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Sick horror washed over her, momentarily blotting out the hurt. Oh, God.
From the moment I left my nanny s care until I was able to be free of my grandmother, I lived
a nightmare. I was made to believe there was nothing redeeming about me, that I was a bad seed. He
paused, as if the rest of what he wanted to say didn t want to come out. Part of me& part of me still
believes that.
Oh, no. He s so broken.
The thought crystallized in her mind as she stared into his eyes, clearly seeing the torment that
had been heaped on him year after year, decade after decade. All that horrific abuse had broken him,
and she didn t know how to fix him.
Worst yet, in that moment she didn t even know if she wanted to try.
That alone destroyed her heart.
Frank Bournival would have never raped anyone. At last she dug her voice out of the pit of
despair trying to bury it, and she hardly recognized the thin, fragile sound. He didn t have a cruel
bone in his body.
I have learned this as well, and in recent months I had begun to allow myself the hope that no
rape took place at all that my conception might not have been the horrible event I was told it was.
The reason I began to doubt my origin was because I was approached by a man by the name of
Marcel Dubois.
Marcel& A faint frown flickered as the name cut through the layers of suffocating shock.
Wait. There was a greedy little cockroach by that name who worked for Frank near the end. I
discovered that Dubois was fleecing money from Frank with every check he wrote on the company
account.
He nodded, his mouth flattening into a grim line. A couple months ago, Dubois came to me
out of the blue. He said he had information about how I should have been in Frank Bournival s will to
receive an inheritance worthy of a son receiving something from his father. He further went on to
claim that you had managed to influence Bournival s decision as to where this inheritance should go.
But Dubois has since altered the story by saying that Frank was the godfather to my mother, but still
intimated that Bournival could be my biological father.
Ew. She then bit her lip, regretting the comment. But he nodded in what appeared to be total
understanding.
As sordid as that may seem, I still prefer that to being the product of a rape.
She could understand that. I don t understand what any of this has to do with me.
Dubois said that his employer spoke of me while finalizing his will. Bournival reportedly
made many notes that ultimately explain why he chose to leave me nothing in favor of giving both you
and House Of Payne what I should have inherited. Dubois suspected these notes would still be in
existence somewhere in your possession, since you inherited the penthouse and all its belongings.
When I originally approached you, all I wanted to do was find out if you were the type of person who
would willingly allow me to look for any leads on who my biological father might be. But you were
so cagey and suspicious when we first met that I could not get a decent read on you. It seemed like
you had something to hide.
That I had something to hide? That had to be a joke, and a bad one at that.
He had the grace to wince. I know now that this first impression I had of you was way off-
base.
So& She shook her head, trying to order her thoughts. It didn t help. Let me get this
straight. When you first approached me with that load-of-crap project idea, you were actually thinking
that& that I d cheated you out of your rightful inheritance by sleeping with a terminally ill man?
That makes it sound far worse than what it actually was.
No. That sounds like the truth.
I had no clue what the truth was. Nor did I know the person you were when I first began to
look for answers. If it helps any, I assure you that I am not after any of Frank Bournival s money. I
make my own.
And the jokes just kept coming. Oh yeah, sure, that helps. That helps tons.
Pain etched into his features and he reached out to her. Look
She almost fell, she backed away so quickly. Don t.
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