She did too, didn’t she?
I groaned as her hands pushed inside my suit coat, sliding over my chest. It was much too enjoyable. Her needy fingers clutched at my shirt, holding me still as she explored my mouth with her tongue. My instinctual reaction was to pull away and correct this behavior before it escalated.
You are too old to fuck her on your office couch, and you can’t do it properly there, either.
I eased her back, and her eyes blinked open in surprise, finding my fixed expression. “Thank you for telling me.” Her face froze. She was confused and disappointed, but I ignored it and pushed forward, needing to get her back on track. “I’m glad you enjoyed my gift. You’ll take it home, and you’ll think of me every night while you use it.”
She swallowed so loudly I heard the click of her throat.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Excellent.”
James DuBois was a terrible shot, and I was glad for it. I’d made him partner with Damon, and they were currently in last place. I’d taken Sophia as my partner, and we were well ahead of the rest of the pack.
“That is quite a sight,” DuBois remarked the first time he’d watched her annihilate both targets within a quarter of a second. He eyed her with admiration and respect, and unwarranted pride filled me. She was my partner.
Mine.
As predicted, I’d done better today, but when I missed my second target, Sophia whispered to me under her breath, “Watch your flinch.”
I nodded, and then turned my gaze across the playing field until it located Damon. There was a small part of me that wished to be ignorant about who her real father was. To a much lesser extent, this impacted my family. I’d expected Vance to ride Damon’s coattails.
If DuBois’s book came out before the election, it’d put his entire campaign in jeopardy, and the timing wouldn’t leave any room to recover. It’d be more damaging to come out after he’d been elected. The scandal was a huge, dark cloud coming for him.
It frustrated me immensely that he hadn’t gotten out in front of it. What, exactly, was his plan? Did he assume he’d pay her off until one of them died? I’d thought he was smart. Something this volatile couldn’t exist indefinitely in the shadows. It was going to come out and destroy both his career and his family.
That was, if I told DuBois and if he published it.
The rest of our shooting party didn’t concern themselves much with the outsider in our group. The writer was unassuming and friendly, letting everyone else do the talking while he quietly observed, taking stock. He was grateful to let Sophia offer him pointers, and I watched from my seat on the lawn as she pulled the butt of the shotgun firmly against his shoulder.
Nearby, her true father waited impatiently for her to finish, and for the fiftieth time today, I welled the anger down to stay quiet. I couldn’t be reckless and brash or allow myself to be a slave to my emotions. I could lie in wait as she’d done and strike when the time was right.
It was hot in the sun today, a perfect July day with little wind and low humidity, but a bead of sweat trickled down the valley of my spine. I was glad when the match ended, so most of my guests would leave, and I could begin working toward my goals with DuBois in earnest, inside the air conditioning of my home.
“You were right,” Sophia said as she zipped closed her shotgun bag and slipped on a regular pair of sunglasses. “You were better today.”
It was surprising that I was more pleased about impressing her than with winning. Although we had done that, and easily. She’d only missed one bird out of the seventy-five rounds she’d shot. She hadn’t been distracted by Damon’s presence, but then again, she’d had twelve years of practice pretending he was little more than a stranger.
“Good luck,” she said in a hushed voice, lifting her chin toward DuBois. “But you don’t need it.”
I gave her a confident smile. “No, I don’t.”
Sophia ushered the rest of the guests toward the line of waiting carts, but I motioned to DuBois, signaling for him to come to me. “Shall I give you the tour?”
He gave a disarming smile.
We rode together in a golf cart up the winding path that would lead us to the back of the house.
“That was some party the other night,” he drawled.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Very much. You must be close friends with Mr. Lynch to put on such a thing.”
Sophia had told me to use every opportunity to be vulnerable, which I dreaded, but I understood its necessity. Also, I would make an effort to tell the truth, as long as I could put the right spin on it. I’d spent my life trying to achieve excellence, and now I had to show the struggle behind it.
“Damon and I were close when I was CEO, and he was supportive in the aftermath of my second wife’s death, so, yes. You could say that.”
DuBois had been looking at the grounds as we traveled along the path, but his gaze turned to me and sharpened. He hadn’t expected me to be quite so forthcoming.
“Supportive how, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“He understood I’m human and that I’d made a terrible mistake, but that it does not have to define me.” It wasn’t hard to fill my voice with contrition. In the months after I’d come home, I’d learned how to feel things again, and my remorse was genuine. “It’s what I do now that determines what kind of man I truly am.”
It was why I now hated Damon Lynch. As Sophia had said, he could have corrected his mistake, and chose every day not to.
“Well,” DuBois gave me a mischievous grin, “you’re a fascinating one, at least. Not what I was expecting, and I’m a generally curious person, but I haven’t quite figured you out yet.”
“I am private,” I admitted. “My name and fortune make that necessary.”
“Oh, I’m sure they do.” The cart eased to a stop, and we climbed out. “But to hear people tell it, you’ve changed since you’ve returned to Cape Hill.”
“Yes.” I gave him a direct look but kept my tone simple. “Losing nearly everything can have that effect.”
I went up the marble staircase and onto the patio, hearing his footsteps as he followed.
“I imagine so,” he commented. “If it’s of any consolation, I’ve only heard good things.”
Inside, I smiled, but I kept my expression fixed. “That is good to know. I have much to atone for, besides my wife’s death.”
I held open the door to the conservatory for him, but he paused at the threshold, staring up at me with surprise. “Oh?”
“I suspect I don’t have to tell a man as observant as you that the money and influence in this town can have a powerful effect on its residents. The people here are in a class of their own. Infallible and untouchable, and when accountability is removed, so are their inhibitions.” I did my best to affect a resigned tone. “I thought I was above reproach, and I’ve strived to do better, but this is how the rest of Cape Hill lives.”
DuBois stepped into the room, likely for no other reason than it was letting the air conditioning out. He scanned the space, which during Alice’s time here had been filled with plants and potted trees, but my housing staff had begun to scale back. It was more living space than greenhouse now.