AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You don’t. You don’t need to know. He’s gone now. It’s too late. He’s gone!” She shouts out that last statement, shaking with the words, and on another sob, she falls to her knees. I go down on my knees in front of her, scared now with the intensity of her reaction. “Mom. Mom, are you okay? Do I need to call for help?”
She sucks in a breath and grabs my arm. “Xanax, by my computer. I need a Xanax.”
I glance at the bottle and back at her. “How many have you taken?”
“None. None today, but give me the whole damn bottle. I can’t take this pain.” She reaches for it and I grab it.
“No,” I say. “One. Just one until you see a doctor.”
“I loved him. I really loved him. Now he’s gone and I can’t fix it. I’m alone. So very alone.”
I don’t feel the sympathy for her that I should and I don’t know why. This is my mother. She’s hurting. I just—this isn’t the person I know. I read the label on the bottle and stand up, opening the bottle to count pills while she crawls to the couch and sits down. Satisfied that I’m not helping her overdose, I offer her a pill. She downs it in between sobs and sips of coffee.
“I can’t believe he’s gone. I did this. I did.”
“What does that mean, mother?” I demand, sitting on the table in front of her. “What does that mean?”
She buries her hands in her face and sobs some more.
“Mother.” I grab her hands. “I need to know what happened.”
“We thought it was Eric he was after, not your father.”
“He’s not my father,” I say, feeling a pinch of guilt for saying that right after he died. It’s just—he wasn’t my father. “And what do you mean, coming for Eric? And who iswe? What is this about? Eric?”
“Yes. Eric. Isaac’s mother had an affair. He’s not the real heir. He’s not even a Kingston. Eric is the heir.”
I blanch, stunned by this news. “How can that be?”
“She fucked around, Harper. How do you think it can be? And her lover, Isaac’s father, is dead. It was a car accident, they say, but I don’t buy it. Why do you think he ended up dead right after Eric was introduced to the family? Isaac knew he wasn’t the heir. He didn’t want anyone to find out.”
I blanch. “Isaac knows?”
“His mother told him,” she says. “And he killed her, too.”
“Why would he kill her? Wasn’t she on his side?”
“I have no clue, but Gigi is certain that he did.”
I blanch. “Gigi knew about it?”
“Yes. She’s why all this came out. She hated Isaac’s mother. She was looking for something to control her with and found more than she bargained for. Everyone knew but his father.”
“Gigi didn’t tell him?”
“Isaac was the grandson she’d helped raise. She didn’t want him disinherited and treated like an outcast. Then Eric showed up. That’s when Isaac’s father died, by the way. Someone wanted him gone. You can guess who that was.”
“Isaac or Gigi?”
“She says it was Isaac. I don’t know. Maybe Gigi killed them both to protect Isaac.”
I can barely catch my breath. I swallow bile and force my voice to stay steady. “How do you know all of this? How can you be sure it’s even true?”
“Gigi told me. She panicked when Isaac got the mob involved with the family. She thought he was going to get us all killed, which he might just do before this is over. She told me everything then.”
“But you didn’t tell your husband?”
“She was sure Eric would take the company if he knew he was the heir, so she needed you to be his damsel in distress, to appeal to Mr. Navy SEAL to save the day.”
