Forgotten Father (5 page)

“No,” Mitchell said, “being Old World, he wouldn’t
want to besmirch your reputation. But I’ve known my grandfather
long enough to know the pattern of his amatory adventures. You take
the cake, lady. You top them all. I might have let this little
relationship continue, but you stepped over the line when you
started trying to get The Cedars. I knew I had to do something when
Donovan hinted that he wanted to
give
you property that’s
been in our family for years?”

“What property?” she asked wildly.

“The Cedars, itself,” he said in a derisive tone, as
if she well knew the answer to her own question.

“You can’t be serious,” she said faintly. “I
love
you. I’d never do what you’re suggesting.”

The ugly sneer on his face grew more pronounced.
“I’m not interested in the kind of ‘love’ you’re offering. I can
buy that on any street corner.”

Reeling back as if he’d slapped her, Delanie leaned
heavily on the railing, fighting the buzzing in her ears.

“If you leave today, I won’t pursue prosecution,” he
said, his voice hard with fury. “But you can never come back, never
contact Donovan again.

“I haven’t done anything illegal.” Her face averted,
the protest came out thin and faint. She couldn’t believe this,
couldn’t make sense of his venom.

Mitchell’s short laugh was scoffing. “No? We’d start
with embezzlement and move from there. I bet the district
attorney’s office would like to see your books. You’d have a hard
time explaining the way the renovation money has been handled.”

“No,” she protested. “It’s all there. I haven’t
stolen anything.”

He took her upper arm in a tight grasp, turning her
toward him. “Don’t bother lying. You set out to snare my
grandfather, you wormed your way into his trust and took him for
everything you could get your hands on.”

“No!”

“I know your kind of woman. You use your sexy body
and your husky voice to drive a man insane,” Mitchell declared, his
face radiating hatred as he shook her. “I want you far away from
me, far away from Donovan. And if you ever try to contact him
again, I’ll sic the Internal Revenue Service on you. I’ll locate
and document every man you’ve ever slept with, every man you’ve
cheated!”

His fingers bit into her arm as she tried to pull
away. “No! How can you say that about me?”

“You’re a tramp and a con artist! You make a man
want you and then he has to pay.”

“No!” She tore her arm loose from his grip. “No,
Mitchell!”

Stumbling back over the uneven boards of the
walkway, she brushed a hand across her face to clear the tears from
her eyes. He reached for her again, rage in his beautiful, beloved
face.

“Come back here,” he snarled. “I’m not through with
you yet.”

Sobs choking her, she dodged his out-thrust hand.
Turning, Delanie fled from the lake, running from the hate in his
voice, from the unbearable decimation of her dreams.

She’d found the lover of her heart…and he hated her
with a bitterness that shook her to the soul.

******

Rigid with anger, Mitchell watched her go. The
sunlight gleaming off her red-gold hair, she tore up the smooth
green lawn toward the hotel as if the devil were after her.

Only he wasn’t chasing after her despite the sudden,
nauseating urge to do so.

Turning back to the lake, he steeled himself against
calling her back. Trying to banish the image of her anguished face,
he struggled at the same time to calm the bitter rage within
him.

She’d seemed different from all the others.

The surface of the lake stretched before him, cool
and peaceful, a rippling of blue and green. All his life, he’d
known this place.

He struggled now to connect with that calming
continuity, the certainty of those things he relied on. The resort,
his father and grandfather, the life he’d always known. His
responsibilities. These were the foundation, the steady path of his
days.

Last night, with its heated, other-worldly passion,
had been the unreliable vision.

Closing his eyes, Mitchell let the memory roll over
him. When had he ever felt so desired? So cherished. Wanton that
she was, she’d wooed his flesh with an expertise edged with false
innocence. He’d lost himself in her touch, in her sweet, drugging
kisses, until nothing mattered but her.

He should have known she was too good to be true. He
had
known it on some nagging level. Life
long experiences tended to stay with a man even when he’s been
offered a glimpse of another kind of heaven, a place he knows can’t
exist.

She loved him?

Mitchell snorted.

How green did she think he was? Love didn’t spring
up out of thin air, conjured by the ambiance of an up-scale
cocktail party and a rich, sensuous setting.

Oh, but her skin had been soft. Her breasts ripe and
taut in his hands.

The same breasts that had pleasured his seventy
year-old grandfather, he reminded himself bitterly.

Still, he struggled against a crazy sense of
disillusionment. It was an annoying experience since he’d long ago
given up his illusions about women and money. No matter what they
said they felt, it was always about the money.

He’d always known his father’s attitude had been the
right one. Enjoy women. Use them as much as they use you. It was no
different than a business transaction.

Shoving away from the railing, Mitchell walked along
the lakeside boardwalk, heading back to the main building. He
forced himself to walk slowly, strolling over the short, dew-wet
grass while ordering away the disquiet inside him.

Lanie Carlyle meant nothing to him. If anything, she
was a pointed reminder that a man needed to know the women he slept
with.

Her betrayal was nothing new. He’d known the truth
about women and money since high school. Within his hearing, his
first real girlfriend, Melinda Jo Parker, had boasted to her
friends that she’d snared the richest boy in school.

He remembered the moment vividly, a defining
instance in his life that had little to do with the Melinda Jo and
her easily-surrendered virtue. She’d opened his youthful eyes, that
was all. Left him feeling sliced in two. But he’d learned the
lesson well.

Walking up to her then, furiously angry, he’d kissed
her silly in front of her friends and had then continued to go out
with her and bed her for another year. Why not take what was
offered? He’d learned then that women were available to a wealthy
man. It seemed only human nature to take advantage of them while
they took advantage of him.

It was all very practical, in a ego-jolting way. You
just had to know the score.

Hell, his own mother had sold him to his father for
a million dollars. A large settlement in cash and stock options in
exchange for his father having sole custody.

It was just a reality. Money equaled power. Money
meant sex. Money was always the bottom line.

What he didn’t know, though, was why the hell that
should bother him so much this time?

***

Delanie ran away from his taunts, away from the
hostility and disgust in his eyes.

Her legs trembling, her head dizzy, she ran through
the bath house area, along the sparkling aqua pool and up the
grassy bluff toward The Cedars. With each breath harsh in her
throat, each gulp of air dragged into burning lungs, she ran on,
fleeing from the images in her mind. From the angry, devastating
accusations he’d flung at her.

Your kind of love? I can buy that on any street
corner.

Pain seared through her, so strong it left her
nauseous. She halted, gasping, half way up the slope, her hand
pressed to her stomach. Too aware of him yards behind her, she
walked on, clinging to the shadows of the tall cedars, feeling as
exposed as a wounded animal out in the open.

She had to get far away from this place. From him.
The words drummed in her, an urgent, desperate rhythm.
Leave.
Run away.

Teasing. She’d thought they were teasing at
breakfast and all the while he’d been hating her, thinking terrible
things of her.

Hurrying through the deserted grounds, she didn’t
slow or hesitate again, blindly seeking refuge. Seeking escape.

Her sandals slipping on the morning grass, she
dodged the stately cedar trees ranged along the northern side.

Mitchell actually hated her. The one man she’d
waited so long for and he hated her.

Tears blurring her vision, she reached the side door
nearest her room and wrenched it open.

The change from light to dark as she went through
the opening only left her feeling more disoriented. Nausea tore at
her midsection. Heedless of the stares of a couple who passed her,
she went on.

How could he think she was sleeping with his
grandfather? How could he know so little of her? Hadn’t he been
able to look into her eyes and know her as she’d felt she knew
him?

Clinging to the handrail, she climbed the stairs to
her room, opened the door and went in. Sinking down on the bed, she
stared blindly at the room through shocked eyes. Only last night,
she’d dressed here for the party. It was to have been a happy
occasion to celebrate her accomplishment in refurbishing The
Cedars. And it was
her
accomplishment. Donovan had given her
full rein, full responsibility, and she’d pulled it off.

But what did that matter now? What did anything
matter?

Mitchell didn’t love her, hadn’t listened to
anything she’d tried to say.

Alone now in the pretty white bedroom, the blinding
sunlight tumbling through the windows, Delanie crawled on to the
bed and curled into a ball.

She felt herself slipping, felt the edges of her
vision blurring with the pain. The room seemed made of light,
blazing at her from all directions.

You’re okay
, she tried telling herself,
grasping for common sense, for stability.
You were wrong about
him
. So he isn’t
the right one. Let it go.

Only she couldn’t.

It was as if his furious face with those beautiful
piercing blue eyes were burned on her retinas. How could she have
let this happen? Why hadn’t she known he mistrusted her, suspected
her of designs on his grandfather?

Her eyes shut against the blinding light, she curled
tighter into herself, remembering the shades of hesitancy in
Donovan’s voice when he’d mentioned Mitchell. He’d outright said
several times that Mitchell had questioned the money going into the
project. Why hadn’t she asked him about it?

Why hadn’t she told Mitchell her name last
night?

She had to get away. Had to leave.

Struggling to her feet, she stumbled her way to the
closet and pulled out her suitcase. Every movement sent showers of
pain through her head, light scattering before her eyes.

With the sensation of swimming through a nightmare,
she took the suitcase to the bed and opened each drawer of the
bureau. Scooping her clothes out randomly, she dumped them into the
case.

For the last six months, she’d lived here,
supervising the renovation in its last stages. She went to the
closet again and began to drag down her hanging clothes, ignoring
the roaring in her ears, the thundering in her head.

Every movement sent the room shimmering before her
eyes and she hesitated, leaning with an outstretched arm against
the bed. Leaving was the only option. If she could get away, she
could silence the words drumming in her head, quiet the gash in her
heart.

Fool!
she berated herself as she scooped her
toiletries off the counter in the bathroom.
When will you
learn?

Zipping her crammed suitcase, she scooted it to the
floor and picked up her purse and her overnight case. Only a few
more minutes, a few more steps. Then she’d find a way to forget,
find a place in her head she could crawl into. She just had to get
away from the memory of his furious face.

The memory of his kisses.

Leaving the hotel room she’d called home, Delanie
spared an anguished thought for Donovan. He’d been a good friend to
her. More like a father, if that thought weren’t so grimly
ironic.

But she couldn’t face him now. Couldn’t talk to
anyone. She’d leave, get back to her crowded, beloved apartment in
Boston. She’d go home and find a way to forget the gaping hole in
her heart.

Then she’d call Donovan, tell him something. She
didn’t know what, but that would wait till another day. Till the
pounding in her head had eased and the pain in her chest
lifted.

Making her way down the stairs, clinging to the
handrail as the steps swam before her eyes, she made it to the
ground floor and went out the side door.

Her eyes hurting more in the light, despite the
clouds that had rolled in since she went inside, Delanie glanced
around. Unable to face a repeat of Mitchell’s accusations, she
dreaded running into him as she left.

Around the back of the main hotel, off to the side,
were the parking lots. Her small red compact was there.

She fumbled with the keys, ready to cry. If only she
had sunglasses, to hide her ravaged face. Another layer of
protection between she and the harsh world despite the darkening
sky. Anything would help. But she didn’t have any glasses.

Heaving her cases into the truck, Delanie got into
her car, the warmth of the closed up vehicle swelling over her like
an oven despite the moderate season and the now overcast skies.

She leaned her head back against the headrest,
fighting off the nausea that welled in her. Her head throbbed and
pounded, leaving her feeling even more disoriented.

The heat in the car, the suddenness of it, left
another moment, a ragged, blurred memory, tugging at her fragile
composure. Another car, another time. Heat pounding against her.
Another heart-wrenching failure.