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All the better to screw him over with.
He turned back to the rain-fogged view, the prickle of resentment going some way to cover the cramping emptiness in his stomach.
‘I’d prefer to stand, thanks,’ Cade said.
‘Suit yourself.’ Roman threw the remark over his shoulder. ‘Say whatever you’ve come to say, then get out. I’ve got work to do.’
Which would be true, if he could conjure up the energy to do any of it, but Cade didn’t need to know that.
Cade cleared his throat. ‘Okay, Roman,’ he said. ‘I don’t blame you for making this difficult. I deserve that.’
The prickle of resentment became a flood at the use of his given name. The condescending bastard.
But then Cade continued. ‘I’d like to start by apologising for my father and Cade Inc’s appalling behaviour towards you and your mother over the last thirty-two years.’
The words—delivered in a low voice, grave with purpose—didn’t register at first, the buzzing in Roman’s ears becoming loud and discordant. He swung round, forced to look at the man.
Terrific.Was he having audible delusions now, too?
‘What did you say?’ he asked. Surely, he hadn’t heardthatcorrectly. Was this some kind of a trick? To get him to drop his guard?
But Cade’s expression didn’t look cagey, or surly or combative. It looked one hundred per cent genuine. Reminding him for one agonising moment of Milly again—as if he needed any reminders of her.
‘I’m here with the head of my legal team, Marisa Jones,’ Cade continued, indicating the woman with him, who gave Roman a brief nod.
‘Hello, Mr Garner, nice to meet you,’ she said, as if they were all at a tea party in Buckingham Palace. What the hell?
‘I want to make some kind of restitution in the only way I know how.’ Cade swallowed, but his gaze remained locked on Roman’s. ‘It’s taken me a week to work out all the details. But I’d like to offer you fifty per cent of the Cade Inc shares and the real estate portfolio I inherited from my father. The property in the will included an island in the Bahamas, estates in New York, Paris and Melbourne and, of course, the ancestral estate inWiltshire. Take your pick. Although I should probably warn you, our ancestral estate is a total money pit.’
Our?
Roman jolted, certain he was having some kind of massive delusion now brought on by stress and exhaustion... And heartache.
‘Is this some kind of a joke, Cade?’ he bit out. ‘Because I’m not laughing.’
Why was the guy trying to mess with him? Hadn’t they already messed with him enough? He and his wife and his cute little daughter, and most of all his sweet, headstrong and unbearably hot and intoxicating sister-in-law?
‘Call me Brandon,’ the man said, which wasn’t a reply. ‘After all, you’re the only brother I’ve got.’
Roman swore a blue streak and collapsed into a chair to hold his head, which felt as if it were about to explode. Because now nothing—not one thing in his life—made any sense any more.
Cade took charge, because of course he did, the domineering bastard, ushering out the legal team and pouring Roman a glass of water from the room’s bar.
But Roman was only dimly aware of it. His mind reeling, and his emotions—which had always been so steady and predictable up to about three weeks ago, before a certain someone had tried to steal his boat—all over the place again.
He finally ran out of curse words. A glass of chilled water appeared at his elbow.
‘I think you’d better drink this,’ Cade said. ‘You look like you need it.’
‘What I need is a double shot of vodka and a Valium,’ Roman said, but took the glass and downed the contents in several quick gulps.
It didn’t do much for his cartwheeling emotions, or the cramping pain that had now tied his stomach into a knot, butat least it stopped him going for a gold medal in the profanity awards.
‘I can see I’ve shocked you,’ Cade began. ‘That wasn’t my intention. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here, but I felt I should speak to you in—’
‘Why?’ Roman interrupted him. He didn’t want excuses or clarifications, or carefully worded apologies three decades after the fact. Nor did he want any part of the Cade legacy, or the Cade money, not any more, because he had his own. But he did want to know what the hell was going on.
‘Why would you do this? When you hate my guts?’ he added, when Cade seemed nonplussed by the question.
