Nicholas stood up from his desk and walked to the window. His heart shouted a denial of everything Stockard had just told him and shown him, but his mind was forcing him to believe what his heart didn’t want to. Hurt welled deep in his throat, and anger surged through every part of his body.
Shayla was the one who was betraying him.
“Mr. Chenault, what do you want me to do now, sir?”
Nicholas took a deep breath, although his chest felt as if it would burst from the overabundance of pain that had settled there. His mind heard Stockard’s question, but he couldn’t acknowledge it with an answer. He didn’t know what he wanted him to do. He had to think for a minute. He turned back to the man who was staring at him, waiting for his answer. “I need to think about this, Stockard.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
Nicholas’s tone of voice was relatively calm in spite of his anger and his pain when he said, “No, Stockard, I don’t think you do.”
“Not to be disrespectful, sir, but I do understand. I know there was something going on between you and Ms. Kirkland.” At Nicholas’s raised eyebrow, Stockard continued. “You pay me to be observant, sir.”
Nicholas nodded slowly. He couldn’t dispute that.
“That’s why it was hard for me to bring all this to you, but I felt you should be told as soon as possible. I hope I didn’t do anything wrong,” Stockard said, laying it on thick in his role as the efficient security man.
“No, Stockard, you did everything right. Your efforts at finding out who’s working with Jordache are to be commended. I appreciate what you did, and I won’t forget it.”
Stockard smiled brightly. That was what he wanted to hear. Mr. Chenault was playing right into his hands. All his scheming, and plotting, arranging the fire and the break-in, had been worth it. “Thank you, sir. I was just doing my job. Is there anything else I can do?”
“No, you’ve done more than enough. You don’t know how appreciative I am. I’ll call you once I make my decision on how I’m going to handle this.”
“Yes, sir.” Stockard then walked out of Nicholas’s office, closing the door behind him.
Nicholas went back to his desk and picked up the items Stockard had presented to him. First was the page Stockard had ripped out of Shayla’s planner, an entry she had made while in China. She had written, “I’ll do whatever I have to to get Nicholas to lower his guard and trust me. Tonight at dinner I’ll put my plan into action, and begin working toward that goal.”
Nicholas reread the entry a couple more times and each time he read it fury and anger poured through his veins. After putting it back down, he picked up a copy of the company’s telephone log, which listed all incoming and outgoing calls. Jordache had called the office twice in the last three weeks, and both times he had spoken to Shayla.
Nicholas then picked up the photo that Stockard had taken of her getting into Thomas Jordache’s limo. According to Stockard, this had been her second meeting with Jordache, and the photo was taken yesterday.
Yesterday.
While he’d been in a frantic rush to get back to the States to see her, she had been planning the downfall of his company with Thomas Jordache. The rage Nicholas was beginning to feel at Shayla’s treachery was so thick it all but clouded his mind.
He had trusted her. He had loved her.
He still did.
His heart began to ache. He was a pitiful soul to admit to still loving a woman who had betrayed him. A part of him cursed the day he’d met her. He felt that his whole life had suddenly fallen apart, and all because of her.
He sighed when his anger became thunderous, almost unbearable. He would not let her and Jordache get away with this. He did not have enough evidence to bring legal charges against her, but he would make sure she remembered this day as long as she lived.
Another thought occurred to him. The two times there had been incidents at the office in Jacksonville and here, he had been with Shayla when he had gotten the calls. Had she acted as a diversion? That possibility made his anger reach the boiling point.
Picking up the phone, he dialed Leanne’s extension. He was so furious he could barely get his words out. “I gave Shayla Kirkland the day off. Call her at home and tell her something has come up and I need her to report to my office immediately. Then I want you to find Paul and tell him to get here as soon as possible.”
Nicholas inhaled deeply, then added, “And Leanne, I want you to process Ms. Kirkland’s termination papers. I want them ready when she arrives.”
Paul thought about following Callie upstairs, but changed his mind. She needed to be alone for a while. But he had no intention of leaving. He had more questions he wanted answered.
He walked over to the window Callie had just left and looked out. Her announcement had been a blow to his mind. Shayla Kirkland was his daughter. Was that the reason he’d had this strange feeling every time he’d been around her? Did she know? And if she did, did she hate him? Was that the reason she’d always acted uncomfortable around him?
He swallowed. That ill-fated night of twenty-seven years ago had happened just the way Callie had said. He hadn’t taken the time to ask how she had gotten to Jacksonville, or why she’d shown up in the middle of the semester—on a week night, at that. Earlier that day he had discovered Evangeline’s involvement with Jordache, and evidence indicating she’d been passing him information. He’d figured Callie had to have known, since she and her sister were so close. And if she had known, that meant that the two of them were working together with Jordache.
He had been wrong—totally off base.
Once he had discovered the truth that both Evangeline and Callie had been innocent and his charges groundless, he’d wanted to go to Callie and ask for her forgiveness. But he’d known she would never be able to forgive the things he had said to her. So he had accepted his fate, losing the only woman he’d ever loved. And now, to make matters worse, he knew that his actions on that night had also cost him knowing about his daughter. For twenty-seven years he had not known of her existence. A part of him knew he deserved the crushing blow he’d just been given.
When he heard movement in the room, he turned around. Callie had returned. She had changed into a fashionable skirt and blouse, and stood across the room from him, twisting the strap of her purse in her fingers.
“I know you have more questions, Paul. I have another couple of hours before I have to open my dress shop if you want answers now,” she said quietly. All traces of the tears were absent from her eyes. He felt the barrier she’d placed between them.
“Yes, please. Can we sit down,” he asked in a subdued voice.
She nodded. When he returned to his spot on her sofa she sat in the wing chair across from him.
“First of all,” Paul began as he locked his gaze with hers, “I know this comes twenty-seven years too late. But I want to apologize for that night. I know I acted unforgivably. I loved you, and I should have trusted you and believed that you wouldn’t betray me. I had spent enough time with you that summer, and had made love to you enough times to know there wasn’t a dishonorable bone in your body.”
He held his head down for a second, then raised it to capture her gaze once more. “But instead I was quick to think the worst, quick to be blinded by fury, because the evidence seemed so clear, and because I loved you so much. I said a lot of things to you that night. Some of them I remember, some I don’t. I wanted you to hurt the same way I was hurting. I’m so sorry for what I did to you, and to us.”
He dragged in a deep breath. “After I found out the truth I knew that losing you would be my punishment for the rest of my life. Now I realize that having lost my daughter, as well, was another price I’ve paid, and deservedly so.”
Callie said nothing. She just continued to look at him. She’d known from the moment she’d met Paul that he was proud, often stubborn and tenacious, but that deep down he was a good man. It had taken her a long time after that night to face the fact that he also was human, and that given the set of circumstances he’d reacted the way most men would have, with his head rather than his heart. Had he listened to his heart that night he would have known she was innocent. But talking about it now wouldn’t change what happened, nor would it erase the hurt. They had to move on, and right now Shayla was their main concern.
“What brought you here, Paul? Is Shayla in some kind of trouble at work?”
Paul leaned back on the sofa, noting the smoothness with which Callie had brought the conversation from out of the past and into the present. He also noted she had not said whether she accepted his apology. “No, she’s doing a fine job. It’s just that every time she was around me she acted uncomfortable, as if she thought I knew something, and I couldn’t understand why. I got suspicious of her actions, and reviewed her file. Does she know I’m her father?”
Callie shook her head. “No. Like you, she’s convinced Thomas Jordache is. Eva’s diary told what happened to her at Chenault, and her brief affair with Jordache. Shayla assumes she’s the result of that affair.”
“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”
Now it was Callie’s time to briefly look away. When she met his gaze again she said, “Because Eva had just died, and Shayla had read information in that diary that revealed Glenn was not her natural father. That in itself was a blow to her. I wasn’t going to hurt her any more by telling her that Eva wasn’t her mother, either, that the two people who raised her, who she assumed for twenty-six years were her natural parents, were her adoptive parents.”
Paul nodded. “Why did she come to work for Chenault?”
Callie hesitated only a moment before answering. “To get back at them for what they did to her mother. After reading Eva’s diary she felt her humiliation and her pain. She wanted someone at Chenault to pay.”
“Nick?”
A faint smile touched Callie’s lips. “Yes, Nicholas Chenault. Or so she thought, until she fell in love with him, which didn’t take her long. She left for China with revenge on her mind, and returned a week later with love in her heart.”
The hint of a smile threatened on Paul’s lips. “Nick loves her.”
“That’s good to hear.”
Paul struggled to stay focused, but with Callie sitting across from him it wasn’t easy. She could still make his throat feel dry, and his lower body simmer. She looked so darn good. He shifted positions in his seat. “Did she mention to you that she got a glimpse of Thomas Jordache while she was in China?”
Callie nodded. “She also met his son Trent. Shayla thinks he’s her half brother. It took all my will not to tell her he was actually her first cousin.”
Paul’s thoughts drifted back to Thomas Jordache again. “I’m glad Jordache doesn’t know anything.”
“I’m afraid he does. Shayla has met with him twice.”
Paul gritted his teeth and leaned forward in his seat. “For what reason?”
Callie told him what Shayla had told her about her two meetings with Jordache. “So, as you can see, he’s convinced Shayla he’s dying, and that someone who works for Nicholas Chenault is trying to make it seem as if Jordache is behind all those things that have been happening at Chenault.”
Paul nodded. “I don’t know if Jordache is actually dying, but I do know that someone who works for us by the name of Carl Stockard is making it seem that Jordache is up to no good. At least, that’s his plan. I only found out about it last night. I’m going to wait and see just what his next move is before I do anything.”
At that moment Paul’s beeper went off. Standing, he pulled it out of his pocket and checked it. “May I use the phone? It’s the office calling.”
Callie nodded. “Yes, it’s on the desk over there.”
She watched Paul cross the room, thinking that he still walked with purpose in his stride. She also couldn’t help but notice what great physical shape he was in. He’d taken off his jacket, and as he picked up the phone and began dialing, his muscular shoulders flexed beneath his white dress shirt in a way that made her draw in a deep breath.
“Leanne, it’s Paul.” After a few moments he exclaimed. “What!” Then a few seconds later. “When? Where’s Nick now?” He released a deep sigh of disgust before saying, “Leanne, I want you to find Howard Reeves. I’m on my way.”
After hanging up the phone he crossed the room back to Callie, his face filled with rage. “Stockard has made his move. Nicholas returned to the States earlier than expected, and Stockard presented him with evidence that Shayla is working with Jordache and supplying him with secret information.”
Paul heard Callie’s sharp gasp, and understood. It was like history repeating itself. The same charges had been made against her sister twenty-seven years ago. Callie was on her feet now. “Where’s Shayla?”
The muscle jumped at the base of Paul’s jaw at the thought of what Stockard had done, and how far he’d gone to get a higher position in the company. And to make matters worse, he was going to use his daughter to accomplish the feat.
His daughter.
The thought washed over him. Shayla Kirkland. His own flesh and blood. A daughter he’d created with the woman he had loved.
“Paul, where’s Shayla?” Callie repeated, reclaiming his attention.
“She’s on her way into the office.” He decided not to tell Callie that Nicholas had ordered that Leanne type up Shayla’s termination papers.
“I have to get there immediately,” he said, putting his jacket back on.
“I’m going with you.”
Paul stopped what he was doing and looked at her. “Why?”
“To make sure Shayla’s okay.”
Paul shook his head. “Nick loves her. If she makes it into the office before I get there, once she explains things to him he’ll—”
“Refuse to listen to anything she has to say, just like you refused to listen to me that night. Your anger overshadowed your love, and so will his.”
Paul inhaled deeply, hoping with every breath he possessed that she was wrong. He hoped that Nicholas proved to be a better man at love and trust than he had.
“But I wouldn’t want to be in Nicholas Chenault’s shoes if he doesn’t believe her,” Callie added.
Paul raised a brow. “Why’s that?”
Callie looked up and shrugged before saying, “One thing Shayla inherited from you, Paul, is your stubbornness and tenaciousness. Unlike Eva and me, she’ll stand up for herself. She won’t let Nicholas or anyone else accuse her of something she didn’t do. And if he tries, all hell’s gonna break loose.”
“That should be interesting,” Paul said, heading for the door and thinking about anyone giving Nicholas hell about anything. “I think it’s time we cleared things up once and for all, and that includes telling Shayla I’m her father, not Thomas Jordache. That means you’ll have to tell her you’re her mother, as well. It’s time she knew the truth, Callie.”
Callie nervously bit her bottom lip as she followed Paul out the door. He was right. It was time. But she couldn’t help worrying how Shayla would handle it all when she found out.