23

I’ve loved you since I can remember.

While she was getting ready for her flight, those words sifted through Marlow’s brain like sand in an hourglass that she turned over again and again. Aida and Claire chatted away on the drive to the airport, and Marlow tried to respond when necessary, but she was preoccupied with Walker’s response, and that was on her mind the entire time she was waiting for her plane, too. She was still thinking about him and what he’d said long after she boarded and the plane took off.

Normally, such a declaration would’ve frightened her. She’d had other men profess their love. When it happened, it made her feel panicky and claustrophobic, as if she was getting into a situation she might not be able to comfortably extricate herself from—and that was always the beginning of the end.

But this felt like...only the beginning.

“You must be looking forward to something special,” her seatmate, a thin elderly woman, leaned over to say. “You’ve been absolutely beaming since you came on.”

Marlow hadn’t realized she’d been smiling quite that hard. “I’m just...happy today,” she said with a laugh.

“How wonderful,” the woman responded. “It makes me happy to see your beautiful smile.”

“Thanks,” Marlow said and hoped the feeling would last.

Despite how tired she was, she didn’t nod off until there was only thirty minutes left of the flight. Then it seemed as though she was almost immediately awakened by the announcement informing her to put up her tray table and see that her seat was in the upright position.

Covering a yawn with one hand, she slid open the window shade with the other and watched the ground rushing up to meet them as they landed. She was eager to deplane, take care of business and hurry back to the airport for her return flight. She wanted to get home to Teach, and Walker, as soon as possible.

Since she hadn’t needed a carry-on, Marlow walked off the plane and immediately took an Uber to Sam Lefebvre’s office.

It’d been a long time since she’d visited Atlanta. This was home. Once she breathed in the warm, humid air, laden with the scent of magnolias, and her driver took her past Piedmont Park in the center of town, with its many oaks and dogwoods, she realized how much she’d missed this place. Letting the condo in Virginia go wouldn’t be nearly as painful as watching her mother sell her childhood home. But it didn’t make sense for Eileen to keep the extra properties, not without Tiller and his job requiring her to move between them.

If the meeting with Sam didn’t take too long, she planned to go see the house today so she could say her goodbyes in case she was back in California or somewhere else when it was sold.

Her phone signaled a text. It was from her mother.

Yep. Almost at Sam’s office. She nearly added that she was hoping to see the house, but she didn’t want to trigger any more upset for her mother. Eileen was going through enough.

Call me after, Eileen wrote.

Marlow scrolled to Walker’s contact record and, impulsively, sent him a message. Miss you already.

Still not sure why you had to fly to Atlanta, came his response. Most business can be handled via Zoom or Skype these days. But maybe your dad’s lawyer is old school.

He sent a heart emoji, and she was more than a little shocked at how much pleasure that response gave her. He wasn’t a man who used a lot of flowery words. He was a bottom-line kind of guy, so a simple heart went a long way.

“Damn you,” she muttered. “I’m totally falling in love with you.”

What if, at some point, he decided she wasn’t all he’d hoped? It could be the thrill of the chase and finally getting what he’d always wanted that had set the course for their relationship so far...

“Here we are,” her driver said.

She looked up from her phone to find they were at the curb in front of the steel-and-glass skyscraper that corresponded with Sam’s address. She’d been here before, but only once, when her father needed to drop off some paperwork. All the other times she’d seen Sam, it had been at their house or at a social gathering. “Thank you,” she mumbled and scrambled out of the car.

Sam’s office had been updated and was now white and gray instead of the warmer browns and creams she remembered. His receptionist had been replaced, too. An attractive brunette, this woman appeared to be about twenty years old. “You must be Senator Madsen’s daughter,” she said.

“Yes, I’m Marlow.”

“Nice to meet you, Marlow. I’m Jennifer, and I’m sorry about your loss. I’ll let Mr. Lefebvre know you’re here. Would you like coffee or water while you wait?”

“No, thanks.”

Skipping coffee turned out to be a wise decision, because it would only have slowed things down. Sam walked out to greet her barely a minute later.

“Marlow, it’s so good to see you,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”

She accepted the handshake he offered her. “Of course. I’m happy to be here.”

“Why don’t we go into the conference room?” He led her to a room down the hall and gestured at the large table that took up almost the entire space. “If you’ll give me a second, I’ll grab your father’s file.”

She sat down, settled her purse at her feet and interlaced her fingers.

“You look great, by the way,” he said when he returned and put the file on the table in front of him. “But you always were a beautiful girl, so I didn’t expect anything less.”

“I appreciate that,” she said. But as pleasant as he was, she was growing apprehensive. This whole thing seemed so pointless. Why was she here? Why couldn’t he have told her whatever he needed to tell her over the phone?

“Your father was incredibly proud of you. And he loved you very much. I’d like to make that crystal clear before...before we delve into what we’re about to discuss.”

His words only caused more anxiety. “Why would you feel the need to say that?” she asked.

“What I have to tell you will probably be...upsetting.” He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but...with your father’s passing, I have no choice.”

“My dad’s already dead,” she said. “What other bad news could there be?”

His lips compressed into a line. Then he opened his mouth to explain but immediately clamped it shut and took out a document instead. “This is your father’s will.”

She gave an uncomfortable laugh. “What’s the problem? Has he given all his money to charity or something? As long as there’s enough left to take care of my mom, we’ll be fine. I can make my own way.”

“It’s not that. You and your mother are getting quite a bit of money, Marlow. A fortune.”

Considering how Sam was behaving, she supposed that news should’ve come as a relief. And yet her eyes blurred with tears, making it impossible to read. “You’re scaring me,” she admitted, pushing the will back across the table. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on? I can read this later.”

He tried to take her hand, but she pulled away. “Tell me,” she insisted.

He drew a deep breath before blurting, “Marlow, your father left a sizable portion of his estate to someone else.”

He’d already said there’d be plenty for her and her mother. So did this explain the way he was acting? “A charity,” she reiterated.

“Not a charity, no. A person.”

“Who?” she managed to say in spite of the lump that was swelling in her throat.

“Reese Cantwell.”

She struggled to swallow. “Reese?” she echoed, uncomprehending.

“Yes.”

It took her a moment, but once she’d processed that bit of information, she weighed it for the tragedy she saw in Sam’s face. She didn’t think sharing a portion of the estate with Reese was the worst thing that could happen. Her father had cared about him, too. “That...that’s somewhat understandable,” she allowed. “Dad was good to Rosemary and her boys, and they’ve always had much less than we have. So he...he must’ve left Walker something, too. Right?”

“No, Walker isn’t named in the will.”

“That hardly seems fair,” she protested.

“It might seem more fair when you consider that...” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Marlow, your father directed me to give Reese part of the estate because he was, er, is—” he grimaced “—his son.”

“What?”

“Reese is your half brother,” he clarified.

Cold seemed to spread through her whole body, as if she had ice water in her veins. “That...that can’t be true,” she stuttered. “Reese has a father. Rudy is his father.”

“No. I’m afraid that’s not the case. Your father had a paternity test performed when Reese was a baby, and—” his voice dropped “—it came back positive. I have it here in the file.”

He pulled out the proof—a paper filled with blurred letters and numbers as far as Marlow was concerned, so she didn’t take it. She pressed a hand to her chest; it was getting harder to breathe. “But that means...that means my father was a...a liar and a...cheater.” The last word especially tasted bitter. Infidelity was certainly nothing she’d ever associated with her larger-than-life father, who had always campaigned for traditional family values. “He had to have been cheating on my mother and...and sleeping with our housekeeper! Is that what you’re telling me?”

“It’s a difficult situation,” he said as though he didn’t want to state it quite that bluntly. “I’m sorry.”

He said other things, phrases meant to soothe and comfort, but Marlow’s ears were ringing, making it impossible to hear most of his remarks. The parts she did pick up, she couldn’t seem to grasp. She stared at the thick document on the table—Last Will and Testament of John G. Madsen—as tears streamed down her face and dripped off her chin. She could remember her father playing with Reese, taking a special interest in him. He’d also paid for Reese’s tennis lessons and schooling, but Marlow had never imagined there was anything behind that except kindness and generosity. He’d paid for Walker to have many of the same things.

Had he been buying Rosemary’s silence instead of just wanting to help?

The betrayal—staved off at first by the shock—suddenly hit her like a fist to the gut. This wasn’t a dream; this was for real. Her father had put their family at risk by having sex with an employee. That meant he couldn’t have cared about Eileen—or her—as much as she’d always believed.

“No,” she said, rejecting it outright. “My dad would never do that. He was a good man, an honorable man.” Philandering politicians were a cliché. Her father was not among the many disgraced public figures who’d ruined their reputations and careers over sex.

“He was a good man,” Sam insisted.

She forced herself to focus on her father’s attorney. “But he couldn’t be a good man and have done this.”

Sam looked helpless sitting there in his expensive suit with his narrow neck and thinning white hair carefully trimmed around the ears and collar. “Give yourself some time,” he said gently. “It’s a shock.”

She blinked, struggling to hold back more tears. If she was this devastated, how would Eileen react? “How will I tell my mother?” she whispered, more to herself than to him. “She’s been mourning his death, missing him, going on and on about how wonderful he was. I can’t even imagine telling her this and ruining her most cherished memories of him. And what will it do to her relationship with Rosemary and Reese and...” She let her words dwindle away because the picture she was creating was too horrific to contemplate. What would it do to her relationships with the Cantwells—with Walker?

Sam formed the papers into a neat stack, probably as a way to avoid looking at her. “When your father and I were drafting these documents many years ago, it was clear to me that he expected to outlive your mother. He was always so healthy and robust. And she... Well, MS is a very difficult disease.”

That was a euphemistic way of saying that her father had thought multiple sclerosis would kill Eileen before she could learn the truth, and he’d get away with what he’d done without ruining her opinion of him. “In other words, he hoped she’d never have to find out.”

“I think that’s safe to say, yes.”

“Except...he’s the one who’s dead, and my mother does have to accept this ugly reality.”

“Unfortunately.”

The lie her father had lived made Marlow as angry as the infidelity. He’d always pretended to be faithful. She imagined her poor mother waiting anxiously at home for news of this meeting, barely able to get out of bed or knit for a few hours, and felt her heart sink even further. “And I have to be the one to tell her that the man she spent forty years loving and supporting wasn’t worth her devotion.”

He straightened his narrow shoulders. “I wouldn’t go that far. As I said in the beginning, Tiller loved her—and you—very much.”

“I don’t doubt he said that. But his actions don’t support it.”

Sam didn’t seem to know what to say. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “If you prefer that I tell your mother, I will. I just...I thought it might be easier coming from you.”

When she sniffed, he hurried out of the room and returned with a box of tissues. As she wiped her nose and eyes, something else occurred to her, something that made her feel even worse. “Rosemary must know the true paternity of her youngest son.”

“I’m sure she does.”

“And she must’ve known all these years. Reese is twenty-two! She’s remained in my mother’s service the whole of that time knowing she...she has a child by my father?”

He straightened his tie as though he had no idea what to say.

“I never dreamed Rosemary was capable of that kind of...duplicity,” she continued. “How long were they sleeping together? Was it the whole time I was growing up?”

Sam squirmed in his seat. “I didn’t ask him, Marlow, and that isn’t information he volunteered.”

She covered her mouth. “What about Reese? And Walker? Do they know?”

“I can’t tell you that, either. I would guess they don’t.”

She pressed her fingers to her closed eyelids. “But they’ll both find out.”

“There’s no way to keep this a secret anymore,” he agreed.

“Oh, my god,” she said and could feel him awkwardly patting her shoulder as she buried her face in her hands and wept.

Claire had never felt so guilty. Spending the day in Miami with Aida, knowing that Dutton was on a flight to visit her—and that he planned to spend an entire week on the island—was almost excruciating. She wished she’d tried harder to stop him. She wouldn’t be able to eat or sleep until he was gone.

“Isn’t this sexy?” Aida pointed to a black lace teddy as they ambled around Victoria’s Secret at Bayside Marketplace, an open-air mall with a marina on one side. According to what Claire had found on the internet, the marketplace was the most visited attraction in Miami. The Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, also located on Biscayne Bay, was popular, too. They’d spent nearly three hours there before coming to shop and have lunch.

“I like it,” Claire said, her stomach churning after she’d forced herself to eat some of the food on her plate at the Serbian grill they’d chosen for lunch. The restaurant had fabulous reviews; she knew the food wasn’t to blame.

“I think I’ll try it on.” Aida found her size and headed to the dressing rooms.

Claire drifted around, using the time Aida was gone to check her phone.

Dutton had sent her a message: I made my flight—I can’t wait to see you.

I’ll call you tomorrow, she wrote back. Please don’t try to contact me before then.

She’d already made that clear; problem was, she didn’t trust him to be patient.

She kept staring at her phone in case he responded. But five minutes later, she’d heard nothing.

“Any word from Marlow?”

Claire nearly dropped her phone when she heard Aida’s voice. “Not yet, but I keep checking. Hope her meeting went well.” She put her phone in her purse and indicated the barely there lingerie Aida had tucked under one arm. “What do you think?”

“I like it.” She grinned. “I sent Reese a picture of me in it, and he said to buy it.”

Claire widened her eyes. “You sent him a pic?”

She shrugged. “Might as well have some fun this summer.”

At least Aida seemed preoccupied with her new love interest. Or boy toy. But Claire didn’t see Reese as being ready for the kind of relationship Aida ultimately needed and was afraid this would only end in more heartache. She was tempted to warn her friend that she was heading straight toward a brick wall, but she didn’t feel she was in any position to act that protective, especially when Aida would be devastated if she found out about Dutton.