Incendiary (50 page)

I throw Grandma an are-you-for-real glare, but Dad shakes his head. Gritting my teeth, I scowl. “Juice and an English muffin,” I mutter.

“Pat,” Grandma says with a flourish, “meet my granddaughter, Georgiana Mason. Georgie, this is Pat Brigston.”

“Ma’am.” I smile at her. Later, when Grandma leaves, I’ll tell her it isn’t necessary to address me as
‘Mrs. Mason.’

“She’s abandoning this buffet nonsense,” Grandma continues, addressing Pat as if I’m not there.

“Yes, ma’am.” She focuses on me. “I’ll have your breakfast out to you in five minutes.”

“This is my house, Grandma,” I grouch when Pat leaves.

“Yes, dear, but you’re its penniless mistress, so I must follow Mr. Mason’s instructions.”

“What do you want?” Somehow, I believed Mom’s death would’ve changed Grandma’s attitude. She has softened toward me, but she’s still brash and abrasive and controlling.

“There’ll be changes,” Grandma says stiffly. “With Cassandra gone…” For the first time, there’s a crack in her voice. She blinks rapidly and clears her throat, straightening her shoulders. “Her half of the house went to your father. He doesn’t want it. I’ve spoken to Joshua and he has no interest in it either. Therefore, it goes to you. As I doubt you’d want it, it’s on the market. Once it sells, you’ll get the money. I’m working with Mr. Mason and his attorneys to draw up papers stating that money is yours hereafter and forever more. Joshua has his own money with his own company as does your father. Any questions, dear?”

“No,” I tell her quietly.

“Next, your mother did leave you money as she did Joshua. Everything else goes to Parnell.” She looks down her nose at me. When I nod, she slides her napkin over and reveals a check.

She hands it to me, and I gape at the numbers. “Mom, left this to me?” I squeak.

Grandma clasps her hands together. “How would it look to the world if she’d written her only daughter out of her will?”

Of course, Mom didn’t leave me money so I can have independence and a secure future. Even in death, it’s about appearances. I set the check next to my cloth place mat and don’t comment.

Abby walks in. Unlike her distance of the past few days, she’s sad and tired, offering my father a brief glance before lowering her lashes and turning toward the buffet.

Dad gets to his feet. “If you ladies will excuse me.” Not waiting for a response, he hurries out the room.

Grandma glares at the chair where he’d sat, before transferring a disgusted look to Abby as she takes a place at the far end of the table.

After five minutes of intensely uncomfortable silence, Grandma speaks. “Well, my work here is done. I’ll be flying back to Houston this afternoon.”

“Which airline?” Abby mumbles with resentment. “Broomstick Express?”

A giggle escapes me before I pretend to cough. Grandma still drills both Abby and I with a glare.

“I’m ready when you are, Helen,” Dad interrupts, standing in the doorway, with a small suitcase.

Tears rush to Abby’s eyes and my father looks away, turning to the door.

“Daddy!” I cry, jumping to my feet. The last time I called him
daddy
I was nine. On my tenth birthday, I considered ‘Dad’ more grown up and stuck with it. “I love you.” Standing on my tiptoes, I hug my dad, breathing in his woodsy cologne. “M-may I call you sometimes?”

“Georgiana…” Regret layers his sadness and grief. “Call me anytime.”

Relief flows inside of me and I smile at him. “You call me, too.”

Nodding to Abby, Dad leaves and Grandma gets to her feet.

“Dear, if you need me I’m only a phone call away. Broom and all,” she clips out, narrowing her eyes at us and stalking out.

Was that really self-deprecation from Grandma?

Abby and I are as uncomfortable in each other’s presence now as we were with my grandmother around.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her, wanting our friendship back.

She swallows and stares into her coffee cup. I think it’s empty. “Do you think I led Cassandra to suicide?” she asks softly.

“Of course not!”

“Everything’s a blur after you were shot. I was walking into the hotel lobby when I heard the gunfire. I remember trying to shield Bryn, and Jason twisting his body in front of us, demanding I get down. He was aware of the baby,” she says dully, and squirms in her seat. “My first thought was of Parnell and what your death would do to him. Then I thought of Sloane. Finally, fear set in, and I didn’t want to be alone.” She picks up a napkin, unaware that she’s filled in the missing pieces for me about how Bryn had gotten to safety. “At news of your mother…” She skips the nature of the news. “I felt nothing but relief. But it wasn’t for you. It was for me. I don’t…you loved her in spite of everything and it shamed me.”

I still don’t make the connection of why she feels she’s to blame for my mother’s death.

“On the way from picking up Helen, she said if I’d never slept with Parnell, Cassandra would still be alive. She called me a disgraceful whore and Parnell a sad excuse for a man who didn’t deserve to grieve. I’d intended to leave that night.”

“You aren’t any of what Grandma says,” I tell her firmly.

She covers her face. “Oh, but I am. I can’t recall the names of three-quarters of the men I’ve slept with. Worse, I have no reason to, except that I like sex.”

“I like it, too,” I admit. “That doesn’t make me a bad person. Don’t buy into the double standard about men who enjoy sex with numerous women versus women who do the same with numerous men.”

She wipes her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “She told me that even if she allowed Parnell happiness with another woman, she’d never let it be me.”

I look away, sad about this entire situation involving Dad and Abby. When I focus on it from that angle, as just their complicated romance, I don’t feel the urge to cry for my mom. As much as I want to though, I can’t leave her out of this. She was the center of our family up until a few days ago.

“Abby, when you found out Dad was married, happily or not, why continue?” I’m not judging her and I hope my question doesn’t offend her.

“I didn’t immediately start sleeping with him. I met him at the country club when he was having lunch with Rand. Rand began to invite me to their lunches. Here and there, he’d miss and it would just be Parnell and I. Their lunches turned into dinners and the last few times, it ended up being just your father and me. This happened over a three-month period, Georgie. One night I invited him back to my condo. I was lonely and he was, too.”

Mom lived in her own exalted world and whoever didn’t measure up wasn’t welcomed inside. She often told me Dad locked us in a gilded cage and it was up to us to make the best of it. When all was said and done, she loved him, though. Instead of following her heart and letting him in, she conformed to what she believed was expected of her from him, Grandma, and the Society she so loved.

“Our affair…when I asked him to walk away from his marriage, he told me he loved his wife. It wasn’t the usual, I have to think of my kids. It was that he loved Cassandra. We stopped all contact for six weeks. He called me for my birthday though, and the affair resumed. He wanted a way to have me and her. I thought I had a chance, so…” She shrugs. “You know how it ends.”

Yes. “There is some good to this,” I say with a sigh. “Sloane and I met. I had Bryn.”

She nods.

“Dad is as responsible as Mom. You share some blame, too. Not for her death,” I amend quickly. “Dad could’ve chosen her or you. Mom could’ve put her foot down and said no to their ménages.” I scrunch my nose at the thought, disgusted and grossed out as usual. “You could’ve told Dad he had to decide, instead of suggesting he bring other people into the bed, so he could ease you in. I…wasn’t there a risk of losing him anyway? If he got into one of the other women? I-I mean look what happened with Mom and Sloane?”

“You’re right. But by then it was too late,” Abby confesses, more despair filling her voice.

“Too late?”

“By then I’d fallen in love with your dad, but he remained out of reach. Still loyal to your mother. He loved her but he was no longer in love with her.”

“That honor went to you, but my Dad’s loyalty demanded he stay with Mom.”

It all clicks in my head. Dad’s misery whenever he sees Abby. His distress over Mom’s death. Even the way he mostly ignored me in the two years before I met Sloane. He was caught between loyalty and love, honor and happiness. He failed tremendously and acted more dishonorable than he would have if he’d just walked away.

Abby’s broken-hearted, Mom’s dead, and Grandma is vengeful. Because of Dad’s actions, Sloane’s life was almost ruined and I ended up pregnant at sixteen. Funny how one person’s bad judgment affected so many lives. Not to say the rest of us didn’t do our share to contribute. But it was just a perfect storm that grew epic once a superstar became involved.

“Yes, Parnell stayed out of duty. And threats from Helen that she’d expose his propensity for ménages.”

Like Mom and Grandma, Dad is a well-known pillar of society. If Grandma had exposed his sexcapades, he would’ve suffered untold embarrassment. “Maybe, now, that things are different…” Unable to finish the sentence, my voice trails off. Nothing’s the same with Mom gone, but some good should come from all the tragedy.

“I’m glad your father took the road he did. What we did was hurtful enough. Now, it’s over.” She rubs her temples. “I always condemned my brother for the way he treated his first wife. Alexia loved Rand, but when he met Bryn he discarded her like garbage.”

“Were you close to Alexia?”

“Not until he reconnected with Kiln and the other two. I was a baby when all that drama between my brother and his women took place. But Alexia has a way about her. She made me feel so sorry for her.”

“Maybe, you should have. Rand is…”
Evil
. I catch myself because Abby seems very close to Rand. I don’t want to offend her. I return to the topic of my dad. “I wouldn’t be opposed to a relationship between you and Dad.”

Abby and I are friends and we care about each other. Dad loves me and I want him happy. So why shouldn’t they be together?

She’s still so sad, but she forces a smile. “I’m not changing the subject,” she swears and proceeds to do just that. “I know you’re busy but when are we getting back to our lessons? Remember the studying for my SAT?”

And my GED. “We were studying a couple of hours a day before. Let’s go back to that schedule.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

I smile, thinking Abby’s young enough to be my older sister. But she makes Dad happy, so she’s my choice for stepmother. Mom’s face pops into my head. The last time my mother treated me with any decency was the day after I met Sloane. Afterward, she saw me as competition. Knowing this, I still wish she were alive.

My stomach hurts at the thought, but I keep my face blank. As long as Abby has feelings for my dad, I’ll be faced with my parents’ affairs, including the one my mother had with my husband. Grandma has already laid an awful guilt trip on Abby, so I keep all thoughts of my mother to myself.

I glance at the check and sigh, not sure what I’ll do with it.

“Do you remember Sam?” Abby asks out of the blue. The surprising question deepens the misery on her face.

There’s only one Sam I know. My tutor, I think she means. I haven’t necessarily forgotten him. I just haven’t thought about him recently.

I nod.

She drums her fingers on the table, not meeting my eyes. “Jaeger hired him.”

Information I already know, so I offer her another nod.

Her uneasiness grows and she shifts in her seat. “He’d put out feelers. He had to keep this quiet. Brenda asked him to hire her husband. Sam.”

Unable to fathom why Abby is telling me this, I draw my brows together.

“They had an affair. Sloane and Brenda.”

“I know,” I interrupt. “Sloane told me. He even told me she wanted to say he fathered her son.”

Abby gasps. “You know?”

“I shouldn’t?”

“Oh my God, if you knew what I went through to keep that from you. To make a long story short, she swore to tell you Sloane’s the father of her son. I’ve been paying her to shut her the fuck up. She wants millions and I can’t afford to pay that amount.” She covers her face. “Sam called you that day when you thought it was Kiln. His brother, Stu, was on the case somehow and went to your grandmother to extort money from her once a report was filed. Stu was supposed to interview you, not serve his own purposes. She came home before he could take you. She had him relieved of his duties.”

“Take me?”

“Kidnap you, Georgie. Hold you for ransom.” Abby heaves in a breath. “Helen went to the police and filed a report. She needed to find a way to protect you from Cassandra. In doing so, she unknowingly thwarted Brenda’s and Sam’s plan but pissed them off, too.”

“That’s what she needed to talk to you about.”

“That’s what
I
needed to talk to
her
about. I called Helen the night before she called you and announced her visit, Georgie,” she sniffles. “She’s livid and thinks I had a hand in this, but I swear I didn’t.”