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“Is there anyone else who would like to follow him?” Seth asked softly, his tone dangerous. “We all know he most likely never broke from the Council. Do any of you have the same problems?”
“We signed the agreement, Seth,” Brian Phelps sighed. “Hell, I don’t know what Valere was doing then or now, but I didn’t know what we were funding. And now, knowing…” He shook his head, sincerity evident in his scent and his expression. “Knowing doesn’t help my nightmares at night, I’ll tell you that much right now. I’ll be letting my nephew know the changes and they’ll be implemented upon our return.”
“Jason will fight it.” Bartel spoke up then, glancing at Brian. “He’s always fought Lawrence support to the Breeds. I think it dips too far into his inheritance to suit him.”
Phelps grunted at that. “Little bastard.” There was obvious affection in his voice. “He’s the only heir I have left. I’m stuck with him.”
“Adopt,” Dane suggested mockingly, rising to his feet, the sweet scent of his cigar curling around the room, teasing the senses.
Phelps shook his head with a smile, his reluctance to defend his nephew apparent. “He has his good points.”
“The ladies like him,” another member piped up. “Perhaps you could marry him off to an heiress.”
Now that the tension of negotiations was over, Dawn glimpsed another side to Seth’s board of directors, joking, teasing, bashing like little boys around a campfire.
Seth moved back to her, chuckling a bit.
“So, we have an engagement to celebrate?” Dane drawled as Seth’s arm curled around Dawn’s back. “Funny, I don’t see a ring, my friend. Surely you were prepared?”
Seth grinned as he stared down at her. “She keeps me off balance, Dane. But trust me, she’ll have a very special ring soon.”
Dawn felt pleasure warm her; she knew the flush that flooded her cheeks was as much from joy as from the appreciation directed her way by the board members.
“And now we have a party to get ready for.” Dane drew on the cigar, his gaze on Dawn, the brown of his eyes hiding secrets and amusement. “Will you save me a dance, beautiful?”
“All her dances are taken,” Seth assured him.
“He’s a greedy bastard,” Dane laughed. “Ah well, the lovely Cassie should be present. She likes me.”
“Yeah, for an old man,” Bartel snorted with laughter as Dane cast him a mock glare. “What are you? All of thirty?”
Dane grinned. “Look that old, do I?”
They all laughed.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, my fiancée and I are going to have lunch in our suite and we’ll join you and your families in a few hours for the party. Thank you again, and we’ll all look forward to the profits Sanctuary and Haven will bring in soon.”
“You’re such a businessman,” Dawn sighed as he pulled her to the door.
“There are definitely perks,” Seth laughed, his look heated enough, male enough, that she flushed as the others laughed again.
They filed from the meeting room as Seth curved his arm around her waist and they headed to their suite. She loved the way he touched her, how he allowed her to touch him. Needed her to touch him.
“Valere is going to be a problem,” she told him as they turned toward the suite. “He speaks out often against the Breeds’ role in the private sectors of law enforcement and security. Once he leaves the island, he’s going to find another way to hurt Lawrence Industries.”
Seth was silent for long moments before he spoke. “He and his father were very strong supporters of the Council. Though they covered it well. Finding proof of their activities to nearly impossible. They were the ones who originally pulled my father in. I swore while my father was alive, Roni would never learn that he had known all along what was happening in those labs. And he supported them anyway. Once I took over, after his accident, and learned the truth, I could barely stand to be in his presence.”
Seth remembered watching the news flash of his half-sister, Roni Andrews, when the press had attacked her in her hometown of Sandyhook, Kentucky. Wild-eyed, terrified, she had been a younger version of the maid Aaron Lawrence had seduced and fallen in love with years before. She had disappeared, and all the Lawrence money hadn’t been able to find her. Until that news flash. Until Aaron learned his daughter was the lover of a Breed. And he had been terrified. He had lost his son because of his involvement with the Council. He didn’t want to lose his daughter.
And he hadn’t. In the six years Aaron had lived after that, he had grown close to Roni. Before he died, she had called him dad. And Aaron Lawrence had died a happy man. He’d seen his first grandchild. Felt his daughter’s love. And he knew Set
h would never tell her the horrible secret he carried.
“She knew,” Dawn said softly, glancing up at him as they neared the suite. “Within days of his arrival Taber had the information, and Roni found it. He can’t hide much from her. She knew the worst of him, Seth, and she loved him anyway, because he was out of it. Because he was trying to be a father.”
Something, Dawn admitted, she hadn’t understood, but she had accepted Roni’s decision. The other woman found it hard to hate. She had her husband, her mate, Taber. And the happiness they found together had helped her forgive. Taber had helped it as well by encouraging it. The love the two shared went both ways.
“She never told me.” He nodded to Styx as the Breed opened the suite door when they neared it.
