I sat up again, ignoring the pounding in my head as I swung my feet over the side of the bed and stood up. I couldn’t be there for Celia right now—I wasn’t up for it physically or in the right frame of mind—but my temper raged on through the repercussions of last night’s overdrinking, strong and bold and unrelenting.
And while I had yet to decide what to do with Hudson Pierce, I now, at least, had somewhere to focus my anger.
Thirty minutes later, still wearing the clothes I’d slept in, Madge Werner opened the door of her penthouse apartment to greet me. “Edward, what a surprise to see you so early.” Then, she got a good look at me. “Oh, goodness, you look terrible. What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“Cleo’s fine. Where’s your husband?” I pushed past her, leaving the foyer in pursuit of the son of a bitch. “Warren?”
I found him in the hall wearing a robe and pajama bottoms. “Morning, Ed.” If he was startled to see me, he didn’t show it, barely giving me a nod before heading toward his office. “Phone’s ringing off the hook, people wanting a statement. We’ll want to coordinate with Murphy on the company’s official stance, but my lawyer’s already on it. Nothing to worry about on this end.” He paused at the door so he could give me his full attention. “And we can still appeal, you know. Be sure we’ll appeal.”
“You most certainly will not appeal,” I snapped.
Madge gasped behind me.
Warren frowned slightly, his expression perplexed, as though he hadn’t heard me right. “What was that?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. The two Advil I’d found in the hotel minibar were not working as well as I would have liked, the terribleness of my headache adding fuel to the volcano churning inside me.
There were things I needed to say. Important things that needed to be heard. While I was desperately close to just “blowing,” it wouldn’t be productive.
I took a breath to calm myself. “Warren, sit down.” I nodded at the couch in his office.
His frown became more severe. “Can this wait? I know you have concerns about this whole Ron debacle, but—”
“Sit. The fuck. Down.” So much for being calm.
He was so stunned, he did without further objection. I pivoted to find his wife sneaking off toward the kitchen.
She gave a fake smile. “I figured I’d just leave you two to—”
“You should sit down as well, Madge, since this also involves you.” I managed to be softer with her, but only barely.
“Oh. Okay.” She went dutifully to the couch, folding her hands in her lap. Celia had definitely not inherited her need to buck authority from her mother. Her father then?
Actually, she’d probably developed it as a survival technique since Warren wasn’t really an authoritarian either. He was entitled, which was entirely different and more annoying as far as I was concerned.
I moved to lean my backside against Warren’s desk, taking the place of command in the room. By that time, Warren’s irritation at being ordered around in his own office caught up with him, and he stood back up. “What’s going on with you, Edward? Whatever this is, it can’t be so important that it needs to happen now. In case you haven’t heard the news from London, I have things I need to be doing.”
I gave him an intense glare that sent him sinking back into his seat. “Yes. You do have things you need to do. Defending your good-for-nothing brother is not one of them.”
His irritation escalated to frustration. “Hey, now, that’s uncalled for.”
“Is it, Warren?” I folded my arms across my chest, my gaze piercing into him. I’d come here with an agenda, but I hadn’t quite worked out this part of the confrontation. Despite the current disagreement with my wife, spilling the details of her abuse felt disloyal. But I didn’t need to spill anything, did I? Warren already knew. “Think about it before you answer because you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Madge looked from me to her husband. “What’s going on?”
“I think you should leave,” he said coldly, his eyes pinned on me.
I gave him a quick smile that held no warmth. “I bet you do. But I’ll assure you that I am not leaving. It’s past time that we had this conversation. The only reason I didn’t confront you sooner was out of courtesy to Celia, hoping she’d eventually deal with you herself, or that, miracle of miracles, you’d behave like a decent father and reach out to her on your own, but you aren’t a decent father, are you, Warren? And it isn’t really fair to expect her to approach you considering the reaction she got from you the last time.”
His jaw tightened. “I don’t have to listen to this. In my own home. Madge, call security.”
She stood immediately, as though it were a habit to do as her husband bid, but she stopped just as quickly when I said, “Madge, you need to hear this, and I believe, you are ready to hear it.”
“Leave her out of this,” Warren said with as much hostility as fear in his tone.
It was understandable, really. I couldn’t imagine the terror of having to admit how he’d betrayed Celia to anyone, let alone her mother.
Madge hesitated, deliberating. When she spoke, she looked at me. “Is this about Ron? Ron and...Celia?”
“No,” Warren said.
“Yes,” I said simultaneously.
She swung to face her husband. “Warren, you told me that nothing happened. You promised me that nothing happened.”
So she’d guessed. It was reassuring, at least, to find out the woman wasn’t as clueless as she’d seemed. Though she should have had the balls to ask her daughter about it, not her worthless, cowardly husband.
“I said...well.” Warren was flustered. “I’m sure I didn’t promise anything.”
“You did,” she insisted, her tone growing shrill. “When I asked you if it was possible if anything happened, you said there was no way. That all of the charges were a fabricated lie from a money-grabbing ex-girlfriend. And when I brought up how odd it was that Celia had wanted to stop seeing him so abruptly as a teen, when I said I had a bad feeling about it, you said...”
She trailed off, but I didn’t have to hear the rest of the conversation recapped to know the basic premise. “He lied.”
“I didn’t lie,” Warren barked. “I didn’t know anything, honey. I still don’t.”
Lying piece of dirt. “You did. He did, Madge. He knew because Celia came to him as a teenager and told him that her uncle, a man she had trusted and looked up to, had been grooming and abusing her for years.”
“No,” Madge half gasped, half cried. “Oh God. No.” She sank back to the couch, her face ashen.
“And then,” I continued, “after all the courage it took to tell her father, the man who was supposed to love and protect her above all else, he accused her of lying.”
“She told you?” she asked, incredulous and horrified.
Warren shifted toward his wife. “It was so long ago now. I can’t remember exactly what she said. You know how kids are. The things they say to get out of spending time with family.”