She rubbed her temples. “I’m sorry, Dad. But you can imagine my surprise when I come down the steps and I hear for the first time that my father is dying of cancer.” She choked on a sob.
“I’m going to excuse myself. I’ll stop by in the morning,” Boone said as he stood. “Call me if you need me.”
“No. You’re not going anywhere. Not yet.” She spun on her heel and poked him in the chest. “Rylee White is your ex-wife and you didn’t think I should know that juicy little piece of information.” Her head throbbed, and her gut tightened and twisted. This was worse than having Steven make decisions for her when they were dating.
Boone dropped his gaze to his feet. “I try to forget that part of my life, and for the record, I had every intention on telling you; I just couldn’t find the right time.”
“Well, that part of your life killed my mother, and the right time would have been before you climbed into my bed.”
Her father made an odd sound.
“Sorry, Dad,” she mumbled.
“No need to be. At least you’ve got better taste in men these days,” her father said.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. That man all but killed Mom. How can you be even remotely okay with me being in any kind of relationship with him?”
“Paget,” her father said in that voice that used to make the hair on the back of her neck stand at attention.
It still did.
“First, that is not true,” her father continued. “Second, Boone isn’t a bad person. He just made a really bad decision in his choice of women, to which he’s rectified.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but Paget has a point,” Boone said, leaning against the railing as he sipped his scotch. “I am partially responsible for the product. I was CEO of Bone and White Research, and I was the one who created the original chemical compound. It was never meant to be used in a supplement. It’s actually used in medications for migraines and epilepsy. Now that’s an interesting story how we found out it worked for that.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Paget said.
“Don’t be rude.” Her father sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. He’d gotten stronger every day, but the doctors had warned her that he’d probably never be able to walk the stairs again, and they did tell her his days were numbered.
But they never hinted at cancer.
Damn HIPAA laws. She should have been told.
By her father when he’d been diagnosed.
Just like he should have told her about the loans they’d taken out to pay for her mother’s medical bills.
“She has every right to be mad,” Boone said.
Well, la-di-da. As if she cared what he thought.
“Before the compound was bought to the test market,” Boone said. “We found some disturbing problems, so I was about to kill it when we found if we changed the dosage and changed the foundation, it eased the effects of migraines and seizures. I thought that was the end of it. Of course, this was at the time that I was at odds with Rylee and where she wanted the company to go. And because the old chemical compound had some euphoric properties that made people feel calm and peaceful, she wanted to use it. I didn’t realize what she was doing and that is on me.”
“I’m sorry.” Paget shook her head. “Actually, I’m not. And I don’t want to hear this.”
“I do,” her father said. “And I think you should take a seat and listen to what he has to say because holding on to this anger isn’t good for you. Please, Boone. Continue.”
Boone nodded.
This was the last thing she wanted to listen to right now; however, she did want to know the truth. And better to find out from the source.
But that didn’t mean she’d forgive him.
“Rylee wanted to make money, and I wanted to make a difference in the world. We had fundamental differences in what we wanted for the company that we started. I lost the battle. Actually, your father is right. I gave up and gave it to her. But a friend of mine talked me into starting Maverick Medical. The same company that made the treatment your father took for his stroke to help ease the aftereffects.”
“That was your company?” her father asked. “That makes me happy. I’m really glad you’re still in the game.”
“Thanks,” Boone said.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Paget couldn’t believe what she was hearing, especially from her own father. “I honestly don’t understand how you can be so flippant about this.” Of all the things she’d learned in the last hour, finding out Boone Wilder was really William Bone had been the biggest blow.
He’d lied to her about the most important thing to her in the world.
And he played her for a fool.
She couldn’t tolerate that.
“Because Boone here is brilliant and your mother knew that. She did her research, only we didn’t know until it was too late that Boone and Rylee had split and Boone had left the company. We were too busy trying to ride the wave of what we thought was a major breakthrough with your mother’s cancer.”
“And that experimental drug your wife was on has been doing some amazing things,” Boone said. “But only in making patients comfortable in their last few weeks. It didn’t turn out to be the wonder cure everyone wanted it to be.”
“But we’re not talking about that treatment. We’re talking about the supplements you and your company sold to patients. The one that gave my mother a heart attack,” Paget said.
“That’s not as easy to prove without my notes and those my ex-wife destroyed.”
“What?” Paget blinked.
“One of the reasons I changed my name and just left,” Boone said. “I had been working on a synthetic compound to help combat some of the negative side effects of the experimental drug your mother was taking. It had some promising initial results in the lab, but we hadn’t done any human clinical trials yet. In the very first one, we found in some cases, it caused heart failure. Within two weeks of the study, I concluded the risks outweighed the benefits, and I canned the project.” His voice wasn’t defiant or defensive. It was strong and confident. “Nothing I ever created was meant to take as a vitamin. I’m a researcher in the medical field. I want to create medicine that helps save lives, or at the very least takes the edge off illnesses that have no cures or treatments. Like what my mother suffered from.”
But his tone also had a sad and slightly bitter edge.
“Or cancer patients like your mom. That’s always been my life’s work. So, when I found out your mom died—”
“Wait. You knew my mom?” Paget asked.
“Just her case because my company made the experimental drug she was on.” Boone shook his head. “And I didn’t know until after she died and I put it all together. But the point is I saw a pattern in some people who were taking the supplement that I wanted nothing to do with and that Rylee ended up using a watered-down version of my chemical compound.”
“You’ve totally lost me,” her father said. “And you’re making my head spin.”
“In a nutshell,” Boone said. “Rylee took a substance that could only be given by a doctor via prescription and altered it. But I can’t prove it, and she took the supplement off the market so I can’t reverse engineer it. If I can do that, I might be able to prove Rylee was at the very least negligent.”