Chapter 20 #2
"No idea." She nibbled on her bottom lip.
"It makes zero sense. Those jewels and gems are worth a fortune.
Frank would've sold them before the body was cold if he’d thought he could get away with it.
" She trailed off, her gaze drifting to the paddock like she was searching for the answer out there.
After a few beats, she turned back to me, and the sadness in her eyes lodged a brick in my chest.
I rested my hand over the back of hers. "You okay?"
"Yeah." Then she shook her head. "It's just ..." She drew in a shaky breath. "I've always known Dad was an asshole, but this money." She gestured toward the open door. "And all this other stuff. He's more than an asshole. He's … he's?—"
"A monster," I said quietly.
She swallowed hard. "I used to make excuses for him. Tell myself he was just tough. That ranch life had made him hard." She blinked rapidly. "But he was a fucking monster well before we came along. You must be sorry you ever heard of the Bransons."
"Are you kidding? My mother let a man die and stole a fortune.
Plus, she manipulated me for thirty years.
" I shook my head. "Trust me, the Bransons have nothing on the Hawthornes when it comes to being fucked up.
" I paused and leaned toward her. "What I'm sorry for is not knowing about the Bransons sooner. " I met her eyes. "Especially you."
Color bloomed across her cheeks, and something shifted in her expression. The sadness gave way to something warmer, more uncertain. For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. Her gaze dropped to my mouth and lingered there.
Heat flooded through me.
She drew her bottom lip between her teeth, and my heart hammered against my ribs. I couldn't look away from her mouth, couldn't think about anything except how incredible she was.
My pulse thundered in my ears, drowning out everything else.
Finally, she dragged her hand out from under mine, her expression all jagged edges and troubled eyes. She cleared her throat and eased back. "So, now that we've established that we have fucked-up parents, can you get back to the story?"
My heart stuttered, and it took effort to shift my brain back into gear.
"Right. Okay, well, after the pilot died, Frank took Mom back to the ranch, just like she'd asked.
Then Frank returned to the plane to move the body.
Then Mom acted as if nothing had happened, and she and Dominic left Koolaroo together before Frank returned to the ranch. Mom never saw Frank again."
"What? So, after she’d had an affair with Frank, she just went back to pretending she was a happy wife?”
“Yes, for decades.”
“Jesus. But how did she explain what happened to his grandma's jewelry?"
"Mom claimed them on insurance. Blamed airport staff, just like she'd planned all along."
"What about the money she stole? How did she get away with that?"
I growled. "Some poor junior executive at Hawthorne Global got charged for that theft."
Cassidy gasped. "Shit!"
"Yeah. Mom let that happen. The poor guy's career and life were ruined. He never went to jail because of a lack of evidence, but Dominic made sure he never worked in investments again."
"Jesus. Your mom’s a bitch."
"Yep. She never did anything to help him, just protected her own ass.
" I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms. "I thought she was different from Dominic, but she wasn't. Lies, cheating, and corruption—those are the three pillars of Hawthorne Global.
A corporation I've always despised. Mom knew it, too, yet she pushed me into boardrooms and designer suits.
She wanted me to be like Dominic." I let out a breath that burned.
"Knowing the whole time I wasn't even his. "
The eagle had come back, high and distant, barely a dark speck against the brilliant blue sky.
"But why push you toward him if she knew you weren't his?"
I was quiet for a long time, analyzing the question, trying to find an answer that would give Mom some redeeming quality. But there wasn't one.
"Money. Prestige. I was the cement holding her mountain of lies together." Fury burned through me like a firestorm. I leaned back in my chair and stared at the sky. The sun had slipped lower, and long shadows stretched across the burned grass.
"The suits. The boardrooms. The expectations. Hawthorne Global. The fucking empire." I shook my head. "Mom knew how much I hated it all. Yet she did everything in her power to mold me so I'd be exactly like him."
I dug my nails deeper into my palms until the sting cut through the anger.
"Xavier, I can already tell you're not like him." She reached over and gripped my hand, prying my fingers open and lacing hers through mine.
"I hate Hawthorne Global and Dominic … and Mom," I muttered. "I hate everything about them and what they represent."
The eagle screamed again somewhere above us.
"Mom said she sacrificed everything for me." I released a bitter breath. "She called it love."
"Love." Cassidy let out a hollow laugh. "Yeah, well, my mom loved us, too. And then she took off and left us with Frank." Her eyes turned fierce. "I'm certain she knew exactly what he was capable of."
The bitterness in her voice mirrored something in my chest. Two people, abandoned in different ways by mothers who’d called it love. I didn’t know which was worse, the mother who’d left because she couldn’t handle the truth, or the mother who’d stayed and suffocated her only child with lies.
All I knew was that I wanted to know everything about Cassidy, and I was beginning to hope that Frank being my father was just another one of my mother’s fucking lies.
I squeezed Cassidy’s palm to mine. “Do you know why your mom left?”