”
Carson shook his head in disbelief. “Our mother faked her own death?”
Sutton nodded, looking sallow and tired. And so sad.
Knowing the man’s reputation as a shameless womanizer, the depth of emotion he was showing in regard to Cynthia blew Roman away. He could hardly believe it, but he actually felt sorry for the man.
“She had no other choice,” Sutton told them.
“So what about our father?” Graham asked. “Do you know who he is?”
Sutton shook his head. “She never told me his name, but I know that he lived in the same town. And she told me once that you boys look just like him. I don’t doubt that with this new information, Roman will be able to track him down.”
As long as Roman had known Sutton, that was the closest thing to praise he’d ever gotten from him.
“Does he even know we exist?” Graham asked.
“She never told him about her pregnancy.”
At least now Roman knew why Sutton wanted to keep Gracie out of this meeting. Sutton’s dalliances were legend in Chicago. But it would have been awkward, explaining in front of his own daughter how he’d not only cheated on her mother, but had been in love with Cynthia.
As if reading his mind, Sutton looked over to Roman and said, “My daughters can never know about this.”
So what the hell was he supposed to tell Gracie when she asked Roman about the meeting? Did Sutton expect him to lie to her? Or would she accept that what was said was confidential? That it was official business and as such he couldn’t break privilege. He was a man of his word. Once he made a promise, he would not