CHAPTER 36
DEVON
“Mr. Whitehall, your vehicle awaits.”
I fell into the backseat of the eye-catching vehicle and continued barking at Sam Brennan during our transatlantic phone call.
“You said Simon came highly recommended.” I was aware I sounded one, accusatory … two, clipped … and three, utterly deranged. “He is a fucking joke, period. Where was he when Belle got attacked? When she was followed?”
I felt like a helicopter mother trying to convince an AP teacher why her Mary-Sue should get the scholar award this year. My complete transformation, from a man of leisure and pragmatist to this hysterical, illogical, blubbering mess, was not lost on me.
The young driver settled in the driver’s seat of the Rolls Royce Phantom. Mum loved to parade it around whenever she thought the paparazzi were nearby. I wagered she thought the paparazzi were definitely looking for me. She had no idea I’d come here to verbally bash her back and forth on the floor a-la Hulk and deliver some very bad news to her.
She thought I’d arrive bearing an engagement announcement.
“He was exactly where he was supposed to be,” Sam countered efficiently. “In Madame Mayhem, the only jurisdiction he was allowed to cover under your contract. Did you want him to stalk her?”
Yes.
“No,” I scoffed, flicking invisible dirt from under my fingernail. The driver crawled from Heathrow Airport into the unbearable London traffic. I loved my capital city, but it had to be said—everything west of Hammersmith should’ve been trimmed away from London limits and duly given to Slough as a gift.
“But he was conveniently absent each time she got into trouble.”
“He was doing the fucking filing to find excuses to be near her! This is a highly trained former CIA agent.” Sam’s fist crashed into an object on the other end of the line, shattering it to pieces.
I pulled my phone away from my ear and scowled at it. I had recently (and by recently, I mean in the past ten minutes) decided I was no longer a smoker. There was simply no justification to engage in such a harmful habit. My unborn child deserved more than an increased chance at developing asthma and a house that smelled like a strip club.
“At any rate,” I said coolly, “I want to know where she is right now. What do your men have for me? Make it good.”
“She’s at her parents’.”
“And …?”
“And she’s safe.”
“She hates her dad,” I mumbled, a fact that wasn’t intended for his ears. I was worried. Not about Belle being unhappy with the situation—the little wench deserved a bit of trouble after what she’d put me through—but for her father’s safety.
“Daddy issues, huh?” Sam chuckled darkly. “Couldn’t have seen that from miles away.”
“Bugger off.”
“Not sure what it means, but right back at you, mate,” he volleyed with an unfortunate, yet bizarrely accurate Australian accent.
“Wrong nationality, wanker. Make sure she doesn’t leave their sight this time,” I warned. “Heads will roll if they lose her again.”
“Whose heads?”
“Yours, for starters.”
“Is that a threat?” he asked.
“No,” I said calmly. “It’s a promise. Boston may fear you, Brennan, but I don’t. Keep my missus safe or bear my wrath.”
There was a beat of silence, in which I supposed Sam considered whether he wanted to go to war or simply bow out of the argument.
“Look, she doesn’t seem to be venturing outside their house very often,” he said finally. “I think having people on the house at this point is excessive. Almost counterproductive. Because as it stands only a handful of people know where she is. If there’s surveillance on her ass, it may draw more attention.”
This surprised me. Belle was the kind of thrill-seeking woman to arrange a public orgy in the Vatican. And I couldn’t imagine her parents’ house offered many attractions. Nonetheless, it was good news.
I was going to deal with her as soon as I got back to Boston, which should be within the next twenty-four hours.
“Fine. No surveillance.”
“Hallelujah.”
“It was terrible doing business with you.”
He hung up on my arse. Wanker.
I sat back in the leather seat and drummed my knee, taking London in as it zipped past my window. The congenital grayness, the oldness of a city which had braved wars, plagues, fires, terrorism, and even Boris Johnson as mayor (this is not a political statement; I simply found the man entirely too eccentric to be anything other than a party clown).
I thought about how I’d left Louisa in Boston. Her tear-clogged throat, red eyes, and wilted posture. How I was never going to see her again, apologize to her again, explain myself again—and how I was completely fine with no longer hating myself for a decision I’d made when I was eighteen.
I wasn’t fair to her.
But then my father wasn’t fair to me.
I’d spent my entire adult life trying to repent for what I did to her by depriving myself of things. It was time to let go.
Show me a person with no wrongdoing in their past and I’ll show you a liar.
“Sir …” The young man behind the wheel caught my eye through the rearview mirror.
I turned my face to him, arching a brow.
“May I ask you something?”
He had an old-school, cockney accent. The kind I’d only heard in movies.
“Go ahead.”
“How’s Boston in comparison to home?”
I thought about the weather—better.
The underground system—the T wasn’t even half as reliable as the tube.
The people—both were brash and held high, no-bullshit standards.
Culturally, London was superior.
Culinary-wise, Boston was better.
But at the end of the day, none of that mattered.
“Boston is home to me,” I heard myself say. “But London will always be my mistress.”
And it was right there and then that I realized home was where Emmabelle Penrose was, and that I was in love with the maddening, infuriating, terribly unpredictable woman. That, in fact, Sweven had been more than a conquest, a game, something I wanted for myself simply because I knew I couldn’t have it. She was the pinnacle. The end game. The one.
And even if she didn’t know any of that.
She had to know that I loved her.
I had to tell her.
I suppose you could say I paid a surprise visit to my mother, not because she hadn’t been expecting me—she had—but because I falsely indicated to her that I intended on making a pit stop in Surrey to visit an old friend.
Anyone who knew me was also aware I hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from my previous life. Mum didn’t quite know me, so she bought into the story.
Worse still, I didn’t really know her anymore.
But I was about to get a glimpse of the real her.
I’d walk into Whitehall Court Castle unannounced and see what things looked like when they weren’t putting on a show for me.
I slapped the grand double doors open. Two frantic servants were at my heel, trying to physically stop me from entering the manor.
“Please, sir! She isn’t expecting you!”
“Mr. Whitehall, I beg you!”
“My mansion, my business.” I breezed in, my loafers clicking on the golden marble into the main drawing room. The beams above my head closed in on me like trees in a forest.
“Devon!” Mum cried out, darting up from the 19th century Victorian French settee, a flute of champagne in her hand. I stopped dead at the entrance, taking the scene in front of me in.
Hustling and bustling around her, servants were removing a Rembrandt van Rijn painting and expensive furniture from the room, item by item, to make it appear bare and scanty. Cecilia was perched in front of the winged piano, looking like a woman who not only wasn’t on suicide watch, but would happily commit murder herself if it threatened to bite into her leisure time. She wore a Prada dress—from this season—and next to her was the so-called bane of her existence, Drew, who seemed content playing with the locks of her blond hair before I walked into the scene.
“Devon?” I asked with a mocking expression. As I made my way to Mum, she put her champagne aside and was now pushing servants out of the room, shoveling them out into the vast hallway to cover for her indiscretions. She wanted me to think the house was empty, crumbling. That she was a step away from an empty fridge, she was so poor. “Whatever happened to Devvie?”
When the last of the servants were out the door, Mum threw herself at me, hugging me with a sob. “It’s so good to see you. We weren’t expecting you until dinnertime. Is your friend in Surrey all right?”
“My friend in Surrey does not exist, so it is hard to tell,” I drawled. Shrugging off her touch and sauntering toward the regency bar cart, I poured myself a generous glass of brandy.
“It’s not what it looks like.” It was Cece’s turn to stand up from the piano and rush toward me, her face flushed. She twisted the hem of her dress in her fists. “I mean, yes, it is what it looks like, in a way, I suppose, but we didn’t want you to think our struggle is not real. We needed to give you a push.”
I threw the brandy down my throat, pointing at my sister with the empty glass. “Are you suicidal?” I asked, pointblank.
She winced visibly. “I … umm … no.”
“Have you ever been?”
She squirmed. “I had moments when I was depressed—”
“Welcome to life. It’s a pile of shite. That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” she admitted finally.
I swung my gaze from her to her husband, who was scrambling up from the piano seat, wobbling over to us, still wearing silk pajamas that did no favors for his thighs. These were the people I’d worried about for the past two decades. The ones I’d been sending checks and letters to. The folks I’d agonized over.
“Drew, can I call you Drew?” I asked with a winning smile.
“Well, I—”
“Never mind. I was being polite. I am going to call you whatever the fuck I want to call you. Are you good to my sister, arsehole?”
“I-I think so.” He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, looking around, as if this was a test with a definite answer and he hadn’t prepared for it.
“Have you ever held a job?”
“I was a business consultant for a nonprofit organization after I finished uni.”
“Did you know anyone on the board?”
He winced. “Does my dad count?”
I don’t know, is the Queen English?
“Do you have a health issue keeping you from working?”
“My stomach gets very upset when I’m nervous.”
“Very well. Work your way to a paycheck, and you’ll have no reason to be nervous.”
Next, I turned to look at my mother. By her cloudy expression, she gathered there were no happy announcements coming her way nor confetti and venue-shopping in her immediate future.
“You’re not struggling,” I said.
“I will, if you don’t marry Louisa.”
“Sell the valuables you own.”
“The family treasures?” Her eyes widened.
“Family treasures are supposed to be the relationships, laughter, and support you get from one another. Not paintings and statues. I suggest you start looking for a profitable job or at the very least find out if you could go on the dole, because there is no way in hell I am marrying a woman who isn’t Emmabelle Penrose.”
I was already cocked and loaded, ready to fight her over sending people to threaten Sweven. By the power of deduction, I wagered there was no way at least some of the things that happened to her weren’t by my mother’s order.
“Please, I cannot even hear her name!” Mum covered her ears, shaking her head. “That woman ruined everything. Everything.”
“Is that why you sent people after her?” I leaned against the wall, one hand tucked inside my front pocket.
“Excuse me?” She slapped a hand against her chest.
“You heard what I said.”
We held each other’s stare. Neither of us blinked. She spoke, still staring at me. “Cece, Drew, leave.”
They scurried away like rats abandoning ship. I cocked my head sideways, scanning the woman who brought me into this world who stopped caring about me when I didn’t shape my life around her vision of her own dreams. I wondered when, exactly, I’d become nothing but a tool for her. In my teens? College years? As a full adult?
“Who did you hire?” I asked frostily.
“Stop being dramatic, Devvie.” She tried laughing it off, picking up the champagne glass from the tray next to her, twisting it about. “It wasn’t like that.”
“How was it, then?”
“I, well … I suppose I did hire a man. His name is Rick. He said he collects debts and such. He has a few soldiers around Boston running errands for him. I just wanted him to scare her off, not harm her, god forbid. She is still carrying my grandchild, you know. I care about those things!”
She cared about her first grandchild like I cared about preserving the life and dignity of treehopper bugs in Turkmenistan.
“Get him on the phone right now. I want to talk to him.”
“He won’t talk to me.” She threw her hands in the air, walking over to the settee she’d occupied minutes ago. Taking out a thin cigarette from her purse, she lit up. “He stopped taking my calls. I’ve tried everything. Last time we spoke, he said someone got involved in the case. Some common Irish name. Said he doesn’t need to deal with this guy. I haven’t heard from him since.”
Sam Brennan.
“Is he still on the case?” I asked.
“No.”
“Give me his details, just in case.”
I was going to give them to Sam and ensure Rick knew the next time he got close to Emmabelle, he was going to leave the situation in a body bag.
Mum rolled her eyes, sticking her cigarette into her mouth and scribbling something on a side table by the settee. She tore the paper from a notepad and handed it over to me.
“There. Happy now?”
“No. So he followed her?”
“Sent other people to do it a handful of times. One of them she confronted in quite an uncouth manner to be honest.”
“And sent her letters?”
Mummy frowned, taking another drag of her cigarette, folding her arms over her chest. “No. I didn’t ask him for that, and highly doubt he took such a liberty.”
That meant there was someone else after Sweven, just like I suspected.
A second someone.
Frank.
I needed to wrap this up and get back home.
“When did Rick start going after her?”
I wanted to know when it all began. Mum gave me a guilty look.
“Well …”
“Well?”
“Before she got pregnant,” Mum admitted, her shoulders sagging as she puffed on her fag. “After your father passed away, I used Rick to try and see if there were any obstacles that might prevent you from marrying Louisa. He said you were all over this Penrose woman. So we tried to push her out of the picture.”
“Real classy.”
“Are we going to talk about what’s going to happen to me and your sister now that you’ve officially decided to fail us?” She huffed. “Because this thing with Emmabelle wasn’t unprovoked. You must see my point of view. You’re about to flush the family’s fortune down the drain to make a point about your father.”
“No, I’m about to flush the family’s fortune down the drain because it comes attached with a stipulation no one should agree to. And also because I’m in love with someone else and refuse to sacrifice my own happiness so you and Cece can drive fancy cars and take monthly vacations in The Maldives.”
“Devon, be reasonable!” She snuffed the cigarette out, smoke still escaping her lips as she rushed toward me. She seemed to be trying tough love and groveling simultaneously, which made for quite the odd conversation. “You’re burning down a legacy! All you’ll be left with is the title.”
“I don’t care much for the title either,” I drawled.
“How dare you!” She slammed her fists against my chest. “You’re irrational and vindictive.”
“I’ve tried being reasonable. But there is no reasoning with you people. You’re on your own, Ursula. If you want money, go earn it, or better yet, find a sorry sod who is willing to marry you. And on that note, here’s a fair warning: if you try to harm the mother of my child ever again, I’m going to end you. I mean that literally. I will end your life as you know it. Spread this message to Cece and Drew too. Oh, and my love, of course.” Manners were manners, after all.
“You can’t do this to us.” She fell to her knees, hugging my ankles. The waterworks started. I stared down at the back of her head with a mixture of annoyance and disgust. “Please, Devon. Please. Marry then divorce Louisa. Just for a bit … I … I … I won’t be able to survive! I simply won’t.”
I shook her touch off of me, stepping away from her embrace.
“If you don’t, it’s none of my business.”
“You know …” She looked up, her eyes shining with madness, anger, and desperation. They were so big, so manic I thought they were going to pop out of their sockets. “I knew. That time when he locked you in the dumbwaiter and cut the electricity off so the pumps wouldn’t work … we were both in on that.”
Revulsion creeped over my skin.
My mother knew my father had tried to kill me all those years ago, and she was in on the plan.
Our entire relationship, as I knew it, was a lie. She never cared for me. She had simply bided her time because she knew my father would die one day and wanted to be on my good side when she asked me to marry Louisa.
I smiled coldly, stepping away from her. “Consider the will unfulfilled. You’re poor now, Mother. Although, really, you have been poor your entire life. Money means nothing in the grand scheme of things when you don’t have any integrity. Spare us both the trouble and embarrassment and don’t call me anymore. From now on, I won’t pick up.”