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He wondered again if Lydia had a hand in her disappearance. That thought alone made him continue to play her game. “All right. So, what are you saying?”
“I told you. I think I found the person who is out to destroy you. And the evidence,” she said as she leaned over his desk and jammed a manicured finger onto the folder, “is right here.”
Grant flicked his gaze down to the photographs spilling from the container.
“Look at them, Grant!” Lydia shouted as she tugged back the top and shoved them closer to him. “Look!”
With a tight jaw, he glanced up at her, reading the emotions in her face. She was playing one hell of a role. With his eyes still trained on her, he collected the photographs and tapped them against the desk before he finally looked at them.
He swallowed hard, his heart thudded faster and harder as he recognized Julia in an unknown location. She stood alone, her eyebrows tight as though she was confused.
Was Lydia about to make a play, asking him to give up Harrington Global or something more in exchange for Julia? He studied it for another second, trying desperately to find some clue in the photograph that would tip him off to her location.
“It’s a picture of Julia,” he said. “Where is she?”
Lydia arched an eyebrow. “At a cabin that happens to be one of the properties I own.”
His palms turned sweaty as he waited for the demand. Had Lydia just admitted to kidnapping her, more or less?
“And she’s not alone,” Lydia added, motioning for him to go to the next picture.
Grant sucked in a breath, flipping to the next picture. He stared at an image of Julia and Kyle. He tried to ease the knot tightening his stomach. It wasn’t a surprise. She’d been last seen with Kyle.
“A few weeks ago, the cabin I own north of the city came up in a conversation with Karl.”
“Kyle,” he corrected.
“Whatever,” Lydia said with a wave of her hand. “Last night, he asked if I minded if he used it. Naturally, I got suspicious.”
Grant held back rolling his eyes at the words as she continued. “So, I checked my camera this morning. And what I caught…shocked me.”
He flicked his gaze up to her again. “You? Shocked? Really?”
“You can throw your little insults my way all you’d like, but it doesn’t change what’s on those pictures.” Lydia offered him a haughty glance.
He heaved a sigh as he flicked to the next picture. Kyle stood closer to Julia in this one, his hands on her arms, though she looked uncomfortable.
It twisted his gut more as he wondered if she was afraid. He couldn’t read the emotion in her eyes from this angle as she glanced up at him.
He shuffled to the next picture, his discomfort growing. Kyle’s arms were wrapped around Julia this time.
He snapped his eyes up to his ex-wife for a moment. She lifted her chin as she waited for him to continue his perusal.
With a sigh, he flipped to the next photograph. The image hit him like a physical slap. Kyle’s hands cupped Julia’s face as he kissed her.
He tried to keep his features neutral, but some of his unease over the photo crept across them anyway. He went to the next one.
She gazed up at his son, her hand against his chest. In the next, their foreheads pressed together, and in the next, their lips were locked again.
His mind raced. Part of him screamed in betrayal, but his more rational side recalled Lydia’s history of deceit. This had to be a trick. Lydia had created fake images of him with another woman, too. Though none of them were of intimate moments like this.
He tried to push his mind to believe this was all a hoax. But Julia’s odd disappearance without a word to him didn’t help matters.
Had she told him she was going with Kyle, he could have chalked it up to his son’s manipulations. But when she hadn’t said a word, that argument became harder to make.
Perhaps she had been taken against her will. However, the images of her in his son’s arms made that logic difficult, too.
“I’m sorry, Grant. I’m so sorry you had to see these.”
