25. Slade
SLADE
THREE YEARS EARLIER
I walk along the jetty leading to Dad’s yacht. The muscles in my arms burn with the evidence of a great day spent free climbing. None of my family wanted to come when I extended the invitation. Not that I expected them to. The extreme sports, the adrenaline, that’s my thing, not theirs.
Sullivan calls me The Risk Taker. But I’d take free climbing over playing piano in front of a room full of people any day.
The weirdo says he finds it relaxing. Yeah, well, I find doing things that get my blood pumping and have a risk involved relaxing.
It’s the way they force me to focus that does it.
There’s no time to worry about anything else when you either have to concentrate or put yourself in real danger.
The yacht’s moored at the end of a jetty by itself.
My father’s always loved being on the water, and his boat is a giant gleaming white testament to that.
He likes us all to use it as a family as often as possible.
He even bought a house here near Cape Town, which is one of his favorite places.
It works. Our diamond mines are in Botswana, so he can fly there to take care of business, then come back.
He’s due back soon, the same as Sullivan and Sinclair who went out together for the day. And Uncle Mal and Mom, who were going to visit a local market.
I pass one of the yacht’s new catering staff as I walk along the jetty.
“Hey.” I grin in greeting.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Beaufort,” he says politely. “I’m collecting supplies for tonight’s dinner, but if you need me to come back onboard now to—”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
He must be the only staff member currently onboard. We don’t keep a full staff on there all the time. The team usually comes on to prepare meals and then leave.
I carry on up the jetty.
“Please listen to me.”
The unknown man’s voice further along the jetty has me slowing my advance.
“You shouldn’t be here,” my mother hisses. “I’m with my family. Sterling’s due back any minute.”
“Good. We can tell him together.”
“Tell him? No, absolutely not!”
“Elaina, I love you and you love me. I know you do. I came all this way for you and I’m not leaving without you.”
“I can’t, Neil. They’re my family.”
“Tell me you don’t love me,” the man’s voice rises.
“I…”
Nausea swirls in my gut as my windpipe constricts like someone’s crushing it. I tuck in alongside another boat, out of view so I can listen.
Don’t say it, Mom. Whoever this asshole is, tell him to get fucking lost. But I already know that no matter what she says, nothing will ever be the same again.
She’s cheating on my father. She’s cheating on all of us.
“It’s not that simple,” she says.
“Tell me.”
I fist my hands as I lean out from my hiding spot enough to see them. The guy is around her age. He looks desperate as he reaches for her, pulling her into his arms. She goes willingly, and the sight is like a knife to my heart.
Whoever he is he has nothing on my father. The idea that she would risk everything for a stranger makes my blood boil.
“You know how I feel.” My mother’s soft voice breaks like she’s crying. “But I can’t leave them.”
“You were supposed to be with me. You always were.”
“You left,” she cries. “And I have a family now.”
“Elaina…”
“You need to leave,” she sobs.
“I’m not—”
“They’ll be back any minute. Go!”
She eases herself out of his arms, but he reaches for her again.
“I’m not giving up. I’ll be waiting for you when you get back to New York. We need to talk about this.”
My mother shakes her head. “Just go, Neil.”
The man drags a hand down his face, then turns to leave. My mother watches him go, a hand over her heart as her shoulders tremble.
“I love you,” she says to his retreating back. He walks down the jetty, not seeing me as I tuck myself away in the shadows of the boat.
My mother’s parting words to him ignite something in me.
“What the actual fuck!” I roar, storming out from my concealed spot once he’s gone.
My mother jerks with shock, her eyes going round as she sees me. “Slade, how long—?”
“Fucking long enough!”
She winces at my anger. I’ve never raised my voice to a woman in my life.
“You’re cheating on Dad? With him?” I spit the last word out in disgust. “Who the fuck is he?”
“Someone I knew a long time ago.”
Her lower lip wobbles and she tries to compose herself, blinking rapidly to fight against the tears pooling along her lower lids.
“It’s not like you think, it’s—”
“So, you didn’t just tell some other guy that you loved him?” I snap, walking closer. “I imagined hearing that, did I?”
“Stop,” she whispers, pressing a hand to her mouth and turning away. She rushes onto my father’s yacht and goes inside the cabin—into the plush interior bar my father had redecorated into blues and golds because she said she liked the colors.
He did it for her, because he’d do anything to make her happy.
And she’s been seeing some other guy behind his back. Falling in love with him.
“How long have you been having sex with him?” I snarl, stomping after her.
“Slade, that’s—”
“Don’t deny it! Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, Mom. How could you?”
“We have… history. I never intended this to happen, but he messaged me and I… I wanted to see him. There were things I needed to say to him after the way things were left between us years ago, and…” Her shoulders shake as she loses control of her tears and bursts into sobs.
But I can no longer tell if they’re tears of regret, guilt, or mere panic at being caught.
This is my mother, but it’s like I’m suddenly staring at a stranger.
“I never planned this, Slade. You need to believe that.”
“I don’t need to believe anything!”
I walk over to the bar and brace my hands against its smooth, dark surface. It’s glossy and slick, made from African Blackwood that Dad had specifically sourced. Again, because my mother liked it.
I suck in a deep breath, trying to force my heart rate to slow down.
“You need to tell Dad.”
“This would crush him, Slade,” my mother whispers. “You know it would.”
I screw my eyes shut as her next words float over to me. I hate her for them. Almost as much as I hate what she’s done.
“Please, Slade. You can’t tell him.”
“You want me to lie to him?”
I snap my head toward her and whatever she sees in my eyes halts her steps toward me and her eyes pop wide.
I drag in another breath, my nostrils flaring as I stare at her. Stare at the woman I thought I knew.
She sniffs, her eyes shining with pathetic desperation.
She wants me to lie to my own father. She’s willing to put me through what she knows it would do to me. Because my family is everything. And lying to them would fucking destroy me.
And she knows that. Yet, she’s still asking, no, begging.
“Beauforts stick together,” she says in a weak, pleading tone.
I see red. I see fucking crimson, scarlet, blood-red, and every damn shade there is.
“You don’t even fucking know what that means!” I yell, swiping up a glass bottle from a stack.
I hurl the fucking thing at the wall a few meters left of where my mother is standing, in pure rage. She flinches as it smashes against the wall and liquid explodes out, splattering around the room with more projection than I’d have thought possible.
“How dare you use his saying. Of all the things you could say, Mom.”
My voice wavers and I crush my finger and thumb into my eye sockets as the magnitude of what this will mean for my family hits me. We’ll be torn apart. My father will be ruined because of this. He’s always worked so damn hard to make my mother happy. To make all of us happy.
“Why?”
She keeps sobbing, the hint of a rasp slipping in alongside her words. “I’m so sorry, Slade. I didn’t plan any of this. I love you all so much.”
I lift my eyes to hers, unbearable pain swelling inside my chest.
I take one look at her face, at her widening, panicked eyes, and the dark splash marks on her dress, before whipping my head back toward the bottle I threw, lying smashed on the floor.
“Mom!” I yell, racing over to her.
I grab her around the neck, tilting her head up. Her windpipe elongates inside my solid grip as fear runs through her eyes.
She tries to speak, tries to tell me what I need to hear, so I incline my head, bringing my ear close to her lips to make it out.
The rasped words she manages to choke out send anger coursing through my veins. She claws at my hands, struggling harder to breathe.
I look into her eyes as the life behind them fades away.