Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
GRANT
G rant stared down at the folder, a mix of anxiety and anger burned a hole through his chest. Whatever was in this file had certainly been designed to upset him. He knew Lydia. And now that he knew she was DG Industries, this little charade made him even madder.
He could have lunged at her and wrapped his hands around her throat until she told him every last detail about what she’d been trying to do to him.
“What kind of game is this, Lydia?” Grant asked, the terseness in his voice betraying his annoyance.
Lydia tugged her chin back to her chest, frowning. “I’m not the one playing games, Grant. Open the folder, and you’ll see.”
“See what? You found proof of who is behind the efforts to destroy me, my family, and my company?”
She lifted a shoulder, her eyebrows arching. “Call it whatever you’d like, I think it’s pretty obvious what’s in that folder. At the very least, it’s something to think about.”
Grant shoved it away. “So, it’s not proof. It’s more of your nonsense. Just get out of here, Lydia. I’m busy.”
Lydia clicked her tongue, a huff escaping her as she set a hand on her hip. “It’s hardly nonsense, Grant. If you’d look at it, you’d see that.”
Grant settled his gaze on her, desperately trying to keep his emotions in check when all he wanted to do was throw the woman out of his office, house, and life. He had no desire to open that folder. Not when Lydia was around, anyway. Though he was curious to know who Lydia planned to pin this on.
He leaned back in his chair, trying to portray a sense of calm, though he felt a storm raging inside him. “You want me to believe you’ve been investigating DG Industries?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Grant drew his eyebrows together as he shifted his gaze to the side. “Uh, yeah.”
Lydia’s shoulders slumped, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “Really, Grant? It’s that hard to believe that I have been working tirelessly trying to protect my family?”
His jaw tightened as he tried to cover his response. She’d been working tirelessly to destroy his family, not protect it. He could barely stand the sight of her, especially when the worry of Julia’s whereabouts weighed on him.
He wondered again if Lydia had a hand in her disappearance. That thought alone made him continue to play her game. “All right. So, what are you saying?”
“I told you. I think I found the person who is out to destroy you. And the evidence,” she said as she leaned over his desk and jammed a manicured finger onto the folder, “is right here.”
Grant flicked his gaze down to the photographs spilling from the container.
“Look at them, Grant!” Lydia shouted as she tugged back the top and shoved them closer to him. “Look!”
With a tight jaw, he glanced up at her, reading the emotions in her face. She was playing one hell of a role. With his eyes still trained on her, he collected the photographs and tapped them against the desk before he finally looked at them.
He swallowed hard, his heart thudded faster and harder as he recognized Julia in an unknown location. She stood alone, her eyebrows tight as though she was confused.
Was Lydia about to make a play, asking him to give up Harrington Global or something more in exchange for Julia? He studied it for another second, trying desperately to find some clue in the photograph that would tip him off to her location.
“It’s a picture of Julia,” he said. “Where is she?”
Lydia arched an eyebrow. “At a cabin that happens to be one of the properties I own.”
His palms turned sweaty as he waited for the demand. Had Lydia just admitted to kidnapping her, more or less?
“And she’s not alone,” Lydia added, motioning for him to go to the next picture.
Grant sucked in a breath, flipping to the next picture. He stared at an image of Julia and Kyle. He tried to ease the knot tightening his stomach. It wasn’t a surprise. She’d been last seen with Kyle.
“A few weeks ago, the cabin I own north of the city came up in a conversation with Karl.”
“Kyle,” he corrected.
“Whatever,” Lydia said with a wave of her hand. “Last night, he asked if I minded if he used it. Naturally, I got suspicious.”
Grant held back rolling his eyes at the words as she continued. “So, I checked my camera this morning. And what I caught…shocked me.”
He flicked his gaze up to her again. “You? Shocked? Really?”
“You can throw your little insults my way all you’d like, but it doesn’t change what’s on those pictures.” Lydia offered him a haughty glance.
He heaved a sigh as he flicked to the next picture. Kyle stood closer to Julia in this one, his hands on her arms, though she looked uncomfortable.
It twisted his gut more as he wondered if she was afraid. He couldn’t read the emotion in her eyes from this angle as she glanced up at him.
He shuffled to the next picture, his discomfort growing. Kyle’s arms were wrapped around Julia this time.
He snapped his eyes up to his ex-wife for a moment. She lifted her chin as she waited for him to continue his perusal.
With a sigh, he flipped to the next photograph. The image hit him like a physical slap. Kyle’s hands cupped Julia’s face as he kissed her.
He tried to keep his features neutral, but some of his unease over the photo crept across them anyway. He went to the next one.
She gazed up at his son, her hand against his chest. In the next, their foreheads pressed together, and in the next, their lips were locked again.
His mind raced. Part of him screamed in betrayal, but his more rational side recalled Lydia’s history of deceit. This had to be a trick. Lydia had created fake images of him with another woman, too. Though none of them were of intimate moments like this.
He tried to push his mind to believe this was all a hoax. But Julia’s odd disappearance without a word to him didn’t help matters.
Had she told him she was going with Kyle, he could have chalked it up to his son’s manipulations. But when she hadn’t said a word, that argument became harder to make.
Perhaps she had been taken against her will. However, the images of her in his son’s arms made that logic difficult, too.
“I’m sorry, Grant. I’m so sorry you had to see these.”
His patience wore thin. He couldn’t take anymore from Lydia. She was a liar. He repeated that line over and over to himself. Whatever she’d shown him likely wasn’t what it seemed. He tried to stay calm, but he had to get away from her. “Get out, Lydia.”
“Grant…”
He tossed down the pictures, his eyes blazing with fury. “Get out!” he snapped, barely able to contain his rage.
Lydia’s nostrils flared as her jaw worked. “Fine. I’ll leave. But just remember who was on your side, Grant, and who betrayed you. First, the sailor, now, your son. A man who I’d stake my life is behind the efforts to destroy you.”
Lydia spun on her heel and stomped her way from the room, leaving him in silence. He tried to calm his nerves now that he was alone, but he found it impossible. Lydia had pushed every button of his, knowing exactly how to manipulate him.
His eyes fell on the pictures sprawled across his desk. It wouldn’t have been nearly as easy for her to goad him without these pictures. He desperately hoped they were fake. He scrutinized each picture, searching for some sign of manipulation, yet they seemed painfully genuine.
He snatched the receiver of his phone, his gaze turning steely and determined. “Max, Lydia has a cabin north of the city. Find out where. Use everything you have to. I need to find Julia.”
He needed to talk to her, to ask her about these photos. He desperately needed to hear that they were fake.
His mind raced as he waited for word. Were they staged? Had Kyle kissed her without her consent again? There were two kisses. She hadn’t tried to leave after the first one. At least that’s the story the pictures told.
Pictures that were likely manipulated by Lydia, he reminded himself.
He swallowed hard as doubts continued to crowd his mind. What if the latest developments had been a turning point for Julia? Had the murder and his near-arrest sent her running into the arms of his son?
He sank his forehead into his hands as his mind whirled, blending his own fears of losing Julia with the doubts that had kept him from telling her the truth about his feelings.
A knock sounded at the door, and the sharp noise echoes through his office, sending his nerves over the edge. He whipped his glass across the room before he raked his arms across the desk, sending the photos sprawling across the floor along with his phone.
The silver frame containing his wedding photo clattered across the floor, too, landing at the feet of his butler who quietly pushed into the room.
“I spotted Ms. Lydia leave the room a few moments ago. I see she had the usual effect on you,” Worthington said as he scooped up the wedding photo.
Grant sank back into the supple leather of his chair, rubbing his lips as he brooded over the latest developments.
Worthington stared at the mess on the floor as he picked his way across the room and held the framed photograph toward Grant.
He waved it away, unable to look at the happy moment before they’d shared their first kiss without it being tainted with images of her lips meeting Kyle’s.
Worthington arched an eyebrow, setting it on the desk in Grant’s direct view.
He tried to shift his eyes away, but he couldn’t stop staring at the frozen moment. Julia gazed up at him, her smile seeming so happy, so genuine. His own grin betrayed emotions he never expected to feel, emotions he didn’t want to let go.
Worthington collected the other images from the floor and neatened them into a stack before sliding them back into the folder. He righted the phone, setting it back on the corner of the desk, then crossed to the drink cart to retrieve another glass of bourbon, despite the morning hour.
“It seems you could use this,” he said as he held the glass out.
“It won’t do any good,” Grant said, though he took the glass. “But I’ll still take it.”
Worthington clasped his hands in front of him as Grant took a sip.
He let the bourbon burn his throat before he spoke. “I don’t know what’s happening, Worthington.”
“It must be frustrating not to know where Mrs. Harrington is, though perhaps Max will make some progress soon.”
“I know where she is. More or less.”
Worthington raised his eyebrows. “From the photographs Ms. Lydia provided?”
Grant nodded as they raced through his mind again. “She disappeared without a word, Worthington. I want to believe that this is Lydia’s fault…and Kyle’s, but…”
“Yet you find yourself wondering if she went willingly.”
Grant let his gaze fall to the wedding photo again, the familiar melancholy filling him as he wondered if he’d lost her or if he’d ever truly had her to lose. “Yes.”
“Sir, if I may, sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Especially when someone like Ms. Lydia is involved.”
“I know. But the doubt…it’s paralyzing.” He took another sip of bourbon before he continued. “And I hate that. I hate that I am thinking this of her. But she was never really mine to begin with, was she? She’s not…cheating. She’s just…following her…” The word heart got stuck in his throat, and he gulped down another swallow of brandy.
“If you were going to say she’s following her heart, sir, remember her heart led her back here even after her encounter with her past in Maine.”
He scoffed as he stared into his empty glass. “Did it? Or did her contract?”
Before Worthington could answer, the phone rang, startling Grant as the shrill tone split the tense silence.
Grant stared at it for a second before he snatched the receiver. “Yeah?”
“Mr. Harrington,” Max answered, “we have the address. Do you want me to send a team up or would you like to go with us?”
Grant sat frozen for a moment as he pondered the question. Part of him urged himself to go, to take charge, to fight for her, but another part feared what he may find.
Images of Julia and Kyle cuddled together as she sought comfort in his arms from the constant tension and danger danced in his mind.
He swallowed hard as he made a snap decision. “No, leave it.”
“Sir?”
“Leave it for now. Don’t do a thing.” He slammed the receiver down, sliding his eyes closed.
“Have they found something?” Worthington asked.
“Max has the address of Lydia’s cabin. The one Julia is supposedly at.”
“And you are not going?”
Grant kept his eyes trained on the woodgrain of his desk, seeking solace in the dark pattern. “No.”
“Are you entirely satisfied with that decision?”
“I’m letting her come home on her own.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Worthington questioned.
He never had the opportunity to answer. Footsteps in the foyer, followed by hushed voices, announced the arrival of someone.
Worthington crossed to the doors of the office and pulled them open. Grant glanced around his butler, spotting Julia, still in the scrubs from the hospital with Kyle at her side.
He couldn’t suppress the image of her in his arms from poking into his mind, unbidden. It twisted his stomach into a knot so tight, he thought he might double over from the pain.
“Worthington, is Grant–” She stopped as Worthington stepped sideways and motioned for her to enter the office.
She slid past him into the room with Kyle following her. Her penitent features landed on him, her face scrunched with a mix of concern and worry. “We need to talk.”
Kyle slid a hand onto her shoulder. The simple action made him question everything that had happened in the nearly two years since he’d met Julia Stanton.
He wanted to leap from his seat and demand answers, yet he also dreaded them. He remained silent, hoping his eyes didn’t betray the tumult of emotions raging inside him as one question burned through his mind. Had he fallen for a woman that he never had the chance to win?