The Kincaids: Southern Seduction: Sex, Lies and the Southern Belle

“You have no idea,” she said as she sank onto the cushions. Tears filled her pretty blue eyes as she looked up at him. “Why did he do it?”

If the account of Reginald’s death in the newspaper had been correct, the man had used one of the antique guns in his collection to take his own life. Daniel knew for a fact that Lily and her father had been very close and his apparent suicide had to have been extremely difficult for her to cope with.

“I can’t tell you why things happened the way they did, Lily,” he said, sitting down beside her to take her into his arms. “It might never be clear why your dad felt compelled to end things in such a drastic way. But once the shock has worn off, I’m sure you’ll be able to put this behind you and look back at the good times you shared together.”

She stubbornly shook her head. “I’m not so sure. Not when everything I thought I knew about my father has turned out to be a total lie.”

He had meant to console her, not upset her further. “Give yourself some time. Right now your emotions are still too raw to see things clearly.”

“You don’t understand, Daniel.” She pulled away from him to meet his gaze head-on. “I mean literally—everything about Daddy was a lie.”

Something about her impassioned statement told him there was a lot more to the story than what the media had reported and she needed to get it out or risk going into emotional meltdown. “What leads you to believe that, Lily?”

She hesitated for a moment as first one tear, then another, spilled down her cheeks. “I might as well tell you. It’s going to be the talk of Charleston by the end of the week.”

“I’m listening.”

“Did you notice that older blonde woman and the two men with her that sat just behind my family at the funeral?” she asked.

He nodded. “Are they relatives from out of town?”

“No. Yes.” She swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what I should call them.”

“Slow down, Lily.” He didn’t like that she was becoming more agitated. “Who are they?”

“That was my father’s second family,” she said as if the words tasted bitter. “For the past thirty years, all of his out-of-town business trips were nothing more than excuses to travel up to Greenville to spend time with that woman and her two sons.”

Of all the things Lily could have told him about Reginald Kincaid, that was the last thing Daniel expected. “Let me get this straight,” he said slowly, trying to digest the revelation. “Your father had another wife and two kids up in Greenville that you’re just finding out about?”

Lily nodded. “Actually, Angela Sinclair was my father’s first love and her oldest son, Jack, is my half brother. Her youngest son, Alan, belonged to her late husband.”

“Jack Sinclair is your half brother?” He had heard of the man and the resounding success Sinclair had made of his start-up company, Carolina Shipping, but Daniel hadn’t had the opportunity to meet the man or do business with him. “But didn’t you just say he was the oldest? How could his younger brother belong to another man?”

“My dad and Angela were involved when they were very young, but my grandparents didn’t think she was the right type of girl for him,” Lily explained, rising to pace the floor. “The way I understand it, my grandfather was building his shipping business into what The Kincaid Group is today. He and my grandmother wanted my father to marry someone who could further their standing with the social set of Charleston.”

Daniel knew all too well how the bastions of Southern high society worked. His mother came from old money and was well-entrenched in the ranks of the social elite. She and her so-called friends looked down on anyone whose fortune didn’t go back at least four generations, or whose family tree didn’t include at least one or two officers from the Civil War.

“As an act of rebellion, Daddy joined the army to escape their matchmaking and since he was in a Special Ops unit, there were months at a time that no one could communicate with him,” Lily went on. “From what was said yesterday at the funeral, Angela tried to get word to him that she was expecting his child, but by the time Daddy was wounded and sent back here, Angela had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. He thought she got tired of waiting for him and moved on.”

“So when he couldn’t find her, he gave in to his parents and married your mother?” Daniel guessed.

Lily nodded. “The Winthrops were an old, well-established family in Charleston, but by the mid-seventies their fortune had dwindled to almost nothing and they were desperate to maintain their lifestyle and place within their social circle.”

Although Daniel hated the snobbery and pretentiousness of it all, it was the social order he had been born into and knew exactly how it worked. He had seen many of the old Southern families swallow their pride and encourage their sons or daughters to marry one of the nouveau riche. If they didn’t, their lack of means effectively ostracized them from the wealthy social community.

“So it was advantageous for both families when your mother and father got married,” he said, nodding. “Your dad’s parents went up several notches on the social register and your mother’s family gained someone to help them financially, as well as prop up their position in high society.”

“I think that sums it up perfectly,” Lily agreed.

“How did your dad and Angela get back together?” Daniel asked, wondering how Reginald had managed to find the woman after all those years when he hadn’t been able to before. “And what about her husband? Where does he figure into the equation?”

“Apparently, her parents gave her a choice of marrying Richard Sinclair or giving up her child.” Lily shook her head. “Given no other choice, I would have done the same thing and married a man I didn’t love to keep my baby.”

Daniel frowned. “What about Sinclair? What happened to him?”

“After they married and moved out of state, Angela gave birth to Jack and then several years later, she and Richard Sinclair had a son they named Alan.” She shrugged one slender shoulder. “I’m not sure if it was an accident or if he became ill, but Richard died not long after that.”

“So he’s out of the picture and your dad finds Angela again,” Daniel thought aloud.

Lily sighed heavily. “I don’t know how he did it, but when he found her and discovered that she had given birth to his son, Daddy set up her and the two boys in a house in Greenville. Apparently she had been struggling to make ends meet on her nurse’s salary and life got a lot easier for them when Daddy came on the scene. After that, he starting going on frequent business trips, which were actually visits to spend time with her and her sons.”

Daniel shook his head as he tried to digest the story. “And you found this out yesterday at the funeral?”

A tear slid down her cheek and she bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling a moment before she answered. “Y-yes. But what we learned this morning at the reading of the will just compounded the hurt and betrayal we were feeling about his second family.”

“What’s that, sweetheart?” He couldn’t imagine how the situation could get more complicated.

“Daddy left the majority of The Kincaid Group to Jack Sinclair, while my siblings and I were each given nine percent interest,” she said swiping another tear from her cheek. “My father led RJ and Matthew to believe they would be running TKG one day. How could he betray Momma this way? And, for that matter, how could he betray all of us?”

Daniel didn’t hesitate to stand up, walk over to her and take Lily into his arms. He knew how crushing the loss of her father had to have been for her, but finding out that he had led a secret life for so many years, then handed control of his business to someone the family hadn’t even been aware existed had to increase the emotional pain ten times over. Pulling her against him, he held her as he tried to lend her his strength and support.

His compassion seemed to open the floodgates and he tightened his embrace as she sobbed against his chest. He didn’t like seeing a woman cry. It always made him uncomfortable and at a loss as to what he should do. Lily’s tears made him feel more useless than ever. He wanted to help, wanted to make the hurt she was suffering go away.

Unfortunately, only the passage of time could heal the pain and anguish of losing a loved one. He knew that firsthand from losing his own father to a heart attack fifteen years ago. But the disillusionment she was feeling over her father’s indisputable betrayal might never go away.

“I’m okay now,” she finally said, pulling from his arms.

“Are you sure?” he asked, reluctant to let her go. Although he hated what she was going through, he liked having Lily in his arms.

Nodding, she walked over to the couch, then curled up in the corner of it. “Thank you for bringing me home, Daniel. But I’m really tired. Could you please lock the door as you let yourself out?”

He had been dismissed and it didn’t sit any better this time than it had for the past couple of weeks. But he knew she was completely exhausted from lack of sleep and the emotional turmoil she had been going through. Now wasn’t the time to get into why she suddenly had no time for him.

“I’ll be back this evening to check on you,” he said, reaching for his overcoat.

“I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be okay,” she said, hiding a yawn behind her delicate hand. She snuggled down to lay her head on a plush pillow. “There’s no need for you to go to the trouble of stopping by later. Really, I’ll be fine.”

Shrugging into his coat, he shook his head as he started toward the door. “It’s not a problem. I’ll pick something up for dinner and see you around six.”

He expected her to protest, but when he turned around, Daniel discovered that Lily’s eyes were closed and she was sound asleep. Good, he thought as he walked over to the couch to remove a colorful crocheted afghan from the back, then covered her with it. At least she couldn’t tell him not to bother.

“Get some rest, sweetheart,” he said quietly as he leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

She murmured what sounded like his name, but she didn’t wake up to protest his returning and, as far as he was concerned, that was as good as her consent.

As he let himself out the front door and walked to his car, Daniel knew he was taking advantage of the situation. Lily had made it perfectly clear that she wanted nothing more to do with him and up until this morning, he had respected her wishes and backed off. But for some reason, he couldn’t let it go, couldn’t walk away without an explanation of why she’d had a change of heart about their affair.

Opening the driver’s door and sliding in behind the steering wheel, he sat and stared at the carriage house for several long minutes. Considering his feelings on love and relationships, he was mystified why it even mattered. Maybe it was the fact that Lily had broken things off between them without telling him why and he was allowing curiosity to get the better of him. Or more likely, it was his stubborn pride that wouldn’t allow him to drop the matter without making her tell him what had caused her to stop seeing him.