Chapter 16
I’m up in the main bedroom of the hotel suite when I hear the door open and two familiar voices downstairs.
“So how many rooms are in this suite?” Tate”s sullen voice bounces off the marble walls. Great, Tate has joined the fucked up circus that has become my life.
“I think only two. The main bedroom is upstairs, and there’s another room over there.” Liam answers. I don’t need to see him to know where he’s pointing. The room we first looked at last night. The smaller of the two rooms, the one with the two queen beds rather than the giant Alaskan King in this one.
I have a mental debate on whether or not I want to make my presence known to them. It’s not like they don’t already know I’m here. Where else would I go? My house isn’t safe for me at the moment. Their apartment isn’t safe either, why else would they be here? Besides to make my already miserable existence even worse.
I decide to ignore their presence and shut the bedroom door quietly. Hopefully they won’t even notice and I can sit up here alone. But with my luck, at some point they’ll want to torture me some more with their hot and cold attitudes and come looking for me.
Close to an hour goes by, and I get through almost a whole episode of Good Girls on Netflix before there’s a soft knock at the door. I hit pause on the remote and wait for one of the guys to say anything. When no one speaks and there’s another knock, I sigh and get off the bed to answer the door.
I straighten my back and prepare myself for whatever bullshit the guys throw my way, just to find Adrain smiling at me on the other side of the door.
“Hi kiddo. I heard you’ve been hiding up here since Liam and Tate came in,” he says with a sympathetic smile.
“I wouldn’t call it hiding,” I say. “It’s more like I prefer the company of Netflix over testosterone.”
Adrian laughs at my quip. “Understandable. But, I am hoping you’ll come downstairs and chat with us for a minute.” A dark cloud roams over his features before they’re veiled by his professional, business-like demeanor. “There have been a lot of revelations made today, and we, as a family, need to discuss what we are going to do next.”
“You mean, like my father is back from the dead, and trying to kidnap and possibly kill me?” I bite the inside of my lip. “I’m all good thanks.” I don’t intend to be mean to Adrian, but I can’t help but shut down.
Adrian grips the side of the door before I can shut it in his face. “Rhyann, there are other things we need to discuss. Business matters that’ll affect the future of Devereux Publications, your future, Rhyann.”
Well, that gets my attention. “Fine. Give me a minute,” I say with a sigh. The last thing I want today is to deal with Tate, his fiancee drama, Liam and Devon, and how humiliated I feel for last night. I’m sure the brothers told Tate all about how they ravaged my body and told me sweet little lies to get me into bed with them. I push back the heartbreak before it has a chance to take over, and I ready myself for the confrontation that’s coming.
When I make my way down to the dining table, everyone is seated there except for Devon. I didn’t see him anywhere in the main living space. I take a deep breath and relax just a little. That’s one less venomous snake I have to fight off for the moment.
The Devereux family lawyer is seated at one end of the table with Adrian to his left and an empty seat to his right. Both Liam and Tate sit beside each other on the left with an empty chair on the end. I take the seat to the right of my lawyer, it seems to be the safest place for me.
“Hey, you okay?” Liam whispers as I sit across from Adrian. I don’t bother to answer him. What would I say? No, you and your brother took advantage of me and pretended to love me just to get into my pants. That probably wouldn’t go over well in this meeting. I could say I’d be a lot better in the kidnappers hands than I am here with you, right now. But I know that’d be a lie. My heart might be safer, but not my life.
“So, what’s all this about?” I ask Adrian instead. “I have a very important date with Netflix to get back to.”
“First,” Adrian says in his commanding CEO voice, “Where is Devon?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t responded to any calls or texts.” Liam replies.
If Devon isn’t here, and Liam doesn’t know where his brother is, I wonder if he even went back into the hospital room after our fight.
“What happened when he followed you out of the room, Rhyann?” Tate says, looking at me with a sad expression on his face.
“Nothing,” I say curtly. “Do we need him to continue, Adrian? You said this was about Devereux Pub, and I don’t know what Devon has to do with that.”
My family lawyer is the one to answer my question. “Mister Morris has nothing to do with what’s going on with your company, but as part of your security team, we felt it was imperative to have him and his brother present.”
“Yeah, about that.” I clear my throat before looking Liam in the eyes. “You’re fired. Your presence is no longer needed here, or at my home. Now or in the future. You may go.” I get it all out in one breath, leaving everyone at the table slack jawed and staring at me.
“Rhyann, princess, what’s going on?” Liam asks, obviously hurt by his lack of employment by me.
I ignore him and turn to my lawyer. “Go on, what’s happening in the company?”
“So, you signed the papers to take over yesterday,” he pauses, going through a brown file folder.
“Yes, I know this. Get on with it.” I’m quickly losing my patience with these men.
“Well, I got a letter today from a law office out of Los Angeles claiming that they will be filing an injunction and fighting your claim to Devereux Publications.” He slides a very official looking letter at me. “By a Cole Thompson, who claims to be the eldest child of Garret Montgomery and Lenora Crawford.”
The entire table falls silent and I look up at Adrian, who seems to already be aware of the situation. He looks over at his son with a somber expression on his face.
“Are you saying my dad and Lenora had an affair?” I ask Adrian.
“It doesn’t matter, the company was built by your mothers father, so he has no legal claim to the company,” Tate chimes in, all heads turning to him. “But the fact remains, yes. my mother had an affair with your father.”
“Tate,” Adrian says, his voice cracking. “We don’t know for sure yet.”
“Know what?” I ask, confused and apparently the only person not in on some big secret.
“The night my mother left us,” Tate answers. “She came to me, and told me that she and your father were in love. She blamed your mothers death on their long time affair and said that I was, I am Garret’s son.”
What. The. Fuck? The room begins to spin as I take in Tate”s words. How? No, my parents loved each other, more than anything. More than they loved me. My mom died from cancer, there’s no way this can be true.
“You’re lying,” I tell Tate standing up from my place at the table. “You’re just trying to hurt me, just like when we were kids.”
Liam stands up and tries to stop me from running upstairs, but I can’t hear anything over my sobbing.
It’s well past midnight when I wake up. It’s dark in the room, save for the small reading light at the desk on the far side of the room. The small desk has a silver tray of what looks like a couple plates of food on it. The very idea of eating has my stomach turning. I have no appetite after everything that’s happened in the past two days. I slide off the bed and walk over to the large windows. When I get closer, I notice the balcony and the metal handle connected to the window’s frame. It’s a door! I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it before, but I’m glad for it now.
Sliding the door open, I step out into the night air. It’s refreshing after locking myself in that bedroom all day. Especially since there isn’t anywhere for me to go on my own at the moment. I take a deep breath and lean against the glass railing. The city and the bay sparkle below me, blanketed by a haze of nighttime fog.
When all this is over, when they find the person who’s trying to ruin my life, maybe I’ll sell my grandfather’s house and move to the city. Maybe I’ll buy an apartment like this, one where I can look out over the bay every night. Some place where I won’t have to deal with Tate, Liam or Devon.
I sigh, the things I said to Devon today were terrible. I was hurting and took it out on him. But he did use me for his own pleasure last night, and that hurts too. He didn’t have to stay with me, but I begged him not to leave. I was so lost and afraid and confused when we got to the hotel, I hate admitting it, but I needed him and Liam, I needed what we did, what we had. I hope he’s okay wherever he is. I know there’s no going back from the cruel things I said at that elevator, but I can’t imagine a world without Devon Morris in it. I can’t imagine my world without him or his brother in it. Or Tate, my half brother?
Oh god, Tate’s my half brother. Thinking about his confession has my stomach turning all over again. I’m going to be sick. How can that be? How can Tate be my fathers son? Is he really my half brother since I was adopted? I mean there’s no blood relation between us, and we were raised with different parents. But— the memories of the night in my kitchen, that dark night when Tate was sloppy drunk and he— Oh god. I heave, my stomach cramping threatening to expel anything that might be left from breakfast. He knew then who his father was and he still—
I refuse to let the thought cross my mind as I leave the balcony and storm downstairs looking for the man in question. I find Tate passed out on the couch in the sunken in living space, a crystal decanter, empty on the floor beside him. I kick the side of the couch in anger. Who does he think he is sleeping so soundly while I’m upstairs being tortured by my own thoughts and guilt.
“Wha— Rhyann, what’s wrong?” Tate starts, rubbing the sands of sleep from his eyes.
“You’re what’s wrong,” I spit. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He gives me a melancholy look, “Rhyann, please.”
“Fuck you Tate, you knew,” I step back, fighting the tears welling up over my lashes. “You knew about your mom and my dad, and you still—”
“I know, but you don’t understand.” Tate stands and the throw blanket that had been covering him falls, revealing a bare, well defined chest and a pair of blue and white hospital pants hanging from his hips. I bite my lip. God, I hope he can’t see me ogling him in the dark. I’ve always thought Tate was the perfect man, he was the perfect boy when we were kids. There was one point in my childhood where I imagined marrying him and being Miss Tate Crawford. Then his mom left, my dad died, and he started treating me like I had some contagious disease.
Then came the years of hot and cold. One minute he was my friend, cared about me and sometimes, I thought he might feel for me the way I did him. Then he would be as cruel as one human could be to another. He made sure I was off limits to his two best friends and made me feel isolated and alone.
“Rhyann, please,” Tate begs, getting closer to me. “Let me explain.”
“Explain what?” I almost shout.
“Shh. Liam is sleeping in the room over there,” Tate points to the closed bedroom door. “I don’t want to have this conversation with him here.”
“I don’t want to have any conversation with you. Any of you,” I cry.
“We need to talk though,” he says calmly.
“About what? How you came into my kitchen the other night and and fucked me stupid with your tongue before telling me you’re engaged?” I struggle to control the rage building up inside me. “All while you knew I’m your fucking half sister?”
He takes two slow steps in my direction, slowly closing the space between us. “You’re not my sister though, are you?” he asks softly.
The tears continue to fall, my face salty and wet, my nose stuffing up from the sobbing. “But, you didn’t know that then.” I choke out through the tears. “Did you?”
“No,” the word is low, barely audible.
“You’re fucking sick,” I hiss.
“Rhyann, please,” he pleads. “It was wrong. Do you think I don’t know that? But you don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand, Tate?” I pick up the decorative pillow from the small armchair closest to me.
“I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember. When my mom told me about her affair,” he takes a breath and I can hear the pain in his words. “It killed me, it killed all my hopes and dreams.”
“That doesn’t explain why you would,” I wave my empty hand in front of me. “You know?”
“I wish I could say I regret it. I really do, regardless of our parentage. But I was overwhelmed that night. I drank way too much, and it was killing what was left of my soul to know that I was engaged to marry Aubree and you’re back in town. Then thinking about you bound and blindfolded in that trunk— I was wrong to do that, but I don’t regret it.”
“What do you mean by ‘was’?” I ask, fixated on the past tense of his engagement.
Tate falls to his knees, the light from the moon catching on his tear streaked face. “After you stomped off upstairs, I called her and broke off the engagement. I broke up with her.”
“Why?”
He looks up at me and the Tate I’ve always known, the man who isn’t phased by emotions is gone. In his place is the little boy who brought me flowers every day when he came over with Adrian. “Because the only woman I’ve ever loved, the only woman I’ll ever love is you.”