Drop Dead, Gorgeous Part 8

She laughed. "Yeah. That's it."

"And you don't see how ridiculous that is? My word against his? So, maybe I do have papers, but how hard would it be for him to counter what I have with what he has and make me look like some gold-digging fool from the sticks? You don't see anything wrong with this picture?"

"Oh, I've seen it. And I know how it'll play out. You'll go to him for money, and he'll laugh in your face."

He looked at her like she was crazy. "So you know I won't get anything out of this?"

"I don't know any such thing, Frank," she said seriously. "He may pay you to go away, just like he's paying Joel. But if he doesn't..."

"If he doesn't, and I go public, then I'll end up looking like a fool."

"Or you could end up with more money than you ever dreamed of."

This didn't make sense. What did she really want? And then it dawned on him.

"You need a distraction," he said, finally figuring it out. "If he's busy with me, then he's not going to be paying attention to something else." The look on her face told him that he was right. "What is it?" This time, he was the one looking for her to give away her secrets. "That oil company," he eventually said. "That's it. Isn't it? I start a scandal now, and old boy's too busy trying to clean up one mess while you start another one."

Lonnie looked out into the crowd walking past the two of them. "When was the last time you spoke to your father, Frank?"

He didn't answer.

She looked at him. "Did he tell you that Jordan was your brother?"

He thought back to his visit with Joel, the first one in nearly twenty years.

"You came all the way out here to ask me that?" the old man asked, looking disappointed, and looking something else too. "Who told you about him? Who you been talking to?"

"Is it true?" Frank didn't want to hear that it was. He'd hoped his father would laugh at him and ask him what kind of joke this was he was trying to play on him.

Joel squinted at him. "What you askin' for?"

"Because I'm your son too. Like it or not, I am."

Joel rolled his eyes and groaned. "I never said you wasn't," he growled.

Frank had a long-a.s.s argument that he could've come back with about how he barely ever saw Joel, and how it was easier for his a.s.s to send a check than it was to pick up the phone and call. But now wasn't the time.

"Is that man my brother?"

The old man's face turned to stone. "He ain't your brother any more than he's my son," he said gravely. "And it's best you leave that alone, boy. He ain't the kinda man you wanna know."

"How do you know?" Frank asked bluntly.

The muscle in Joel's jaw ticced as he clenched his teeth.

"Because he is your son," Frank concluded.

The man shifted his focus toward the window, trying to hide the pain in his eyes. "Not anymore." His voice was ragged. "Not in a long, long time."

"What if he does pay up, Frank? What if he thinks it's easier to pay you then deal with the scandal, publicly? Like you said, a public scandal would be a distraction, one he doesn't need right now. Or, if you like, you can put your faith in Colette and Reggie, and take your chances with them. It's up to you."

Lonnie pulled her purse onto her shoulder, stood up, and walked away, and left Frank with one h.e.l.l of a dilemma.

Right On for the Darkness "What the f.u.c.k do you mean they held the meeting?" Jordan marched through the long corridors of Gatewood Industries headquarters, leaving his office and heading toward June's. He was talking to the chief financial officer on his cell phone. "I canceled the G.o.dd.a.m.ned meeting before I left for Houston!"

"June rescheduled it, Jordan," the man said apologetically. "I reminded her that you had canceled the meeting, but her a.s.sistant had sent out the meeting notice before she'd ended the call."

Jordan cut the man off and stormed into June's office at the end of the hall. She was perched on the edge of her desk, talking to that sidekick administrative a.s.sistant of hers. June had handpicked the woman for the job.

"Jordan," she said, startled, hopping off of her desk. "I thought you weren't due back until tomorrow."

Jordan glared at Vickie or Nickie or whatever the f.u.c.k her name was. "Leave," he said simply.

She paused, looking at June for permission.

"We'll finish up later, Lisa."

He waited for Lisa to leave, closing the door behind her.

"How was your flight?" she asked casually, taking refuge behind her desk.

"Who told you to convene the acquisition team meeting, June?"

With everything else going on in his world right now, the last thing Jordan needed was to babysit his little sister. June had been a mild annoyance since she'd moved back to Dallas and insisted on coming to work for the company. He'd entertained it, only because she was his sister.

"I didn't see a reason not to, Jordan," she said, calmly crossing one leg over another.

She looked like Julian. June was lighter-skinned, with green eyes. People always marveled over how much more she looked like their father and how he looked so much like Olivia, their mother.

"It was a simple enough agenda," she continued. "And I figured that we could handle it while you were gone. One less thing for you to have to worry about." She smiled.

Now she was just trying to push some b.u.t.tons. Jordan found himself uncharacteristically amused.

"I've been running this business a long time, June," he said with a smirk. "You'd be surprised by all the things I'm capable of worrying about."

"You're worried that I'm stepping on your toes?" June smiled. "Don't, big brother. I'm here to help, and if I can take some of the heat off of you, then why shouldn't I?"

June stood up, walked over to him, and pressed her hand against his chest.

"Baby sister has a great big MBA with an emphasis in finance. She's mere inches from getting her PhD, big brother." June smiled up at him. "I know what I'm doing."

He looked down at her, and forced away the image of his twelve-year-old sister. "So do I, June-bug," he eventually said.

He'd allow her some room to push, but only to a point. Jordan would entertain her muscle-flexing as long as it didn't get in his way. But the moment she pushed too hard, or those muscles of hers got too big, Jordan would have to do some flexing of his own.

"I'll have Lisa send you the meeting minutes right away," she said a.s.suredly. "And you'll see. The meeting went great, and you'll be signing the deal on Anton before you know it."

As promised, Jordan had the meeting minutes in his inbox by the time he made it back to his office, and the notes did look promising. As he read through them, Jordan's cell phone vibrated. He had a new e-mail from Edgar with an attachment.

Call me, his message said.

Jordan clicked the PLAY b.u.t.ton for the video, and then picked up the phone and dialed Edgar's number.

"I got your e-mail," he said when Edgar answered.

The couple were sitting on a bench inside the mall talking.

"You recognize your former lady love, Lonnie Adebayo," Edgar said sarcastically. "But do you know who the man is?"

Jordan paused the feed and studied the man's face. "No."

"Frank Ross," Edgar explained. "She hired him for protection."

Suddenly, Jordan thought back to the day when Lonnie first contacted him a few weeks ago. There had been a man leaning next to a car outside the house.

"Okay," he said cautiously.

"He's an expolice officer from a town called Cotton, just east of El Paso, and now owns a security firm in Paris, Texas, about a hundred miles northeast of here."

"I asked you to find me Lonnie, Edgar. Not some ex-cop turned bodyguard," he said irritably.

"The woman is staying in the Fuller Building downtown. Condos-but the property isn't in her name."

"Whose name is it in?"

"That I don't know," he said with a sigh. "But I didn't send you that feed because she's in it. I sent it because of the gentleman she's sitting with."

"What about him?"

"Are you telling me that you don't see the resemblance, son?" Edgar said gravely.

Jordan was already frustrated from his earlier encounter with June, and now Edgar wanted him to play guessing games?

"Edgar, I really don't have time..."

"He's Joel Tunson's son, Jordan. A son from an affair he had with a woman in Cotton. Frank is your half brother, and I suspect she knows that and that she and good old Frank are planning to out you, so to speak," he said.

"Out me," he repeated, introspectively.

All those threats and this was as good as she could do? Jordan leaned back and sort of chuckled to himself. Lonnie's evil scheme was to dangle some wayward Tunson over his head, and expect for Jordan to tuck his tail, cringe in fear, and what? Beg and plead for the man not to tell his story to the media? Or pull out his checkbook, sign it, and hand it over, letting this cat fill in the blanks with as many zeros as his little heart desired?

"This has got to be a joke," he said, unimpressed, as he stared at the video and focused his attention more on that Frank Ross than he did on Lonnie.

He'd squashed the Tunson threat a long time ago. Jordan had confided in Edgar, who didn't seem surprised at all about Jordan's confession that Julian wasn't his biological father.

"If Desi Green wants to produce a photocopy of your so-called birth certificate"-he shrugged, casting his lure into the lake-"let her. She's got copies but we've got an original to dispute it."

"But what about Joel Tunson?" Jordan asked, concerned, while Edgar continued to fish.

"What about him? If Joel Tunson hasn't come forward by now, he's not going to, and even if he did, it's his word against yours." He smiled. "My money's on yours."

"She has a knack for flair, this Lonnie Adebayo of yours," Edgar said. "Beautiful woman too, still."

Edgar was careful not to say it, but his remark implied that she was still a beautiful woman, even after what Jordan had done to her.

"She's got a knack for the sensational," Edgar continued. "She could've avoided all of this, had one of her reporter friends publish the birth certificate indicating Joel Tunson as your father."

"But her intention is to make me suffer, to drag this thing out in dramatic fashion and make me sweat, wondering what she could possibly have on me. If this is as good as it gets, then I must admit, I'm disappointed."

"I can imagine what she's promised Frank Ross: money, maybe fame," Edgar said dismally. "It's a shame to drag him into this."

"He looks like a big boy from here, Edgar," Jordan quipped. "If he thinks he can hang with the big dogs, let him try."

Keep Some Proud on My Face "Seventy-two hours, my a.s.s." It was Jordan's voice Claire heard arguing with the doctor outside of her room. "Do you have any idea who she is? Who I am?"

"Your wife tried to kill herself, Mr. Gatewood. Do you understand what I'm telling you? She tried to take her own life! A seventy-two-hour hold is protocol in cases like this."

"My wife accidently cut herself gardening," he grunted. "Get me the administrator!"

"Sir, that's not-"

"Get me the d.a.m.n administrator or you let me take my wife home!"

Claire just wanted to sleep. She was so tired of trying so hard, for so long, to get him to love her. She was tired of the women ... of this woman- How come he needed another woman so much? He had Claire. She would do anything for him. She would die for him. He knew this. She'd proven it.

"Alright! Alright! Just leave her overnight for observation. Please! We need to keep her at least for the night, and then-she can go home tomorrow."

Claire waited for him to come back into her room, pull a chair up close to her bed, and to stay the night with her. She'd only done this to show him how much she loved him. Claire had done this to herself to prove to him that she would do anything for him-anything! She fell asleep thinking about him. When she woke up the next morning, Claire was alone.

They had sold the house. Claire sat next to Jordan in his office at home, across from Geneva Harris, signing the doc.u.ment formally accepting the buyer's offer.

Years ago she had begged her husband to buy the cottage. Three months ago, she'd suggested that they sell the place, since neither of them had set foot in it since ... Jordan didn't protest when she asked him about selling it. His indifference about the issue was cla.s.sic Jordan, and a few weeks later, the house was on the market.

She watched as her husband signed his name. Was he as relieved as she was to be rid of this place? This should have been the end of it, finally. That dark episode in both of their lives should've ended with his signature, but seeing Lonnie the other day resurrected a part of Claire's life that she'd regret for as long as she lived.

The image flashed in her mind of the night she walked into that house and saw Lonnie lying there, naked and beaten on the floor in the living room. Claire had left the hospital and had gone to the cottage instead of going home because she wasn't ready to see her husband. She remembered driving down the road toward the house, crying and accepting the fact he never loved her, and it was just a matter of time before her marriage was over.

"Mrs. Gatewood?" Geneva held the pen out to Claire.

Claire took it and signed next to Jordan's signature.

"This was a fabulous offer," Geneva went on to explain. "Twenty-five percent above asking is unheard of these days in this market, but the buyer was determined, to say the least." She smiled.

"Well, his determination is our gain," Jordan said, glancing at Claire. "You say he's European?"

"Yes. I believe he's from Wales. Mr. Durham. Phillip Durham."