When Empires Fall (37 page)

Sitting up now, he reached for her, tilting her chin up so she was forced to meet his eyes. The seriousness of his expression startled her.

When he spoke, his voice was softer, more endearing than she had ever heard it. Perhaps that was what scared her the most.

“I don’t think you’re ready to hear just what it is that I feel for you, Lynette,” he murmured, his eyes intense on hers. “But rest assured, this, what we have, it means something to me. I don’t want to lose it.”

She nodded, her heart swelling inside her chest until she felt she could hardly breathe. Letting out a slow release of breath, she reached for him, aching for him even though he was right beside her. God, was she in love with him? It certainly felt that way.

The urge to tell him, to surrender under the full impact of just what it meant to love him washed over her, but she held back, unsure if it was the right time. He himself had said that he was holding back from expressing his feelings for her, maybe because he felt there was simply too much going on in his life to worry about something as silly and mind numbing as love.

Needing to change the subject before he succumbed to his own rioting emotions, Linc pulled away from her and forced a lighthearted grin on his face. “I think my brother has a thing for his secretary.”

Lynette managed a weary smile, though her curiosity was piqued at his words. “Really?”

“I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at her. It’s weird,” he added, frowning a bit at the thought. “Very weird, actually.”

“But she’s so
nice
,” Lynette protested, her brow furrowing at the thought. “And he’s…not.”

Linc laughed and ran his hand through her hair again, just because it was there. “He’s not all bad. He’s a good person at heart. Just trust me.”

She pursed her lips, unconvinced. “If you say so.”

“And it’s been three years since Erin died…” he began, his eyes darkening with an old ache for his brother at the thought. When Lynette only looked confused, he elaborated. “She was his fiancé. She died a month after he proposed, in a car crash on the Jersey Turnpike. Drunk driver. I still don’t know how he got through it, but then again he’s always been the strongest person I know.”

Lynette softened, remorse clouding her expression. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. How awful.”

“So that’s why it’s so weird to see him attracted to Quinn. It’s been three years since I’ve seen him even give a passing glance to a woman.”

“He must really see something in her, then,” Lynette mused, smiling prettily. “It’s actually kind of romantic.”

Linc snorted. “Of course you think that. Girls are all the same.”

“You wouldn’t be so sarcastic about it if I said that I thought you were romantic,” Lynette countered, eyebrows raised.

“This is true, but I already know I’m romantic.” He smirked, fisting his hand in her hair and lifting her face to his, his other hand trailing down her back. “And speaking as a true romantic, what do you say we hop into the shower and you can sing some country songs for me? Show me what us Yankees are missing.”

“Oh, Lord.” She laughed, pushing him away and eyeing him playfully. “I can’t promise that I’ll be any good, but I’ll give it my best shot.”

He grinned and rose to his feet, reaching out for her hand. “Then what are we waiting for?”

W
alking into the now vacant room in the hospital was like returning to an old, sacred and familiar place and finding it desecrated.

Madison hadn’t known just what she would feel upon returning there, but witnessing it now tore through her in one toxic swipe. She had never known this room without him in it, and now it would be passed on to another long term patient, with his or her own family, and the hospital staff would soon forget about her grandfather. The room would cease to harbor his intense presence, bear the scent of his favorite cologne or the rich smell of his aged books. The television he’d had purposely removed would be returned, and the room would never again be filled with the sound of Debussy or Mozart from the old fashioned record player he’d had installed into the corner, a gift from her grandmother to him before she had died.

In short, Madison took a moment to truly embrace the fact that he was really gone.

She stood silent as a statue in the doorway of the room, taking in the haunting stillness of the neatly changed and folded bed, the lifeless machines pushed diligently against the white wall, the curtains spread open at the single wide window to let in the early morning light. It was cold in the room, and not just physically. It was emotionally cold, devoid of anything that suggested the greatest man she had ever known had lived there for the last few years of his life. The only traces of him were his belongings, few as they were, which had been stacked conscientiously on the armchair by the bed. She eyed her grandfather’s possessions, stacks of his books and some clothing, with his record player resting comfortably closed beside them. It took all she had not to storm out of the room and never return. It would be easier, she knew, to let her mother come and deal with going through Cyrus’ things. But it wouldn’t be right and it wouldn’t be what he would have wanted.

Stepping into the room, she closed the door behind her and moved slowly towards the bed and the armchair, trying to adjust to his absence, even now. Gingerly, she sat on the edge of the bed, in the same exact spot she had the last time she had spoken with him, and let her left hand trail out to slide over the blankets of the bed where he normally would have laid.

“You said that without you I would still be the same person,” Madison murmured, tears welling in her eyes now as both fury and misery swelled inside of her. Her hand clenched into a fist as she gripped at the soft blue blanket, a single tear escaping to slide down her cheek as her lips curled into a snarl. “Damn you, you godforsaken bastard. Damn you.”

Shutting her eyes tightly, she gulped in deep, soothing breaths of air in an attempt to quiet her emotions. Yet even as she did so, her broken heart ached and bled miserably, throbbing furiously with vibrant, red-hot pain. It wouldn’t heal, she knew. Not this time. How could it, when he had left her willingly, had taken his own life. He had wanted to die, wanted to leave her alone. If this was some kind of test of her dedication or her strength of will, then it was a rather trying one.

Opening her eyes, she rose to her feet and stood before the stacks of his books. Beside them lay an empty cardboard box one of the nurses must have considerately provided, which made Madison wonder if they were gleefully happy to be rid of Cyrus Vasser. He had been a hard man and not one that most people could handle. Perhaps the offering of a box for his possessions was a final kick out the door and a sign of good riddance. Either way, she lifted the box from the floor and set it on the bed, beginning to pile the books into it.

Her eyes scanned the titles as she did so, some nearly impossible to read through the tattered and worn covers. Many of them were books he had lent to her over the years, hoping to gift her with the life lessons he found useful within their pages. When she grabbed one of the last books, she accidentally knocked another one to the ground. Scowling, she bent to pick it up, noting that it was the same book he had been reading the last time she had seen him.

Perhaps it was that fact that caught her interest, had her running her fingers over the faded cover and creased spine. Just knowing that he had likely read passages from the book shortly before dying fascinated her in a strange and unearthly way. What had been going through his mind? Had he been angry, perhaps remorseful? Had he been at peace?

It struck her then as she realized the irony that for years her grandfather had maintained the story that his own father had committed suicide, when in the end suicide was what had ultimately claimed his own life. Had he considered such a paradox before pulling the plug? Or had such thoughts been worth little to him in his final moments?

Pursing her lips, she opened the cover of the book carefully, only to discover two envelopes tucked neatly inside. Pulling them out, she saw one was labeled
Detective Don Hughes
and the other
Mon Coeur, my Madison
. Stunned, she set the book aside and sat slowly down upon the bed, staring at the two envelopes dully. Curiosity urged her to tear open the letter to the detective, the desire to discover its contents insatiable. But propriety and respect for her grandfather won as she set it aside and focused instead upon her own letter.

As she opened it, her heart began to race wildly in her chest, though her hands that held the letter remained steady as she unfolded it to read. It was a lengthy letter, written in his own handwriting and notarized on each of its three pages.

She read through it at first somewhat calmly, collectively, figuring it was simply the goodbye he had not been able to give her in person. But as she got towards the end, her amber eyes flashed with shock and widened, her hands trembling with disbelief and her heart stalling abruptly within her chest, cutting off all senses to her body.

She felt nothing, heard nothing, could experience nothing at that moment other than pure and unbridled shock. And when she read his last words, the letter fell to the floor as she cupped her hands over her mouth to stifle her scream.

Charlene perused her
to do list for the fundraiser as she sat in her favorite corner booth of
Cherir
for breakfast, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose and her blonde hair meticulously styled. She wore an all black, knee length dress suit with soft water pearls at her throat and ears to soften the moroseness of it all. To the press and any curious passerby, she looked exactly like she wanted to appear: a woman in mourning over the tragic loss of her father-in-law.

Not that she really gave a damn that Cyrus was dead. The old man had despised her just as much as she had despised him, but it wouldn’t do to celebrate the tragedy in public, not when the family reputation lay so precariously in the balance. Once news of Cyrus’ suicide spread around the country like wildfire, the scandal over Winston’s murder was likely to flare up from the ashes it had temporarily dissolved into and all hell was going to break loose. Surely it looked suspicious that the man commits suicide shortly after being accused of murder. Innocent people just don’t do such things.

Even if he was guilty, Charlene was determined to play this out as carefully as possible. The upcoming Breast Cancer fundraiser was now going to be transformed into not only a charitable event, but a public show of family unity, strength, and remorse over what had happened both fifty-four years ago and now.

It was important, she knew, to distance her children’s reputation from their grandfather’s as swiftly and cleanly as possible. The public had to understand that Cyrus Vasser’s immoral choices had nothing to do with his grandchildren, plain and simple. And if any asshole reporter or socialite even dared bring her children into this, heads were going to roll. She still had enough ferocity in her from the old days before she’d ascended the social ladder and she wasn’t afraid to unleash it if her family was in danger. Words were weapons, ones that Charlene was a master at utilizing. She’d use them to drive figurative daggers through the hearts of any paltry miscreant who doubted her willingness to do so, and they would be resorted to nothing but shamed and despicable mush afterward.

A smirk barely curved the corners of her mouth at the thought, allowing herself the pleasure of imagining the damage she could do. It was common for people to underestimate her, including her own children and especially Marshall. But Charlene was no fool and she was not about to wither into horrified silence while the family name she’d worked so hard to latch on to descended into disgrace.