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And for God’s sake, that might not even be a consideration. Because she’d pissed off Sam by being so invasive. By pushing his mother until she’d cracked.
Would he be able to forgive her?
Another concern was how this affected Michael. He appeared quite troubled by the revelation and how it’d come about. Because he hadn’t been so welcoming of his stepmother from the get-go? He hadn’t given her much of a chance to prove herself worthy of his father’s affection and replacing the matriarch of this estate?
Possibly. And now he knew the story of how Karina and Mitcham had fallen in love. The impediments she’d encountered because she’d followed her heart.
It couldn’t have been easy walking through these doors the first time. Scarlet actually could empathize with the woman since she’d felt a similar challenge when she’d sat down to a lovely brunch in the home of a family who had invited her in—and then she’d finagled a bombshell that had left Michael and especially Sam reeling.
Scarlet got to her feet, and Karina did the same. Scarlet shook her hand and said, “I truly am sorry I had to put you on the spot. I hope you’ll—” Scarlet let out a sharp breath. “I have no right to ask for your forgiveness or your understanding. Just please know that I wish I was meeting you all under a different scenario.”
“I can accept that,” Karina graciously allowed.
Over her shoulder, Scarlet asked Michael, “How can I get back to the airport? Should I call a car?”
“Of course not. We’ll take the helicopter.”
“Would it be all right if I stepped into the restroom first?” she asked.
“Out the double doors and to the right.”
She left Michael and Sam with Karina, knowing they’d need a few private minutes with her. From the look on Michael’s face, Scarlet suspected he had an apology to make. And then there was Sam.…
Scarlet had no idea how that interaction between son and mother would play out. In all honesty, that was Sam and Karina’s business.
So Scarlet wasn’t surprised when Michael joined her in the hallway without his stepbrother.
She said, “You don’t have to accompany me back to the city. I’m sure you have other things to take care of.”
“I am going back with you.” He kissed her forehead. “And I want you to stay the night at my apartment. I think it’s important that you do.”
She stared up at him. “After what I just did?”
“Your job? Scarlet, I knew you wouldn’t be satisfied unless you had a chance to speak with Karina. Am I happy that she actually did have something to hide? Hell, no. But on the other hand … This is the first time she’s opened up about her struggles here in this house, in this town. And I’d never heard the story of how she and my father fell in love. My guess is that he never wanted her to discuss it with me, because he wasn’t able to bring himself to talk to me about it. Make no mistake, I heard every word she said. It—”
Michael let out a low growl as sheer agony flashed in his smoky eyes.
He said, “I thought of her as someone who’d taken advantage of a distressing situation. Turns out, all she did was pour the man coffee and let him work out his troubles and the pain inflicted in his head while she quietly stood by, obviously providing some sort of reassuring or comforting presence to a man who was wrecked. Now I have my own debt to pay. I owe her my gratitude.”
Scarlet wound her arms around his neck and held on as he tightly embraced her.
“I feel horrible for upsetting Karina,” she told him. “I wish she wasn’t someone I’d suspected of wrongdoing.”
“I know. And I appreciate that.”
Scarlet buried her face in the crook of his neck, trying to get her bearings, compose herself. It took a while and Michael didn’t rush her in any way. Eventually, she released him and stepped away. “What about Sam?” she asked. “He has to be livid with me. Not to mention shredded by now knowing what his mother has been silently going through all this time.”
“They’re talking. At the moment, he’s mostly concerned that she’s okay. That she realizes this doesn’t make her a bad person in mine or Sam’s eyes. She’s a victim of circumstance, Scarlet. I respect that she’s held her head high no matter the roadblocks and setbacks.”
“I’m glad something good came out of all of this,” Scarlet told him. “Karina doesn’t have to carry the secret around her sons and you see her in a better light. I believe she truly loves your father. And in so many ways, everything she does is to protect him. That’s valiant, even if she did periodically stumble.”
“I can’t dispute any of that. I can, however, admit guilt in not making it easy for her when she first came to live with us.”
“I don’t think she’d want you to harbor any guilt, Michael. She clearly saw the big picture from the beginning. She just wasn’t fully equipped to deal with it all, so she turned to vices in order to cope. She’s not the first, or the last. Sam and I did the same.”
Michael’s expression darkened. “Such as?”
“I’ll explain some other time. What I’m saying is that Karina obviously isn’t proud of her secret behavior and that’s understandable.”
