When Empires Fall (15 page)

He had a very generous heart, one prone to compassion and forgiveness that very few people could honestly boast of. Perhaps this was why part of him regretted not having kids, a son or daughter of his own to spoil and cherish. But thankfully, in some ways, his youngest brother’s kids had become his own. They looked up to him as the man their own father could never be and in that way the void in his life was filled.

He loved those kids with all his heart. Well, they were grown adults now, he reminded himself, feeling suddenly dreadfully old. He’d been there for each of their births, held them in the hospital when their own father was off getting high or screwing one of his mistresses, and he’d seen the hope and promise in them from the very beginning. Grant, Linc, Madison and even Kennedy. In his heart, they were and would always be his children, and not Win’s.

Win. Marshall grimaced, drinking more brandy and glancing over at a portrait of him and his six brothers, taken when Win had been a broody young man of eighteen. He had always been a handful; wild, reckless and utterly disrespectful to his heritage. It hadn’t mattered to Win that the Vasser family name held a reputation of its own, and that by philandering about with drugged out hippies and sex addicts, he was tainting the entire family, not just himself. But even when Marshall had countless times tried to explain this, Win hadn’t cared. He only made fake promises and apologies, cleaned up for a week, and then fell right back off the wagon. Just what it was that Win was trying to prove, either to himself or to the family, Marshall wasn’t sure he would ever know.

Just what could be done with a bad apple like that? Marshall wondered, shaking his head. The only blessing had been when Win had divorced Charlene and distanced himself from the family, fleeing to Los Angeles to live off of a monthly allowance given to him from the family trust. He had, still to this day, never worked a day in his life. Instead, he had mooched off of what others would give him and squandered it all away on his various vices.

A tragedy, to be sure, Marshall thought as he stared at the young Win in the photograph. A poetically handsome face filled with ideals, falsehoods and his mind a clean slate ready to absorb the nonsense about to be hammered into it from the late ‘60s radicalism. If only they had known then just how destructive he was to become, maybe they could have saved him. But, then again, perhaps he just wasn’t meant to be saved.

With a heavy sigh, Marshall set aside his brandy and lifted up the day’s newspaper, flipping immediately to the obituaries, seeking to take his mind off of his foolish brother. It was a daily ritual for him to peruse the obits, given that he had reached the age where a great many of his friends were passing away. He found himself attending more funerals than birthday parties these days. But it was important, he knew, to himself and to the families of his friends that he was there, to comfort and to speak kind words about the deceased. After all, he was a known great orator, and as representative for the Vasser family empire, his presence was usually considered a great honor.

His eyes scanned down the column of names, his reading glasses sliding just slightly down his nose. Pushing them back up, he nearly bypassed a name that, once he registered where he knew it from, quite literally stopped his heart.

Margaret “Maggie” Owens, daughter of Howard and Rosalie Owens of Queens, New York, passed away in her sleep on January 6
^th
, 2011, after having suffered a stroke two days before. She leaves behind a niece and two great-nephews.

Stunned, Marshall looked away from the obituary and his eyes unfocused for a moment, the memories coming back to him in flooding waves. Immediately he thought of the aged deck of cards, worn at the edges and decorated with a faded image of the American flag, that lay tucked away safely in his desk. They were cards that had been passed down to him following his grandfather’s death, all those years before…

Rosalie Owens was the woman who had single-handedly destroyed his family. A home wrecker and a whore, not worth the dirt on the bottom of his shoe. She had waltzed into his grandfather’s life sixty years earlier, tricked him into an affair that ruined his marriage and threatened the very stability of the empire. Then she had waltzed out of his life and broke his heart, and in doing so caused his suicide. A bullet to the head, in the study of his suite at the New York Vasser Hotel, back in 1957. Marshall had been just seventeen years old.

The pain of the memory tore through him in one vicious, violent swipe. He had been the one to discover the body, to see the pools of dark red blood stain the surface of Winston’s prized antique desk. He’d seen the gun, held loosely in his grandfather’s hand, the chrome of the short barrel glinting in the light of the desk lamp. Then there was his grandfather’s face, his eyes shut as if in sleep, his features slack and lifeless. He had been a man of great humor, so full of life, even in his final days. Perhaps that had been what was so hard to accept about the suicide, Marshall realized. How could a man, so content with life and easy to laugh, ever take his own life?

A woman. Maybe that was part of the reason Marshall had never, in all his life, committed himself to one. Better to avoid the possible heartache and the destructive pain that came from disappointment or from the deceit of a callous woman.

With a shudder, Marshall glanced back down at the newspaper, his eyes finding the obituary once again. Had this Maggie Owens known the damage her mother had caused his family? He hadn’t even known that Rosalie had a daughter, much less one that had lived up until just a few days ago. If he had ever met her, would it have resolved some of the pain in his heart? Would she have been able to provide some kind of apology, some kind of explanation, on behalf of her mother?

Alas, he would never know.

S
he knocked politely on the door of his office, then entered when he called her in.

“Here’s your mail,” Quinn said brightly, a stack of envelopes in her hand as she strode into the room. She spotted Grant staring intently at his computer screen, his nose mere inches away from it. If it were anyone else, she might have laughed and scolded him for destroying his eyes that way, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t understand the humor of it.

“Just set it on the desk,” Grant murmured, clicking away with the mouse as he filled in the basic information for a new employee health insurance quote, which for whatever reason was damn near impossible for him to read. Either they made the text on the website extremely small on purpose or he was going to need reading glasses.

“I hear we’re going to get another snow storm this evening,” Quinn chimed conversationally as she set down the mail. “Hopefully it won’t be too bad. I’d hate to get snowed in, not be able to come in tomorrow… And I know you would just
hate
not being able to come in to work.”

“Mmm,” he grunted, not really paying attention to her.

“You know, maybe the hotel should put me up in a suite, just to be sure I’m able to be here. In fact, you should put all of the employees up in suites for the night, just in case. Can’t have a functioning hotel without the staff.”

Grant grunted again, then blinked and tore his eyes away from the computer to stare up at her, confused. “Wait, what?”

Quinn’s lips curved as she let out a light laugh. “So you were listening. I had almost given up hope there for a second.”

Grant’s brows furrowed as he continued to watch her, his eyes hovering a bit too long over her smile. It reminded him of staring into the sun and being blinded by the light of it.

“I apologize, Miss Taylor.” He let out a huff of breath and sat back in his chair, rubbing his eyes briefly to will away the strain that had come over them from staring at the computer screen for so long. “I’m just very busy.”

“Yes, I know.” She smiled, watching him fondly. In the week she had been working for him, she had come to appreciate him more with each day. He may not have been as easygoing and funny as his brother, but there was this old-world charm to him that she admired.

At times he was frostily distant, or carelessly blunt in his assessment of her and her work. But then she would catch him staring at the portraits of his family with a soft, nostalgic smile, or gazing out of the window of his office, looking as though the entire weight of the world were on his shoulders. It was those few moments that told her more about his character than anything else ever could. Her boss was a tireless workaholic, a man of incredibly few words, and, at the core of it, she had a feeling that he thought himself to be perilously alone at the top of this pillar he and his family had placed him on.

She wondered if he even knew how exhausted he really was. “Would you like me to make you some coffee?”

He sighed, pulling his hands away from his face to look up at her gratefully. “Please.”

Quinn smiled at him before turning away towards his kitchenette, reaching up into the cabinet for a filter cup. But before she could get the water hot in the coffee maker, the door to the office burst open and Linc leaned in cheerfully.

“Happy Birthday!”

Grant frowned over at his brother, instantly annoyed.

“Is that what today is?” he murmured, fighting to hide the worst of his irritation.

Up until now he had gone nearly half of the day without anyone noticing it was his birthday, which was exactly how he preferred it. Now Linc had gone and let the cat out of the bag. Before he could stop himself, he glanced warily over at Quinn, who was staring at him with wide eyes and a bright grin, the coffee filter cup clutched in her hand. Great, just great.

“Shut up, I know you were just dying for somebody to say something. You always were an attention whore.” Linc laughed as he sauntered forward, holding out a small wrapped gift box tied with a neat, emerald green bow. “Now, I know you wanted a puppy, but you’re gonna have to settle for this instead.”

Grant tried hard not to smirk at that, shaking his head as he accepted the gift. “Too bad, Miles really wanted a friend.”

“Mr. Vasser, it’s your birthday? Why didn’t you tell me?” Quinn asked, her hands clasped together excitedly as she approached his desk, smiling once at Linc before looking back at her boss. “I could have baked you something, a cake, or whatever. You know what, I’ll bring you something tomorrow to make up for it. What do you like? Chocolate? Red velvet? Angel food?”

Grant stared up at her for a moment, annoyed that the prospect of her baking for him had some incredibly odd appeal. And it was only made worse by the fact that he could imagine her so vividly, bustling away in her kitchen, singing to herself as she baked, the smell of cinnamon and vanilla in the air, flour dusting her hands and a smudge of it on her cheek as she smiled up at him, and he reached over to brush it off…wow, okay. Cool it, Grant, he scolded himself. Don’t be ridiculous. Scowling to himself, he averted his eyes from hers, attempting to quell any further absurd thoughts. “I don’t really eat cake.”

Linc looked over at Quinn and mouthed
chocolate
. She nodded once in acknowledgement and winked at him as Grant began to open his gift.

He tore the wrapping paper and lifted the lid off of the small box, reaching inside to pull out the chrome plated harmonica, complete with the family name and the current year engraved in the metal. He stared at it blankly for a moment, despising the painful ache it brought to his chest. God, how long had it been? Twelve years? More?

“Well? You do remember, don’t you?” Linc pushed, impatient. Beside him, Quinn eyed the harmonica curiously, her eyes darting back and forth between the brothers. The tension in the air seemed to grow as Grant set the harmonica back into the box and looked up at Linc.

“I do. Thank you.” He nodded, shutting the box and pushing it aside, not sure he could face it again just yet. “I haven’t played in some time.”

With a grin, Linc turned to Quinn. “Grant used to be quite the passionate musician, believe it or not.”

“Really?” Quinn bit back a smile as she glanced over at her boss speculatively. Who knew? “Was the harmonica his favorite?”

“Yup. He used to play to us at night to calm us down while our parents had one of their infamous fights. It helped.”

“That’s enough.” Grant eyed Linc sternly, his disapproval obvious. Not only did he dislike sharing details of the family with outsiders, but he had spent many years forcing those memories from his mind. He certainly did not want to remember them now, here, in front of the woman who was still so much a stranger…