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“Damn straight you did. Well, don’t forget it again, you hear me?” he warned. “You might not like the consequences.”
Her father was treating everyone as if they were annoying interlopers. There was just no getting through to him today, she thought, annoyed clear down to the bone.
Turning on her heel, Marlowe left the boardroom as quickly as possible, wanting to get away from the man before she said something cutting and surly.
That, she knew, would make her no better than her father—and she didn’t have the sort of surly outlook to carry it off.
She was about to return to her office when she caught sight of Ace. He looked both angry and lost at the same time.
Impulsively, she hurried over to the man she had always regarded as her oldest sibling. Because they had two different mothers, Ace was actually her half brother, a fact that her father always emphasized for reasons known only to him, but she had never thought in those terms. Ace was her brother, pure and simple. And the DNA results, along with what had just happened back in the boardroom, didn’t change anything.
He was still Ace to her, just as she intended to be still Marlowe to him. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t say something to Ace in an attempt to make him feel better.
“Ace,” she called out to him. When he kept walking, she tried again. “Ace!”
Reluctantly, Ace stopped walking and turned around to face her. The look on his face was defensive and surly, as well as hurt.
“What?” he said bitingly.
“I just wanted to tell you that I don’t care what some DNA report says. You’re still my brother, Ace Colton, as far as I’m concerned, and I just wanted you to know that you have my full support, no matter what you decide to do. This was a terrible blow, but I know you. You’re going to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and find a way to come back from all this.”
He looked at her as if she were talking nonsense. “Excuse me, but have you met our father? Sorry, I mean your father?” He tersely pretended to correct himself. “The man doesn’t bend or give.”
“Yet. He hasn’t bent or given yet,” Marlowe pointedly insisted. “But there’s always a first time, Ace. And I know it’s going to happen.”
Ace laughed shortly. “I appreciate the Pollyanna pep talk, Marlowe, I really do,” he told her. “But right now I think that I just want some space from everything, if you don’t mind.”
Humoring Ace, she raised her hands as if to symbolically give him that space.
“You’ve got it, big brother. Just promise me that you won’t let that sp
ace turn into something that winds up becoming insurmountable.”
“Okay, I promise,” Ace said in an offhanded manner as he left. There was no conviction in his voice.
With all her heart, Marlowe really wished that she could believe her brother meant what he said.
Chapter 12
“Mr. Robertson, there’s a Ms. Colton asking to see you.” Bowie’s administrative assistant, Gloria Kennedy, who had been with the company since its very beginning, peered into his office. Looking like everyone’s kindly grandmother, the woman entered Bowie’s office only after knocking first and being told to come in. “Shall I tell her that you’re in a meeting?”
“But I’m not,” Bowie told Gloria, although he appreciated the fact that she was attempting to guard his privacy.
What was Marlowe doing here? he wondered. He assumed it had to be Marlowe, because why would any of the other Colton women have a reason to come to see him? Something must have happened, he thought. But what?
“I know, sir,” Gloria answered patiently. “But it is a Colton, sir, and...”
Gloria’s voice trailed off as if that lone fragment was enough to explain why she had kept the woman cooling her heels in the outer office.
Bowie didn’t bother debating the matter with his assistant. He normally trusted Gloria’s judgment implicitly, but this was an entirely different matter. Without saying another word, he strode into the outer office.
He was just in time to see Marlowe going to the outer door, leaving.
“Marlowe, wait,” he called out, crossing quickly over to her.
Visibly annoyed at the way she’d been treated by Bowie’s assistant, Marlowe made no effort to stop walking out of the office.
Bowie was quick enough to catch up to her, and he placed himself directly in the way of Marlowe’s escape route. He was now convinced that something had to be terribly wrong for her to come into what he knew she considered enemy territory to see him.
