need to learn about him so that I can understand why he did the things he did. Once I understand why, I’m hoping I’ll be able to forgive him, and then I’ll be able to love my baby. As it stands now, I can’t think of this baby without hating his father and hating myself for being such a fool over him.”
Tipping his head back, Gray Elliott contemplated the ceiling, and Kate held her breath. Finally, he looked directly at her and said, “William Wyatt spent a fortune on private investigators because he wanted to find out everything he possibly could about the little brother who’d been sent away to make his own way in the world. Caroline Wyatt gave us that file, thinking it might assist us in our own investigation.”
He got up, walked over to a built-in wooden file cabinet, and removed a fat file from it. ,” he said, as he walked over to the conference table and laid the file on it, file of Caroline’s is separate from our own investigatory files, so I’m under no real burden of confidentiality. I don’t see why you couldn’t sit over here and look through it while I’m out to lunch.”
Any emotion, even relief, brought tears to her eyes these days, and she had to brush them away as she smiled at him and got up to walk over to the conference table. you very much,” she said achingly.
He stared at her face for a moment, then he returned to the file cabinet, took out an armload of additional files, and carried those to the conference table, too. files are strictly confidential,” he said with a meaningful smile. ’ll be back in an hour.”
ISstill in your office,” Gray’s secretary told him.
Gray nodded, opened his office door, and walked inside. Kate Donovan was so engrossed in what she was reading that she didn’t even notice he’d returned. When he sat down at his desk, his leather chair made a noise, and she glanced up, completely startled. twenty minutes, I have a meeting scheduled here,” Gray said, you’re welcome to stay until then.”
you,” she said, and immediately lost herself in the file again.
Reaching for a tablet and pen, Gray started making notes for his meeting, but his gaze kept straying in her direction, and after ten minutes, he finally gave up and put his pen down to watch her. She was still working her way toward the bottom of William’s dark blue file, which, as he recalled, covered the first nineteen or twenty years of Mitchell’s life. There was nothing significant in that one; it contained mostly school transcripts, some letters and statements from those teachers who remembered him and were still employed at the boarding schools he’d attended, and copies of any pages from school periodicals or yearbooks that mentioned him.
And yet she was clearly finding items of import there, because at times she’d smile softly or frown, and a minute before, he’d distinctly seen her touch her fingertip almost tenderly to a newspaper photograph of him.
She was to his left, facing in his general direction, her head bent, her shining red hair spilling over her shoulders. She looked very young and very vulnerable, he thought, and very, very pretty, with her fair skin, long russet eyelashes, and the tiny cleft in her chin. Idly, he wondered why he hadn’t noticed how truly lovely she was before. She’d always seemed striking with her dark red hair, but he’d never really looked at her face. Now that he’d had a good long look at that face and that red hair, he realized the combination was stunning. And when he added in her emerald eyes and those legs of hers, she was downright fantastic looking.
Unfortunately for her, Mitchell Wyatt hadn’t overlooked her attributes and neither had that manipulative, two-faced schmuck Evan Bartlett. Bartlett had made sure everybody in their social circle knew that he’d dumped her and broken their engagement, but he’d neglected to mention that she’d cheated on him first. That would have made him look like less of a stud.
Getting up out of his chair, Gray perched a hip on the corner of his desk closest to the conference table and said, you finding anything that’s helpful in all that stuff?”
She lifted jewel-bright eyes to his, nodded, and gave him a winsome smile. was an amazing athlete. He excelled at everything he tried, didn’t he?”
Surprised that athletic prowess would matter to her, Gray considered her question. guess he did. I remember there were a lot of school newspaper and yearbook photographs of him playing sports and getting trophies.”
you notice anything else about those photographs?”
,” Gray said. was there to notice?”
Her voice caught. was always alone.” As proof, she flipped back a few pages in the file and took out the first photograph she came to. Gray shoved off the desk and walked the few steps to the conference table to see what she meant. In the photograph, Wyatt looked to be about sixteen, and he was getting a soccer trophy for breaking the school record for most goals in one season. isn’t alone,” Gray pointed out. of his teammates who also won trophies are standing on either side of him.”
, they are,” Kate said softly. those two teammates’ parents are standing next to their sons. It’s the same theme in every photograph.”
She flipped slowly backward in the file—and in the chronological order of his life—to a photograph taken of him when he was about six during a cricket match. His bat looked way too big for him, and he was concentrating so hard he was scowling. is a kid who is focused on the ball,” Gray joked.
She nodded, started to say something, then shook her head and changed her mind. you read this interview with the custodian of the grounds at his boarding school in France?”
sort of thing wasn’t of interest to me,” Gray admitted. does it tell you?”
. Brickley said Mitchell spent several Christmases with his wife and himself, rather than spending them with the headmaster’s family. He said Mitchell later wrote to them from the next boarding school he attended, but Mr. Brickley’s wife died and he stopped answering Mitchell’s letters.” Tears clogged her voice as she said, you know why Mitchell was writing letters to a disinterested groundskeeper from his next boarding school?”
haven’t the faintest idea.”
was writing to him because it was mandatory at all these boarding schools for boys to write to a family member every two weeks. He didn’t have anyone else to write to.”
Leaning back in her chair, she said with a choked laugh, don’t blame him for despising the Bartletts and wanting revenge. In fact, I feel better knowing that—although I was badly used—it was actually for avery worthy cause.”