Chapter 28
“Sure, Mom. I’ll be there as soon as I get dressed. I need to call Gary to let him know I’ll be missing breakfast.”
After disconnecting the call with her mother, Tiffany called Gary. “Hello, sweetheart,” he answered in a drowsy voice.
“Good morning, Gary.”
“Good morning. You’re up early.”
“Mom called and needs my help. She’s part of the decorating committee, and the flowers she selected came with longer stems than she ordered. I’ll be helping her clip them, which means I won’t be there for breakfast.”
“No problem, I’ll just order room service. What will you eat if you’re skipping breakfast?”
“I’m sure Mom will order something for us as well.”
“Good. If more hands are needed, let me know,” he said.
“You know how to clip flowers?”
He chuckled. “No, but I’m sure it’s something I can learn.”
“True. Okay, I’ll let you know if we need your help,” she said.
“Okay.”
“Goodbye, Gary. I’ll see you for lunch.”
“Sure thing, babe.”
As she got out of bed to take her shower and get dressed, she thought the past few days had been great. Gary had been in the best of moods. It was as if some weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
A short while later, she was knocking on her parents’ cottage door.
When her dad opened it, she said, “Good morning, Dad,” giving him a peck on the cheek as she breezed by him.
When she saw her godmother and Marcus, she smiled.
“Good morning, Goddy and Marcus. Did Mom get you up to help her as well?”
Her mother came forward. “No, sweetheart. They are here for you.”
Tiffany looked confused. “Why would I need them to be here for me?”
“There’s something your mother and I need to tell you,” Chance said.
It was then that Tiffany noticed just how serious everyone was. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Please have a seat, Tiffany, and we’ll tell you everything,” her mother said.
Tiffany nodded and went to sit in the spot on the sofa between Marcus and her godmother. She then glanced up expectantly at her parents. “So, Mom, Dad? What’s wrong?”
Chance took a deep breath, let it out, and then said, “Gary Palmer is a fraud.”
**
Tiffany was out of her seat in a flash. “That’s not true, Dad. How can you say such a thing?”
“It is true, sweetheart. York and Quade investigated him.”
“York and Quade? You guys had Gary investigated?” she asked, accusingly.
“No. Your mother and I just found out late last night. York and Quade felt they had sufficient grounds to look into his actions, and they did. What they found was damning. His real name is not Gary Palmer.”
She waved off her father’s words. “I know that, Dad. His name is Garrett Palmer. He goes by Gary.”
“That’s not his real name either. He was born Robert Garrett Devonshire.”
She threw up her hands in exasperation. “So, he changed his name, big deal. That’s not illegal.”
“It’s a big deal if the only reason he became involved with you was to get close to me, so he could hack into my company. And that is illegal,” Chance said.
“Hack into your company? That’s not true, Dad.”
“Unfortunately, it is.”
“Why would he want to do that?” she asked.
Chance released a deep breath. “I’m going to tell you everything, Tiffany, and I need you to listen and believe that your mother and I would not be telling you this if it were not true.
We have recordings of calls Gary made every night from his room, as well as video footage showing him illegally entering this cottage yesterday and hacking my laptop while we were in Gatlinburg. ”
“Yesterday?”
“Yes, around eleven.”
Tiffany frowned. She had invited him to go horseback riding, but he couldn’t go. “Gary had a Zoom call yesterday around that time.”
“Well, I’ve seen video footage showing otherwise. He was captured on a security camera in this cottage, hacking into what he thought was my laptop.”
Tiffany’s head started to spin. She remembered Gary asking yesterday if her parents were around.
She had told him they’d left for Gatlinburg.
Did he have an ulterior motive for wanting to know where they were?
No. Gary loved her. He had told her that several times.
But was there actual footage showing him entering her parents’ cottage yesterday?
She stared at her parents for a long moment, and then eased back down on the sofa between her godmother and brother. “Okay. I’ll listen to what you have to say and look at whatever you have to show me.”
**
Hours later, Tiffany knew she would forever be grateful for the love of her family. First, she cried in her parents’ arms. Then her godmother’s, and lastly, Marcus’s. They held her, and when she thought she had run out of tears, more would come.
She had listened to everything her father had said.
In the beginning, she’d refused to believe any of it.
There had to be a mistake. But then he had played the recordings of the phone calls that Gary had exchanged with a man they now knew to be his father, every night, and sometimes in the morning.
In those calls, the two had planned their strategy to destroy the Steele Corporation — her father’s and uncles’ legacy.
A company that her grandfather Lester and granduncle Harold, had put their blood, sweat, and tears into building for their families.
Years ago, the torch had been passed to Lester’s four sons and recently his grandson; and Harold’s three daughters.
Although Harold’s daughters ─ Taylor and Cheyenne ─ didn’t work for the company, they were members of the board.
Under her father’s leadership as CEO, the Steele Corporation had a stellar reputation.
And then there was the video of Gary entering this very cottage yesterday and going straight to what he had assumed was her father’s laptop. She watched as he used his phone to hack into it with a code. She saw that satanic-looking smile on his face when he thought he had succeeded.
“Here. Drink this, sis.”
Tiffany forced a smile at Marcus. She believed this was her third cup of tea, but from the smell, she knew he had added a little something alcoholic to it. Lifting her brow, she eyed her brother. “Really, Marcus?”
He shrugged, released a chuckle, and said, “Just shut up and drink it.”
She did, taking little sips at a time. A part of her wanted to go straight to Gary’s room and have it out with him for lying to her, and deceiving her in the worst possible way—by using her to try to destroy her dad, the man she most admired.
She glanced around the room. Her father was on the telephone.
She figured he was talking to York or Quade.
Possibly both. Her mother and godmother were standing near the fireplace with their heads together, whispering.
Probably thinking of the best way to castrate Gary.
Hmm, maybe she should be included in their conversation.
“I was beginning to like him,” Marcus said, taking her hand after she set down her teacup. “A lot of us were,” he added. Then, in a harsher voice, he said, “He didn’t deserve our family’s kindness. He not only played on your compassion and thoughtfulness, he played on ours as well.”
Tiffany nodded. “Why do people blame others when they are wrong, Marcus? The other day, I was talking to Sloan. She told me that her mother refuses to speak to her because her father did something wrong and her mother expected Sloan to give up her entire life to bail him out.”
She shook her head. “It’s like Gary and his father.
His father was wrong for hiring a spy to steal that Gleeve-Ware formula.
Nobody told him to rush to production with a stolen formula.
Unfortunately, his company went bankrupt, but that’s what happens when you don’t play by the rules.
But then, to blame someone else for your mistakes? It doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. That’s why I’m glad I was hired as part of the Steele Corporation’s legal team. I plan to utilize my law degree to safeguard Granddad and Uncle Harold’s legacy, which is now ours, too.”
When her father hung up the phone, he walked over to where she and Marcus were sitting on the sofa and extended his arms to her. She stood and went into them. “Are you okay?” he asked her.
Releasing a deep breath, she looked into the face of the man who offered her the opportunity to call him Dad when her biological father never had. He had given her his name, and told her that in his dictionary, the word “step-daughter” didn’t exist. She was his daughter. Period.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be okay again, Dad.”
“It will take time, but you will. You are a Steele. We might get knocked down on occasion, but we get back up. We are fighters. Stainless, resistant, and polished. We are forged in Steele. You will survive this. We all will. And eventually we will put it behind us and move on.”
Tiffany wished she could believe that. “My heart hurts,” she said, dropping her face into his chest. But she didn’t start to cry again. It was as if her tear ducts were now empty.
“I know, sweetheart. And I know it will be hard to trust the next man who goes after that heart. However, I believe there is someone out there, especially for you, Tiffany. You might not make it easy for him at first, but eventually you’ll know he’s the one.”
He paused, then said, “That was Quade on the phone. Federal agents will be here at ten to arrest Gary. We didn’t want to mess up Drew and Eden’s big day tomorrow by taking everyone’s focus from that, so the agents will arrest Palmer at a location far away from the family.
I’m sure people will eventually notice that he’s gone, but it’s up to you what you want them to know. ”
She nodded. “For now, I’ll just say we broke up, our engagement is off, and he left. I’ll tell everyone the truth at breakfast on New Year’s Day.” A special breakfast would be held for the family on New Year’s Day, before everyone left for the airports.
“You don’t have to, Tiffany,” her mother said, when she and Tiffany’s godmother came to join them.
“I know, but I want to, Mom. Like Dad said, the Steeles are strong, and I’m going to need all that supportive strength to get through the rest of this year.
Besides, I want to return Gary’s Christmas gifts.
” She released a deep sigh and added, “He doesn’t deserve them, and he definitely won’t need them where he’s going. ”
Chance nodded. “York and Quade are trying to figure out a way to get Gary to come to an unoccupied cabin that’s not connected to the main lodge. It’s within walking distance. They need him there by eleven. Any suggestions?”
“Yes,” Tiffany said. “Gary thinks the reason I met with Mom this morning was to help her clip flowers for the decorations. He told me to call him if we needed help. I can call him and say that some of the guys are unloading more boxes of flowers for Mom at that cabin, and they need help.”
Chance nodded. “That sounds like a plan.”
She exhaled deeply. “I will text him, since I don’t want to hear his voice. I doubt he and I could share a conversation without him noticing something is wrong with me.”
She looked at her parents. “Mom, Dad, can I hang out here for a little while? I’m not ready to see or talk to anyone right now,” she said.
“Of course, you can,” Chance said. “You can use Alden’s bedroom. He hasn’t used it since we got here. He’s been hanging out at his Uncle Bas’s cottage with his cousins, Susan and Heather.”
Tiffany nodded. Susan was Bas’s daughter, and Heather was Reese and Leah’s daughter. They thought of Alden as a big brother. “Thanks. I’ll go to my room later, but not now.”
“Stay as long as you want, sweetheart,” her mother said, giving her a hug.