“Your sister was wrong.”
“About you stealing jewelry? Maybe. We’ll see about that.”
“No, about the fact that I don’t have every right to be here. And so does my child. As a matter of fact, my child has as much right to the Bradford legacy as you and Gin do.”
Lane opened his mouth to say something—and then slowly closed it. “What are you talking about.”
“I’m afraid your father is no better a husband than you are.”
A tinkling rose up from his glass, and he looked down, noting from a vast distance that his hand was shaking and causing the ice to agitate.
“That’s right,” Chantal said in a slow, even voice. “And I think we’re all aware of the delicate condition of your mother. How would she feel if she knew that her husband had not only been unfaithful, but that a child was going to be born? Do you think she’d take more of those pills she’s already so reliant on? She probably would. Yes, I’m sure she would.”
“You bitch,” he breathed.
In his mind, he saw himself locking his hands around the woman’s throat and squeezing, squeezing so hard that she started to struggle as her face turned purple and her mouth gaped.
“On the other hand,” Chantal murmured, “wouldn’t your mother enjoy knowing that she was going to be a grandmother for the second time? Wouldn’t that be cause for celebration.”
“No one would believe it’s mine,” he heard himself say.
“Oh, but they will. He’s going to look just like you—and I’ve been going up to Manhattan on a regular basis to work on our relationship. Everyone here knows it.”
“You lie. I’ve never seen you.”
“New York City is a big place. And I’ve made sure that all are aware in this family are aware that I’ve seen you and enjoyed your company. I’ve also talked about it to the girls at the club, their husbands at parties, my family—everybody has been so supportive of you and me.”
As he remained silent, she smiled sweetly. “So you can see how those divorce papers aren’t going to be required. And how you aren’t going to say a thing about what happened between us with our first baby. If you do, I’m going to blow the lid wide open on your family and embarrass you in front of this community, your city, your state. Then we’ll see how long it takes you to have to put on your funeral suit. Your mother’s out of it, but she’s not totally isolated—and her nurse reads her the paper every morning right beside her bed.”
With a self-satisfied expression, Chantal turned away and shoved the panels open, clipping her way out into the marble foyer, once again the lady of leisure with the Mona Lisa smile.
Lane’s entire body shook, his muscles screaming for action, for vengeance, for blood—but the rage was not aimed at his wife any longer.
It was all directed toward his father.
Cuckold. He believed that was the old-fashioned word that was used to describe this kind of thing.
He’d been cuckolded by his own goddamn father.
When in the hell was this day going to be over, he thought.
TWENTY-FIVE
Lizzie told herself she was not checking her phone. Not when she took the thing out of her purse and transferred it into her back pocket as soon as she walked through the front door of her farmhouse. Not as, a mere fifteen minutes later, she made sure that the ringer was on. And not even when, ten minutes after that, she unlocked the screen and made sure she hadn’t missed any texts or calls.
Nothing.
Lane hadn’t pinged her to make sure she’d gotten home. Hadn’t responded to her text. But come on, like he didn’t have a wet cat on his hands?
Jeez.
And yet she was antsy as she paced around. Her kitchen was spotless, which was a shame because she could have used something to clean up. The same was true with her bedroom upstairs—heck, even her bed was made—and she’d done her laundry the night before. The only thing that she found out of place was the towel she’d used that morning to dry off with after her shower. She’d hung it loosely over the shower curtain, and since it was still inside the two-day rule for going into the hamper, all she could do was fold the thing the long way and thread it back through the rod that was on the wall.
Thanks to a mostly cloudless day, her house was warm up on the second floor and she went around and opened all the windows. A breeze that smelled like the meadow around the property blew in and cleaned out the stuffiness.
Would that it could pull the same trick with her head. Images from the day bombarded her: her and Lane laughing when she’d just come in to work; her and Lane staring at her laptop; the two of them …
All up in her head, Lizzie returned to the kitchen and opened the door to the refrigerator. Nothing much there. Certainly nothing she had any interest in eating.
As the urge to check her phone again hit, she told herself to cut it out. Chantal could be a problem on a good day. Slapped with divorce papers with the scene witnessed by one of the help—
The sound of footsteps out on the front porch brought her head up.
Frowning, she shut the fridge and walked ahead to her living room. She didn’t bother to check to see who it was. There were two choices: her next-door neighbor on the left, who lived five miles down the road and had cows who frequently broke through his fence and wandered into Lizzie’s fields; or the next-door neighbor on the right, who was a mere mile and a quarter away, and whose dogs frequently wandered over to check out the free-range cows.