“A croupier stick?” I asked, momentarily sidetracked by the husky intent in his tone.
“My makeshift crop at Inequity. Check the marks on your sweet ass in the mirror, I’m sure it will spark your memory,” he said, drily.
Heat burned in my cheeks. “Stop distracting me. I called for a reason. Why was it important that you became our guardians?”
“Bianca––”
“No, I’m not mad or anything, I just need to know. It has something to do with Lane’s supposed hidden will, right?”
“Well, now we know there probably is a will if that key he left in your painting is anything to go on. But yes. My private investigator found a gap in Halcyon’s history.” I knew the name of the Constantine’s Fortune 500 acquisition company and my heart started to pound even harder. “They’d acquired a company near the end of Lane’s life called Colombe Energy Investments––”
“Dad’s green energy company,” I supplied, mind whirring. “He named it after me. Colombe is Latin for––”
“Dove, yes, I figured that out.”
“So, you think Dad left the company to Brandon and me in his will?”
“I do. It seems like Halcyon hasn’t had control over the company or profits from it in the five years since he passed away. Seeing as how its grown into one of the leading green energy conglomerates in the country, this is obviously surprising.”
“Obviously,” I whispered, struck dumb by the revelations. “You needed guardianship of me so you could gain control of the company when you found the will. It would be a complete embarrassment to the Constantines for a Morelli to takeover a lucrative company that should have belonged to them.”
Tiernan’s silence was answer enough.
“That’s why you took me in,” I whispered as my thoughts stampeded through my head, creating enough clamor to make my ears ring.
Through the cacophony, I couldn’t make out what Tiernan said next.
“I have to go, I’ll call you back later,” I said swiftly before ending the call and tossing the phone on my bed.
I couldn’t tell Tiernan that Caroline had been trying to make me a Constantine. He’d go ballistic in a way I was sure both he and the Constantines would not recover from. He would also undoubtedly insist I return to Lion Court immediately, but I refused to leave without checking Lane’s locked office.
I grabbed my robe from the chair and tugged it on as I darted from my room and down the grand staircase to the main floor. Lane’s office was in the left wing of the house, on the opposite side of Caroline’s like a matched set. Of course, it was locked, but I had an idea how to open it.
Henrik answered my call on the first ring.
“Anca,” he said, his rich baritone pouring through the line like molasses. “Are you calling to have Ez come pick you up? We miss you.”
I froze for a moment despite my urgency to properly absorb his words. When I spoke, my voice was whisper soft, “Miss you too, Henrik. But I’m not coming home yet. I’ve got some things to figure out…like how to open a locked door without a key.”
His laughter boomed in my ear. “Of course, you do. I told Tiernan we weren’t good influences on you and Brando.”
“You’re the best,” I insisted, holding the phone to my ear as if it was Henrik himself.
“Does this mean you are coming back to us?”
My heart ached at his vulnerable sincerity. “Yes, it does. Just as soon as you help me break into Lane Constantine’s office.”
“We might have to change our nickname to The Gentlemen and A Lady at this point,” he teased before sobering. “All right, give me the details of the door.”
A few minutes later, the phone tucked between my ear and shoulder, my tongue pressed between my teeth as I concentrated, I pressed a bobby pin I’d twisted into an L-shape into the bottom of the lock and then jimmied a second piece above that, pushing deep enough to engage the tumblers.
It took me five minutes and approximately twenty tries to get the damn door open, but finally it gave with an anti-climatic snick.
“I’m in!” I squealed.
Henrik laughed and clapped. “You’ll be an international jewel thief in no time.”
“Gotta dream big,” I agreed, giddiness bubbling in my blood like Champagne. “Okay, I’ve got it from here, thanks, Henrik. And, um, could you not tell Tiernan about this yet? I’ll explain everything later.”
He hesitated for a moment. “You’re safe?”
Warmth flooded my chest. “Yes, Henrik.” At least for now.
“I’ll keep your secret then, on the condition that you’re home tonight. Brando’s organized a Christmas play to welcome you home.”
Laughter burst from me at the thought of my little brother directing Tiernan, Walcott, Ezra, and Henrik in some kind of Christmas theatre. “You’re kidding.”
“Not at all. Tiernan’s the Grinch,” he added, waiting as I almost split my side laughing until saying, “Kid’s a little genius. He waited until after his episode the other day to ask Tiernan and the guy couldn’t say no.”
I shook my head even though I still felt sick that I’d missed two of Brando’s seizures since I’d been with the Constantines. “I can’t wait to see it. To see all of you.”
“Tonight,” he said, a promise and a demand.
“Tonight.”
I ended the call and slipped the phone in the pocket of my robe before turning the ornate gold door knob and pushing into my father’s office.
The scent hit me immediately, a muted smokiness from the Dior cologne he always wore mixed with the leather of richly bound books. Instantly, I was taken back to being a girl rushing into Dad’s arms whenever he arrived back home with us. The feel of his strong arms closing around me, his murmured laughter as he squeezed me tight and pressed his nose into my hair.
“My little dove,” he’d murmur into my ear as if it was a secret.
A sob lodged itself in my throat, but I forced it down with a hard swallow and turned my attention to the contents of the room.
It was a large space dominated by floor to ceiling book shelves in glossy mahogany that matched the palatial desk in the middle of the space. There was a fireplace directly behind that topped by a mantle lined with framed photos and above that, a painting that took my breath away.
It was, by far, Picasso’s most iconic dove painting. Titled simply Dove, it was a white bird on a black lithographic ink wash. The starkness of the background made the fragile creature starkly beautiful, utterly pure. The simple print had become the basis for the symbol of the Paris Peace Conference in 1949 and from then on, a notable motif for peace around the globe.
And one of the five original prints was hanging above the mantle in my father’s office.
A crater opened in the center of my chest at the thought of Dad sitting there every day with a symbol of his peace, a symbol of me, watching over him.
There had been an awful melancholy residing in my heart since the moment I realized Dad didn’t live with us the way normal dads did, the moment I realized he had another family that would always demand more of his time than he could ever to give to us. I wondered, as any child would have, what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I be better enough to make him want to stay? Why wasn’t our love enough?