“No, he won’t. If he did make an unsecured loan of that magnitude using Prospect Trust funds, he’d had to have done it behind his Board’s back and in violation of federal trust company laws. If it’s not repaid on schedule, the only thing that will happen publicly is an announcement that Monteverdi is taking early retirement to ‘spend time with his family.’” Edward shook his head. “I understand your wanting to know more, but I’m not sure where you think that’s going to get you. The debt is not yours to worry about. You live in Manhattan now. Why the sudden interest in those people who live at Easterly?”
“They’re our family, Edward.”
“So?”
Lane frowned. “I get that you don’t feel like William Baldwine’s son. After the way he treated you all these years, how could you? But … what about the house? The land—the business? Mother?”
“The Bradford Bourbon Company has a billion dollars in yearly revenue. Even if you go net, not gross, on that figure, whether the personal debt is fifty or even a hundred million, that is not a catastrophic event considering how much stock the family owns. Banks will loan between sixty to seventy percent of value against an investment portfolio—you could finance the payback of that amount on your own right now.”
“But what if that isn’t all that’s been borrowed? And shouldn’t Father be held accountable? And again, I ask, what about Mother?”
“If I went down the rabbit hole of wanting some kind of justice against that sire of ours, I’d be flat-out insane. And the last time I heard, Mother hasn’t been out of her bed except to take a bath in three years. Whether she’s at Easterly or in a nursing home, she won’t notice the difference.” As Lane let out a curse, Edward shook his head again. “My advice to you is to follow my lead and distance yourself. I should go even farther away, actually—at least you have New York.”
“But—”
“Make no mistake, Lane—they will eat you alive, especially if you follow this avenging road you’re on.” As he fell silent, he felt a brief moment of surging fear. “You’re not going to win, Lane. There are … things … that have been done in the past against people who tried to come forward about certain issues. And some of them were done against family members.”
He should know.
Lane went over to the bay window, staring out as if its drapes were not closed. “So you’re saying you won’t help me.”
“I’m advising you that the path of least resistance is best for your mental health.” Physical, too. “Let it go, Lane. Move past, move on. That which you cannot change must be accepted.”
There was another stretch of quiet, and then Lane looked across the stale air between them. “I can’t do that, Edward.”
“Then it’s your funeral—”
“My wife is pregnant.”
“Again? Congratulations.”
“I’m divorcing her.”
Edward cocked an eyebrow. “Not the typical response of an expectant father. Especially given how much child support you’re going to owe.”
“It’s not mine.”
“Ah, that explains it—”
“She tells me it’s Father’s.”
As their eyes met, Edward went very still. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You heard me. She says she’s going to tell Mother. And that she’s not leaving Easterly.” There was a pause. “Of course, if it turns out there are money problems, then I won’t have to worry about our father’s bastard living in our family’s house. Chantal will go elsewhere and find another wealthy idiot to glom on to.”
As an odd pain shot up Edward’s forearm, he glanced at his hand. Interesting. It had somehow locked onto the Beefeater bottle with such a strong grip that his knuckles were nearly breaking through his pale skin.
“Is she lying?” he heard himself ask.
“If she’d named anyone other than Father, I would say maybe. But no, I don’t think she is.”
As Samuel T. emerged from the wine cellar and strode off, he found that ignoring the woman he’d just screwed was an issue of survival. Her voice was enough of an energy suck; if he actually focused on her words, he would probably slip into a coma.
“—and then we’ll go to the club! Everyone’s going to be there, and we can …”
Then again, the exhaustion he was battling probably wasn’t her. It was more likely the result of putting down his weapons after a decades-long battle.
What he was clear on was that he’d had to fuck someone in there, on that table. It was his way of wiping the slate clean, metaphorically burning the last memory he had of being inside Gin here at this house. And the other sites he’d been with her at, whether they were at his farm, or in hotels internationally, or out in Vail, or up in Michigan? He was going to knock them off, too, until he’d covered up every single recollection with another woman.
“—Memorial Day? Because we could go out to my parents’ estate in the Loire Valley, you know, get away …”
As the prattling continued, Samuel T. was reminded of why he preferred to sleep with married women. When you had sex with someone who had to worry about a husband? There wasn’t this expectation of a relationship.
The stairs back up to ground level couldn’t arrive in enough of a hurry. And even though he was ready to take them two at a time just so he could lose the chatterbox behind him, he was enough of a gentleman to stand aside at the bottom and indicate for her to go first.