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The surge of defensiveness and anger became a tidal wave.What the actual...?
Could Lacey and her brother-in-law actuallybeany more insulting? What were they implying, exactly? That Roman had some ulterior motive for sleeping with her?
‘Fine. Terrific,’ Milly said through gritted teeth. ‘Let’s get it over with, then.’ She marched past Lacey, striding towards the house, and Brandon’s study.
But even as she forced her irritation with her sister and Brandon to the fore, determined not to let them derail her happy glow, she couldn’t seem to dispel the sinking feeling in her stomach, and the hideous sense of uncertainty and confusion that she remembered from being that broken teenager, standing in the Golders Green crematorium, convinced she was somehow responsible for her father’s indifference.
Roman stared at the spot where Milly had been standing, sending him hot looks, only moments before, and tuned out the conversation from the government underling who had been boring him senseless for ten minutes. Right now, all he cared about was what Lacey Cade had just said to Milly. Not to mention the old lady she’d been talking to before that.
She’d gone so still. Her body rigid with shock.
Then, when her sister had approached her, she’d glanced his way. He couldn’t read her expression from this distance. But the sense of foreboding, ever since they’d boarded the helicopter this morning, had hit critical mass as the sisters had left the garden together.
So what are you doing standing here?
‘Take this up with my PA, Geoff,’ he murmured, dismissing the underling, before heading through the crowd after them.
He dumped his full glass of champagne on a passing tray as he left the party and entered the estate’s impressive gardens. As he strode through the ornate flower beds, the sculpted hedgerows, the late summer twilight starting to fade into night, he paused for a moment, disorientated. He couldn’t see Milly. Panic pressed on his chest. But then he spotted the two women, walking past the arched windows of a summer gallery.
He forced himself to follow them through stained-glass doors into the mansion itself.
The place smelled of the fresh flowers artfully arranged in large vases, and new paint. But even so, as he made his way down the long corridor past portraits of people who might well be blood relations, the atmosphere felt oppressive and made the panic and the anger crush his ribs. The priceless antique furnishings and elaborate art made a dire contrast to the places he’d grown up in. The two-room bungalow in Hampstead he barely remembered, which Alfred Cade had rented for his mother before he got bored with her; the damp walls of the council flat where they’d ended up and the increasingly dilapidated homes in between; right up to the tiny bedsit he’d lived in as a teenager after her death. Each home had been more soulless and squalid than the last, until his hard work had begun to pay off.
The centuries-old splendour surrounding him now only reminded him of all the Cades possessed. And the old resentments he’d finally buried eighteen months ago, after making his first billion-dollar deal and acquiring Drystar ahead of Cade Inc to break the story of Brandon Cade’s illegitimate kid, rose up his throat again.
He’d had no qualms about breaking that story at the time. And he had no qualms about it now, he thought, even though his stomach churned at the memory of that little girl beside Millystaring at him so guilelessly and stating something her father had always denied.
Finally, he reached a lobby area with a vaulted ceiling. A large winding staircase led to a balcony above, which no doubt led to the other wings of this palace. He forced himself to refocus, and rebuild his anger, to alleviate the crushing pain in his chest.
He caught the sound of voices coming from an open door on the opposite side of the space and walked towards it.
‘Please, Milly, don’t get upset, okay.’ It was her sister’s voice. Pleading, conciliatory. ‘We’re not trying to turn you against Mr Garner, we’re just telling you about the source of the stories that came out about Ruby, and me and Brandon.’
‘Roman’s not responsible for everything the magazines he owns print. That’s ridiculous!’
Milly was defending him. Her voice sure, and unwavering. But it only made the tension in his stomach add to the weight in his chest.
How could she be so sure? So certain? Especially as she was wrong about his involvement in that story. And why did he now feel more ashamed of how vociferously he’d had his columnists pursue Cade and his wife and child at the time? He’d had every right to expose the Cades’ generational hypocrisy. After all, Brandon Cade had done to that little girl exactly what their father had done to him—denied her existence.
But then came another voice. His brother’s voice. Measured and direct, and firm, determined to destroy Roman all over again.
‘Milly, you’re young. And you’re obviously falling for him. He’s a charismatic man. Which he uses to his advantage. But believe me when I tell you, from the dealings we’ve had with Garner Media, Roman Garner is also extremely ruthless. How can you be sure he didn’t date you and offer to support yourwork to get a tactical advantage for his business because of your connection to me?’
Roman felt something snap inside him, making the visceral rage he had made himself bottle geyser up. And he was thrown back to that day when he’d begged that bastard to give him a chance. He’d been too cowed and desperate at the time to use their relationship, but he was damned if he wouldn’t use it now—to stop Brandon Cade from trying to prevent him getting what he wanted all over again.
Milly’s voice, calm and still so sure of him, poured fuel on the fire of injustice that had burned inside him then too.
‘Because I know Roman,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t do that. He would have told me...’
He marched into the room. Milly turned, her face lighting up when she saw him. He basked in it for one bittersweet moment, but then his gaze connected with Cade.
‘Well, well, well, isn’t this cute?’ he said. ‘How very bourgeois and entitled of you to assassinate my character without even giving me a right of reply.’
Instead of looking astonished though, or even guilty at the nasty trick he’d tried to pull, Cade tensed his shoulders and the self-righteous glare—which he had no right to whatsoever—intensified.
‘Garner. Why am I not surprised to find you sneaking around my house like a bad smell?’
The derogatory statement made the final straw snap on Roman’s control.
