Because of Audrey

You need to know.

In fresh clothes, he went back out to the garage where Dad still puttered.

This whole thing could be cleared up with one conversation.

When Gray stepped close, Dad looked up and smiled. Gray’s heart hammered. He was about to blow Dad’s world apart. And his own.

He handed Dad the letter.

“What’s this?”

“It came yesterday.” Try as he might, he couldn’t keep the foreboding from his voice. Was Dad the man he thought he’d known all of his life? Or a stranger like the one he was becoming now?

The man took a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses out of his sweater pocket and read the letter.

“What is this?” He sounded genuinely confused.

“Have you ever known a woman named Edie Kent? She was this woman’s—” he gestured toward the letter “—mother.”

“This woman who says that I’m her father? No. I’ve never even heard of Edie Kent.” He thrust the paper back at Gray. “You don’t believe this crap, do you?”

Gray handed him the photo. “Look at her son.”

Dad’s skin paled. “My God, he looks like you. Like seeing a ghost. That’s impossible. Coincidence. Nothing more. They say everyone has a double somewhere on earth.”

Now for the crucial question he’d never thought he’d ask his father. “Did you ever have an affair?”

Dad scowled. “How can you even consider that? I adored your mother. Always have since the second I first laid eyes on her, and always will.” He slammed the photo against Gray’s chest, and Gray barely caught it before it fell to the ground. The man still had some power in him.

Gray’s dander rose. He wouldn’t have even considered the possibility that Dad would do this, but that photo was damning, and waiting for DNA results would take too long. Plus, his dad was becoming a stranger. He needed to know now so he could put his mind to rest on this problem at least. He had too much hanging over his head, too much that needed to be settled, and all of it taken care of instantly. Yesterday.

“Is it possible you could have gotten drunk one night and slept with this woman’s mother without remembering?”

“No. Once I married your mother, I became a homebody.” Dad strode out of the garage, and Gray followed. “Besides, when would I have had time? I had a business to grow, and I worked my butt off to do it.”

He stalked around to the front door. “Can’t believe you even considered that I might have—” He spun back to Gray. “Don’t you know me at all?” The anger had left his voice, replaced by hurt. He entered the house and closed the door behind him, as though Gray were no longer welcome in the home he’d grown up in.

Given the changes at work, given Dad’s crazy decisions, Gray was left to wonder whether he knew him at all.

He felt as low as low could be. He’d just hurt and alienated his father. But he’d had no choice. He’d had to know.

* * *

AT ELEVEN-THIRTY, Gray stood in John Spade’s law office tamping down rising nausea, not sure he’d heard the immaculately groomed lawyer clearly.

“Jeez, John, what are you doing these days? Having facials? Mani-pedis? You’ve primped the daylights out of yourself.”

“Stop avoiding the issue,” Spade said. “Can you do it?”

The sweating had started again the second the lawyer had made his crazy suggestion. His absurd, impossible suggestion. The fresh shirt Gray had changed into at home was already soaked. Again.

“You mean have my father deemed unsound of mind?” he asked, unable to mask his distaste. “Unfit to run the business he built from the ground up?”

John leaned back in his chair. “For God’s sake, Gray, stop pacing and sit down. You’re making me nervous just looking at you. This isn’t like you.”

No, it wasn’t. He had a cool head for business, but business problems had never hit so close to home. His father had never been blackmailed before, and Gray had never had problem after problem dumped on him, one on top of the other, until he was drowning in an ocean of anxiety, hanging on to a bit of flotsam by his fingernails.

Was the universe out to get him or something? What had he ever done to deserve all of this?

Oh, quit with the self-pity. Shit happens to everyone. Deal with it and find solutions.

This—what John wanted?—was one hell of an ugly solution.

“The sale of the property was legitimate,” John continued. “I’m just giving you an option. A way out. Has your father been incoherent at all lately? Has he had memory loss?”

Gray stalked to the window and stared out on to the town. In the distance, he could see the sign for Turner Lumber. “Of course he’s had memory loss. He’s eighty. He’s not senile, though. He doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. It would kill him if I went behind his back and did something like this.”

“Don’t get emotional. This is business.”

Gray knew all about how to run a business, how to separate emotion from whatever had to be done to protect the bottom line, but this was his family they were talking about. “He’s my father.”

“He’s also the head of Turner Enterprises, which you’re telling me needs a significant influx of cash. Selling that land is the smart thing to do. Audrey Stone is standing in your way. This is a solution to that problem.”

“It would devastate my parents.”

“It has to be done.” John’s eyes cooled to the color of wet slate. “I’m good at my job, Gray. This is possible. If I didn’t think this could be done, I wouldn’t suggest it.”

Gray considered himself a tough businessman, but John’s expression chilled even him.

“Go home and give the idea some thought.” John stood. “Rational thought.”

Gray left John’s office but stopped just inside the front door of the reception area before stepping outside, tasting bile in his throat. Declare Dad unfit? Declare his mind unsound? Insane. This couldn’t be happening.

No. There had to be a way around it.

He left the office and stood on Main Street, disoriented, his skin clammy and his breathing shallow. He recognized the symptoms for what they represented. Shock.

And why wouldn’t he be shocked? How could he declare a man he loved and admired unfit, a father who’d done his absolute best for his son?

It would be like stabbing him in the back.

Et tu, Brute?

Like the worst betrayal.

Benches lined the sidewalk, and he sat on one, needing a minute to wrap his head around a difficult decision.

Declare Dad unfit.