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“Marilee sends her love.”
At the mention of his second wife, his father’s eyes seemed to flash with a newfound anger. Marilee, thirty-two years younger than her husband, had divorced him soon after his accident and, in a turnabout’s-fair-play move, married his oldest son. It was destiny, of course. OH2 had introduced them when he’d been dating Marilee McIver himself. But the old man had decided to woo her away while OH2 was in his final year at Stanford.
It was a powerful feeling watching the old man suffer in this gilded cage, even while he was attended to by a bevy of private nurses and aides, all of whom knew how to keep their mouths shut.
God, he looked bad.
A thin corpse of a man who had probably given up his will to live.
And yet . . . did one of his fingers move a bit, or was that a trick of light? Afternoon sunlight streamed through the garden and the Joshua tree before slanting past the half-closed blinds that decorated the bed in shadows that reminded OH2 of prison stripes, those he’d seen in old black-and-white movies. Surely, it was his imagination, but, wait . . . there it was again. Just a slight movement on the crisp white sheet.
Startled, head snapping a bit, he met the old man’s gaze once more. Oh, Jesus. Was his father actually smiling? His lips hadn’t moved in his freshly shaved face, but there was a distinct twinkle in his blue eyes, a malicious spark that indicated he wasn’t done yet.
Or was it Junior’s imagination? His guilt? He began to sweat in his sharp suit, despite the fact that the temperature and humidity in the room were climate-controlled to a perfect seventy-one degrees.
He studied the old man. No more movement. Good.
Shaken, he decided to end this charade of a family visit. After clearing his throat, he said, “Take care, Dad,” without an ounce of warmth.
To his surprise, the old man made a gurgling sound, and his gaze moved from OH2 to the doorway where a nurse, a tall woman he’d never seen before, appeared. Her name tag read SHAWNA. On quiet footsteps, she was at his father’s bedside in an instant, and OH2 took his leave. He’d made the dutiful, obligatory visit and gained a sense of renewed power from it. He knew the old man watched his back as he strode out of the room, something his father would never be able to do again, but OH2 was still worried. He glanced over his shoulder, and for a second, he thought he saw his father raise a hand to wave, but that was impossible, and when he blinked, the hand lay where it had been, where it was supposed to be, on the edge of the bed’s coverlet.
He was losing it.
He tugged at the knot of his tie, which was suddenly far too tight, but with each step on the carpet, he reminded himself that his father was basically a quadriplegic. He needn’t worry. Everything was fine.
Striding down the bright hallway with its windowed view of the garden, a desert landscape, he felt the urgency to do something. For once, he didn’t know what. He skirted a woman bent over a walker and breezed past, barely giving her a glance, though she said, “Hello.” He didn’t have time for any of this. Past the main desk, he made his way to the entry doors and punched in a private code so that the doors to this expensive prison would unlock and he could step out and breathe again. As the glass slid away, allowing him to exit, he slipped on a pair of sunglasses and stepped into the brutal Nevada heat.
His mood was as sour as it had been when he’d driven into the lot of Fair Haven. If he’d thought the visit to his father would restore his sense of power, he’d been mistaken. With a shake of his head, he forced himself to forget the old man for the moment. He had a more important item on his agenda. His latest “project,” that of securing his own heir, had turned into his own personal hell, at least according to the phone call he’d taken just before driving here to his prearranged, weekly visit. Crossing the landscaped parking lot to his Mercedes, he unlocked the car, slid into the sunbaked interior, and pounded a fist on the steering wheel.
“Son of a bitch,” he said under his breath in frustration.
Maybe the problems with securing the boy child were all of his own making. He had the girl, and that should be good enough. These days, gender didn’t matter as much.
To the world maybe.
But not to him.
He wanted a son, damn it. One that was as close biologically to himself as possible. Was that so hard? When one was available?
For the right price.
He rammed his key into the ignition and twisted. His sports car roared to life, and he backed out so quickly he almost hit the rear end of a ridiculously long pickup that was parked in the short row behind him. He missed that immense bed by inches, which was just good enough.
Jamming the gearshift into drive and stepping on the accelerator, he wondered if he’d trusted the wrong person, made a bad decision, but second-guessing wouldn’t help now. They needed to rethink the project. He cracked his window until the air-conditioning kicked in, and at the end of the long, fenced lane of the facility, he headed toward the heart of the city.
Within twenty minutes, he was back at the condo but still tense, his penthouse with its incredible view seeming somehow lacking this afternoon. Yanking off his tie, he glowered through the windows. How could everything have gone so wrong? A second botched attempt to get his son—his son. He swore loudly, then punched the air, wishing he could hit something or, more precisely, someone.
Unwelcome, an image of his father flitted through his brain, and in his mind’s eye, he saw the old man as he’d been in the hospital bed, but somehow tossing off the bedclothes and rising, like Lazarus, fully dressed in an expensive power suit, white shirt, and bold tie.
“S
top it,” he muttered, just as the door to his study clicked open, and he recognized a familiar but uninvited face.
“You botched it!” he accused, grateful for someone other than himself to blame.
“Complications,” was the unacceptable explanation.
“You should have prepared for any event, any ‘complication,’ any glitch. Instead,” he said evenly, trying to hang onto his cool, “you came back empty-handed.”
