Unease settled in the pit of Zane’s stomach, yet it had nothing to do with learning that his mother had once been connected to a powerful Boston mafia family. Now that he had a surname, he’d tapped the few letters into his laptop and the information had poured out faster than his mind could absorb. None of it answered who his father was, but he’d learned that the Savro family and their mafia connections were quite extensive in Boston.
No, the disquiet bothering him had to do with Ella’s father.
In the back seat of the vehicle organised by Thomas to take them to Beacon Hill, Zane let his thigh touch Ella’s. She stared out of the car window, taking in the views and no doubt absorbing all the new knowledge her father had shared with them over lunch yesterday.
He tightened his arm around her shoulder as the driver turned left at a sign indicating the way to Louisburg Square. They were leaving Boston tomorrow, but tonight they would dine at Thomas Van Der Meeliko’s residence and meet Ella’s half-siblings. All very cordial and proper. Zane couldn’t fault Thomas on his acceptance of Ella, or his generosity towards them both, and he clearly didn’t hold Ella responsible for her mother’s decision. All Zane could surmise was that at some stage of their marriage Ella’s mother had rejected everything Thomas and his family stood for.
Still, Zane couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason why the nagging disquiet refused to go away.
He twirled strands of her hair around his finger. He had to let the concerns go and stop worrying for now. Again, he damned his years in policing and investigative work. It’d turned him into a suspicious bloke who saw past the veneer of a person. He had the ability, usually, to reach deep inside the mind of a person, unwrap layer upon layer, until he could identify the problem and deal with it. But Thomas left him feeling as if there were layers still to unravel; Zane hadn’t gotten as close to the core as he’d hoped.
So what choice did he have? It was a patience game now. And how much damage could Thomas do from halfway around the world?
Relax, mate, and let it go.
His thoughts slipped back to how he and Ella had passed the time earlier. Sweet Jesus. How had he landed the girl of his dreams? There’d never be enough hours in the day to fill his need, especially once they returned to their everyday life. She was the oxygen his body craved; this week proved he was a goner. Yep, he may as well tell her. He was putty in her hands. She could snap her fingers and he would unashamedly oblige. Oh, yeah, at her beck and call. He smiled and didn’t care that his thoughts meandered off track. He was quite enjoying himself, if his pulse thrumming underneath the top layer of his skin was anything to go by.
This afternoon, they shared another unforgettable coupling, one that had him stretching his groin in the confined space of his pants. He shifted forward on the seat and stretched his legs, finally understanding a tiny fraction of what an addict must deal with. He couldn’t do without her, didn’t want to do without her, and would rather not think about any other alternative.
He let his head fall back and sighed. It didn’t take long for his worry to return and crowd the edges of his mind. What if this reunion did untold damage to Ella’s relationship with her mother? Then what?
“What’s up?”
He lifted his head and looked into her amazing blue depths. Already, she had an uncanny sense of his moods, but he couldn’t tell her what was troubling him. Not yet. It had been barely twenty-four hours since she’d met her father for the first time. If he tried to take anything away from that, she would most likely accuse him of being jealous, or deliver some other accusation. She had every right to do so, except—and he wanted to thump his fist on his thigh—for the one line in the article he’d found in the files he’d trolled through. It kept running through his mind on repeat: ‘unstable nature of his wife’s health’.
He nuzzled her neck. “You know me. Would much rather be somewhere else doing delightful things with you. Food doesn’t rate a mention in my books.”
She chuckled and reached up to cup his cheek. “Just this once, I promise. When we return to the motel, I’m all yours.”
“What … what if I’m too tired?”
She scoffed, her cheeks glowing with humour. “I doubt that’ll happen.” She settled her face against his neck, her breath warm on his skin.
He pressed her closer and kept his thoughts to himself, but it still struck him as strange that every time Ella had asked her father a question about her mother, Thomas had deftly manoeuvred around it.
But Zane wouldn’t press Ella again. When he’d brought it up last night, she’d shrugged and reminded him that she had the rest of her life to find out all the details of what happened. She added that knowing every detail now was never going to change why her mother left, so why worry?
She had a point, but he didn’t quite see it that way. Thomas Van Der Meeliko was hiding something. Just like their mothers. There must’ve been a good reason for Ella’s mother to leave. And something about her father’s friendly behaviour didn’t ring true. Zane could place a bet and win. He’d gamble that forgiving Catherine would happen over Thomas’s dead body, and if that held true, then only one person would get hurt when this went wrong. Ella.
Zane could continue blaming his background in policing and investigations, but caution got under a man’s skin. There was no avoiding it, and the alarm bells were deafening in his head.
As for his mother, he and Ella had agreed not to mention the connection to Thomas. They didn’t want to risk damaging the fragile relationship they’d established with him. Complicate it and it could go up in flames. Zane would sort that matter out when he returned home. His mother no longer had a reason to lie. He’d discovered the truth, so now she could own up and tell him who his biological father was.
His feelings towards his dad would never change. Well, he hoped they wouldn’t. His faith in his parents had only been strengthened with what he’d learned. Not for one minute had Zane doubted that his dad was in the dark. They wouldn’t have the relationship they did with this huge secret hanging over them. For Zane, it would be enough to understand why his mother had fled Boston. Then he’d assess how brave or stupid he needed to be to jump in boots and all and confront his Boston family.
His mother’s mysterious escape from such a family at least made sense.
The driver veered to the right of the circular drive; the fountain at its centre sprayed water two metres high. The falling droplets were mesmerising as they danced in the lights of the car and floated on the water’s surface. Pointed conifers lined the pond and the drive, their tall yet chunky trunks a testament to how many years they’d been planted. The front of the stately home boasted tall, rectangular windows, with lights shining from some. Ivy crept over the walls and covered most of the left half of the house. In the early twilight, the white-painted surface looked grey.
When the car stopped at the front porch Zane, not one to wait on ceremony, thrust open his door. Ella smiled at this and followed, alighting the car before the driver could get to their side to assist. She deeply inhaled the moist air surrounding the pond and looked up at the tall marbled columns providing structural support to the front of the building.
At the entrance, a manservant waited. He smiled a welcome before indicating they should follow.
Ella shivered as her shoes clacked on the black-and-white chequered marble floor. The same thoughts from earlier swirled around her head. This could’ve been my childhood home. It was so surreal she had to hold back from laughing out loud. What sort of person would she have been if her mother hadn’t whisked her away?
They were shown into a room filled with soft mahogany lounge suites and the walls lined with books bound in dark colours. They oozed age and nobility, and Ella couldn’t imagine a single romance or chick lit novel existing in the room.
Her father greeted her with a firm handshake. “Would you like a glass of wine before dinner?”
Ella followed him towards a bar and cabinet tucked in the corner and nodded. “I can get it if you like.” She smiled before adding, “There’s no need to stand on ceremony for us. We’re used to taking care of ourselves.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow. “So, I have an independent daughter.” He chuckled and added, “Hmm … can’t be all bad.”
Ella laughed and opened the door of the bar fridge. She took a moment to read the labels of the dozen or so bottles and found a sweet white she didn’t mind the look of. She lifted it out and showed it to Zane. “Would you like to try this?”
He nodded and she poured them each a glass.
She turned when Thomas announced, “I’d like to make a toast.” He raised his glass and Ella and Zane followed suit.
“Here’s to discovering my lost daughter and to many, many years of friendship in the future.”
When Ella took a sip of her wine, her father’s eyes hardened. For a split second, they glazed over with what looked like fury but then softened. She dismissed it, thinking she must’ve misinterpreted what she’d seen. With a gentler emotion now visible on his face, he looked at her. “It saddens me that I missed your formative years. I want to make up for it.”
He made no mention of her mother’s involvement. Did she exist in his mind anymore? Zane’s earlier warning beat against her chest, but she pushed it aside. This was her chance to connect with her father. What happened in the past had broken this family. She couldn’t change those chain of events, but she wanted to understand why they’d occurred. In time, the truth would be uncovered. For now, it was her turn to share her father’s affections. He’d missed out on a lot too.
They all turned at the scuffle at the door.
“I’ll be damned if I’m forced to spend more than five minutes with the old bastard.”
A young man entered. There was no disguising the tall, willowy frame and blue eyes he’d inherited from Ella’s father. Hmm. My half-brother?
“Patrick.” Her father’s stern voice silenced everyone in an instant.
Patrick was unsteady on his feet. Either he’d been drinking heavily or he’d taken something else that was spacing him out.
“You wanted to see us, Father?” A young woman stepped out from behind Patrick. In her late teens or early twenties, she carried a defiant look and slammed the door behind her. The house should’ve rattled, but it was solidly built and had probably dealt with slammed doors in the past.
Slowly and deliberately, Thomas moved towards them. His intimidating behaviour had Ella’s heart hammering. The cords on his neck stretched his skin, and anger burst out of every visible pore. Nobody could miss the God-like effort he made to rein in his fury.
He bared his teeth and clipped each word. “Patrick, Melita, I’d like you to meet your half-sister, Ella.”
Silence deafened Ella’s senses as her shocked half-siblings took a few moments longer to react.
Melita’s hand flew up and her mouth fell open. “Jeez, Father, is she after our money?”
Patrick jerked his head back. He grabbed the back of his neck and squeezed hard. He laughed. The sound was bitter and could easily have been mistaken for a bark. “Let me guess, was she spawned by the first unfortunate bitch?”
Ella gasped, confusion causing her to reel at his rudeness. Nobody deserved to listen to this, least of all her. It wasn’t her place to say anything, but if this was what life was like in this family and house, she owed her mother.
She felt a nudge and caught Zane’s raised eyebrow, his cue to her to approach her half-siblings, no matter how hostile, and use some of her friendly Australian charm.
“Patrick, Melita, it’s a pleasure to meet you both.”
Melita was the closest, so Ella folded her arms around her shoulders and gave her a solid hug. Patrick was obviously not one to come forth, so she stretched a hand towards him, making it difficult for him to refuse a handshake. Her pleasantness might’ve shocked him for a moment because his hand came up to grip hers in what seemed to be a reflexive action.
“Are you staying for dinner?” Ella tried to make the question sound innocent, but even she could feel the threads of tension strung tightly between them. It saddened her that there didn’t appear to be any sense of family in this household. “This is our last night in Boston. Tomorrow we fly back to Australia. I’d love an opportunity to get to know you both better before we leave.”
Patrick took a step back, his black jeans and black dress shirt accentuating his pale, unhealthy pallor. “I don’t give a damn who you are.” He tore his gaze away from Ella and directed his intense stare at his father. “How many more of your bastards are going to turn up here?”
“Patrick!” There was bitter hatred in Thomas’ voice when he spat out his son’s name.
But Patrick didn’t take any further notice of his father. He spun around, and when he left the room, the door took another hard slamming.