His Baby
Muriel Jensen
The Abbots: A Dynasty In The MakingHe says it's overKillian Abbott, head of the Abbott family's fashion conglomerate, feels his blood boil at the mere mention of his wife's name. He fell under Cordie's spell, entranced by the cloud of fiery hair and that creamy skin, but when he found her with another man, it was like being doused with a bucket of cold water.She says it's only just begunDesperate to rekindle Killian's passion, Cordie impetuously hatches a plot. The baby she's carrying will lure him back to her the way nothing else can. Her daring scheme appears to be working when he invades her Manhattan apartment and carries her off to his Long Island home. Once they're alone, victory should be just a kiss away. Except, some things never go according to plan….
“If it’s an Abbott, it’s mine.”
Cordie had a horrible feeling that she understood what Killian meant, but she had to be sure. “You said you didn’t want to reconcile.”
“That’s right,” he told her.
She folded her arms so he wouldn’t see her hands tremble. “You’ll keep me until the birth, then take the baby away from me?”
“We’ll work out a deal.”
Without thinking twice, she struck him hard on the shoulder. “You don’t deal over a baby.” To herself she added, This isn’t part of the plan. You’re supposed to invite me back into your life! “I’m not giving up my claim to the baby,” Killian said unequivocally.
“It’s mine!”
“It’s ours. And trying to pretend I don’t figure in his life isn’t going to work.”
She was suddenly aware that her plot had a serious pitfall. Killian was going to fight her for the baby. And he had an army of lawyers. “You’re hateful,” she said in a heartfelt whisper.
He gave her a brief nod, as though it was of no consequence. “I gathered you felt that way when you slept with Brian.”
Dear Reader,
The Hamptons on Long Island, New York, have always held a fascination for me. My only experience with the area is what I’ve seen at the movies or in decorating magazines. I love the notion of a sprawling, beachy house decorated in shabby chic and fronted by lawn and sea grass that meanders to the ocean. I can visualize Japanese lanterns, smell clam boils and barbecues, and hear music and laughter.
Of course, my writer’s mind has to populate this place. I decided upon three brothers who’ve inherited the family wealth and business, but still bear guilt over a little sister who went missing twenty-five years earlier.
In my imagination, this sunny upscale place became Losthampton, and I created Killian, Sawyer and Campbell Abbott to live there with various members of their household and staff. Over the course of this series they will attract three strong, wise women who help them heal, and make their lives more interesting—and surprising—along the way.
Thank you for wanting to know them.
Best wishes!
Muriel
P.O. Box 1168
Astoria, Oregon 97103
Books by Muriel Jensen
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
866—FATHER FOUND
882—DADDY TO BE DETERMINED
953—JACKPOT BABY * (#litres_trial_promo)
965—THAT SUMMER IN MAINE
His Baby
Muriel Jensen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
THE ABBOTTS—A GENEALOGY
THOMAS and ABIGAIL ABBOTT (arrived on the Mayflower; raised sheep outside of Plymouth)
WILLIAM and DEBORAH ABBOTT (built a woolenmill in the early nineteenth century)
JACOB and BEATRICE ABBOTT (ran the mill and fell behind the competition when they failed to modernize)
JAMES and ELIZA ABBOTT (Jacob’s eldest son and grandfather of Killian, Sawyer and Campbell; married a cotton heiress from Virginia)
NATHAN and SUSANNAH STEWART ABBOTT (parents of Killian and Sawyer; Nathan diversified to boost the business and married Susannah, the daughter of a Texas oilman who owned Bluebonnet Knoll)
NATHAN ABBOTT and CHLOE MARCEAU (parents of Campbell and Abigail; renamed Bluebonnet Knoll and made it Shepherd’s Knoll)
KILLIAN ABBOTT is married to CORDELIA MAGNOLIA HYATT
His brothers are SAWYER and CAMPBELL
His sister, ABIGAIL, is still missing
Contents
Chapter One (#u86b2c18d-4ee3-51e5-88dc-877e36da54e9)
Chapter Two (#u04ecbef8-7aef-50c5-a7c1-5bcf254d41ad)
Chapter Three (#uf703a98c-f4a5-5a73-a888-f8910ad5415d)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Killian Abbott strode to the small bar behind his desk while Jack Eagan went on with his report. Jack was new, but proving to be the most competent human resources director Abbott Mills, Inc., had ever employed, so Killian listened with only one ear while he poured coffee and wondered what to do about the small chain of Florida clothing stores—Florida Shops—his stepmother wanted him to buy.
The investment wasn’t a big one, just a couple of million dollars, but the acquisition would make Chloe happy because the owner was a friend of hers. Still, the purchase was a distraction he’d prefer not to deal with right now with a divorce in the works and the November Corporation always looking for a break in the wall to attempt a takeover of Abbott Mills.
“Productivity is up eleven percent in the mills, and sales are up more than twenty percent in the stores. We think the new gyms are responsible for some of that. Morale’s up, injuries and accidents are down, and—” Jack, who’d stood when Killian had, stopped talking as Killian handed him a mug of coffee. “Mr. Abbott,” he said with an air of distress. He was older and conscientious and had come to Abbott Mills with a long history of managing household staffs in England. “I wish you wouldn’t wait on me, sir. It makes me nervous.”
Killian pointed him back into his chair and sat on the edge of his desk with his own cup. “It makes me nervous when you stand every time I do. I’m not titled gentry, Jack, just your employer. And you don’t have to call me ‘sir.”’
“Yes, sir.” At Killian’s frown, Jack closed his eyes and groaned. “Even after two years at Southern Massachusetts University, studying business and psychology, I’m having trouble getting the drift of American ways.”
“Just relax.”
“Yes, sir.”
Letting that issue drop for now, Killian indicated the file from which Jack read. “Go on. Productivity and morale are up. Good.” Adding an exercise room to every Abbott Mills store and all other factories the corporation owned had been a good idea. “Injuries and absenteeism are down. I like that.”
Jack held his cup uncomfortably and searched for his place in his notes with his index finger. “Mrs. Hamilton reports that the new cleaning firm we hired for the Dartmouth store is working out very well, as is the new buyer for women’s wear, who came on board last month.”
“All good news,” Killian observed with a smile. “There now, that wasn’t so bad.”
Jack smiled with relief. Killian liked reports given in person rather than dry written reports read at board meetings, and this was Jack’s first. Tall and thickly built, the man had the posture of a marine at fifty-six. When Killian had interviewed him, wanting the right man for the job, he’d asked him why he’d left England after almost a lifetime.
Jack had replied that he’d been widowed, and his only son had died in his teens in a riding accident. “I felt old and aimless,” he’d admitted candidly, “and thought I needed new surroundings.
“I’m here to stay,” he’d said. “You’ll notice on my references that I was with the duke of Burrage for twelve years, until he lost the house to taxes. Then I spent twenty-two years in the service of Lord Dunnsford. I like to put down roots.”
Killian had hired him. He, too, favored roots.
That had been almost three months ago, and he now considered it the smartest move he’d ever made as CEO of Abbott Mills.
Except for Jack’s tendency to treat him like royalty.
The coffee was good—a Zimbabwe blend his secretary, Barbara Garrett, had bought at a little coffee roaster’s on the ground floor of the Abbott Building. The personnel report was good—one more thing he wouldn’t have to worry about in the next few months. And the sun warming his back through his midtown Manhattan window was good, reminding him how nice getting home this weekend, maybe logging some time on the beach, would be.
Jack sighed, obviously pleased. “I’m glad that’s over, sir. Mr. Abbott.”
“But you have to stop thinking of coming to this office as an appearance before the throne. We’re a pretty democratic company.
“Here we all work together in the service of our customers, so to speak. You’ll relax after you’ve spent time with everyone at our annual meeting.”
Jack looked doubtful. “I was told it’s at your home on Long Island this year. Is that true?”
“Yes. We usually get together at a big hotel to meet new members of the staff, look over Abbott Mills’s new products and plan strategy for next year. Last year was great for Abbott Mills and I want everyone to know how much I appreciate the hard work. You’ll give your report to the corporate staff and I think you’ll have a good time.”
“I will?” Jack’s voice went up an octave.
“You will. You did this very well. You’ll be fine. Everyone will stay for the weekend, enjoy the grounds and the beach. It’s a painless way to get things done.”
“Yes. Mr. Abbott.”
Killian took the copy of Jack’s report and perused it. “Anything else I should know about?”
“I don’t think so, sir. The written report has a little more detail, but it all relates to the highlights I’ve already given you. The personnel picture is very good.”
Killian nodded, flipping through the pages. He stopped when he came to the profile of the new employee in women’s wear. She’d been a lucky find, so Jack had told him when he’d hired her as a buyer. She had an MBA and considerable experience in the fashion business. Jack had been enthusiastic about her people skills and her knowledge of—Oh, God!
Killian’s hands froze on the report when his eyes ran over her previous experience. Buyer for Bloomford’s department stores. Three years as marketing manager for Hyatt Furniture in Newport News, Virginia.
Hyatt Furniture!
Three years modeling for…André McGinty!
Dread rising in him, he reread the vital identifying information.
Name: Cordelia Hyatt.
Killian surged to his feet and said a few words Jack had probably not heard among the English gentry, judging by his sudden blanching. Killian slapped the report on his desk and turned to confront Jack, unable to believe the man had done this to him. He was not surprised to find that Jack, too, had gotten to his feet.
“What, sir?” Jack asked in a calm voice. “What is it? Whatever it is, I can fix it.”
“You damn well better, Jack,” Killian replied, temper barely held in check. “You just hired my wife!”
Jack stared at him for a confused moment. “You mean…the one you’re…divorcing?”
“Yes, the one I’m divorcing!” Killian shouted. Then, remembering that he never shouted, he drew a breath and counted ten beats of his heart. That didn’t take long; it was thumping. “How many wives do I have?” he asked reasonably. “Cordelia Hyatt is my wife.”
“Forgive me, sir, but I didn’t know that.” Jack spoke quietly, though he appeared distressed. “When I was first hired, I’d heard rumors of your divorce after only three months, but I didn’t know…I mean…I’d heard your wife was in Scotland. Brokenhearted, everyone said.”
Brokenhearted. Killian glared at him. She had not been brokenhearted. She was just used to having things her way and she’d wanted him very badly. Losing him had simply been a disappointment. One she should have anticipated when she slept with Brian Girard, marketing manager of the November Corporation and son of Corbin Girard, its CEO.
The Girards and the Abbotts had been in serious competition for the upscale ready-to-wear market for years, and Killian’s father and Corbin Girard had hated each other. Killian and Brian had always felt obliged to suspect each other because of that situation. That the press and society put them in opposite corners of the business ring contributed to their contentiousness.
The Girards had been threatening a takeover of Abbott Mills for several years now, and though Killian felt confident that the corporation was too secure for that to happen, the weight of responsibility for a business that had been in his family for over two hundred years made him worry anyway.
Jack squared his shoulders under Killian’s stare. “That’s what they said,” he insisted. “How was I to suspect she’d be back wanting employment? And you must admit that this trend among American women to retain their maiden name contributes to this kind of confusion.”
Killian had to grant him that. He went to the bar behind his desk, ignored the coffeepot and poured himself a shot of bourbon. “She did take my name,” he said, gulping it down. It burned a trail down to his stomach but failed to provide the warming comfort he waited for. He had to acknowledge that it probably wasn’t coming. And he had a meeting with his advertising rep in half an hour; he couldn’t have a second drink. “I’m sure she took advantage of the fact that you were new to the company and wouldn’t recognize her if she used her maiden name.”
Jack asked quietly, “What do you want me to do, sir?”
There was only one answer to that question. “I want you to terminate her.”
Jack stared at him a moment, then cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Abbott, but you sounded a little like Tony Soprano there. Please define terminate.”
Killian looked into the man’s eyes, wondering if he really doubted what he meant or if he was trying to inject a little humor into a tense situation. “Don’t kill her, Jack,” he replied gravely. “Just fire her.”
“On what grounds, sir? I understand she’s already struck a rapport with her staff and everyone they work with. She’s booked at all the shows for the fall season. Trilby says there’s a renewed dedication among the—”
Killian stopped him with a shake of his head. Trilby Brown was Jack’s assistant and had been with Abbott Mills for seven of her twenty-seven years. She and Cordie had mutual friends and had known each other before Killian had met Cordie. “Trilby knows she was my wife,” he accused. “And she didn’t tell you?”
Jack shook his head and firmed his jaw. “She didn’t, sir. In her defense I can only guess she thought you knew and approved of the hire.”
Killian gave him a pitying look. “Tell me you don’t really believe that.”
Jack sighed. “I’m not sure, sir. There seems to be a cunning charm among American women that’s outside my sheltered experience.”
“Yeah.” Killian put an arm around Jack’s shoulders and led him toward the door. “Mine, too. On second thought, it isn’t fair to ask you to handle this. I’ll take care of it myself.”
“But, it’s my responsi—”
“No.” Killian cut him off firmly. “Cordie is my responsibility. I’ll handle her.”
Now Jack gave him a pitying look.
CORDELIA MAGNOLIA HYATT Abbott wielded the nozzle of a clothing steamer in the back room of the women’s wear department of the Abbott chain’s flagship store on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, just a few blocks from the Abbott Building. She was surrounded by tops and pants in tangerine, limeade, sunshine and summer blue. The playful garments in cotton-candy colors had been shipped tightly packed and now required touching up before they could be put out on the sales floor.
This was her last chore in what had been a long day of unpacking and tagging new stock, and she couldn’t wait to get home to her apartment and put her feet up. She should stop by the gym first and fit in a workout, but she wasn’t up to it today. A wedge of sausage lasagna, raw veggies and dip from Rocco’s Deli were much more appealing. Fattening, but appealing.
Perspiring from the steamer, she reached into the pocket of her protective smock for a tissue, then dabbed at her forehead and around her half glasses. With the one hand, she finished work on the last blue shirt.
Then she heard sounds of arrival beyond the curtain that separated the stockroom from the sales floor.
“Hi, Mr. Abbott!” That voice belonged to twenty-year-old Candy in the junior department, who thought their boss was a “major babe.”
“Mr. Abbott! Hello!” Eleanor, in formal wear and now an assistant manager. She’d been with the company since Killian’s father, Nathan Abbott, had run it, and she considered Killian “a dear.”
“Hey, Mr. Abbott. How’s it going?” Hunter, who’d been union shop steward at her previous job, had admitted to Cordie that she’d been disappointed to learn that Abbott Mills didn’t have a union. Until she’d been around long enough to realize the company didn’t need one. But she felt the need to watch out for any infractions of a labor-management nature. She thought Killian was “a model of modern administration.”
To Cordie, he was all those things, as well as the beat of her heart, the breath in her lungs and the absolute love of her life. Unfortunately, he had issues that also made him a complete doofus where she was concerned. She’d let him drive her away three months ago, but she’d had time to rethink her reaction and plan strategy in the seven weeks she’d spent in her father’s hunting lodge in Scotland.
So when Killian swept the curtain aside and invaded the stockroom, she faced him with a new resolve, born of her realization that even though he was completely wrong about her in every way possible, she loved him utterly and she was not going to let him ruin their lives as he was determined to do.
Actually, she was convinced it was his own life he was bent on destroying, but since hers was so woven into his, it would be ruined, too.
“Killy.” She glanced at him with a friendly smile as she went on with her steaming. Secretly, she wished she weren’t perspiring and wearing a messy smock. She’d wanted to be wearing a ball gown at a party when he saw her again, and looking gorgeous. But that had been a silly, self-indulgent thought. “What a nice surprise. What brings you to Abbott’s West?”
She had to keep steaming, keep pretending that her heartbeat wasn’t choking her and her hands weren’t shaking. This plot to get him back had to work.
She’d hoped to find that the time spent without her had changed him. She was sad and a little hurt to see that it hadn’t. He didn’t appear tired or depressed, and there was no evidence of regret in the Paul Newman–blue of his eyes. Annoyance was clearly visible there, not regret.
His wavy light brown hair was brushed away from a high forehead in the same old way, strands of blond springing up despite the designer gel she’d bought him to try to keep his hair in order.
His features were also the same: a slash of eyebrows darker than his hair over those dramatic eyes; a strong, straight nose; square teeth in a mouth that at the moment was thin-lipped and tight, but that she knew could be warm and clever; a nicely shaped chin in a square jaw that matched the line of his broad, square shoulders.
He was very tall and very fit, and if she stepped up to him her cheek would rest against his chin.
But he’d hate that right now, and she’d had all the rejection she could stand for a while. That she’d applied for and charmed her way into this job meant she was willing to open herself up to rejection again—but not this minute.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Killian demanded as he took several steps into the room. He wore one of the dozen Armani suits that filled his wardrobe, this one gray and quietly elegant.
She pretended surprise at the question and held up the steamer nozzle. “Working,” she replied. “You require that of employees, as I recall.”
He yanked the nozzle out of her hand and leaned down to turn off the machine before draping the hose over it. When he straightened, the last puff of steam lingered between them like mist in the last scene of a love story. But she guessed their story wasn’t going to have a happy ending. At least not yet.
“I don’t want you working for me,” he said, folding his arms as he frowned down at her. “I can’t believe you had the nerve to do this.”
She, too, folded her arms, and regarded him with the same disdain he focused on her. “Well, you should have thought of that before you hired me.”
“I didn’t! A new employee who didn’t know we’d been involved hired you.”
She arched an eyebrow, proud of her cool demeanor. “Involved? We were married, Killian. That goes a step further than involvement.”
He leaned his weight on one hip and mimicked her raised eyebrow. “Really. But not far enough to prevent you from sleeping with another man while you were supposed to be on a business trip. And not just any man, but a lifelong business rival.”
She struggled for an even tone. This was the point where she could lose it. “I didn’t sleep with him.”
“You were in bed and he was leaning over you. You have a history.”
“I told you…”
“That he’d let himself in. I remember. But you were in his room.”
“I explained that, as well.”
“Yes. Your room didn’t lock and his did. You’d returned from a late dinner with others who’d come to Paris for the show, and you couldn’t make the desk clerk understand the problem. So Brian switched rooms with you. That’s lame enough to sound like damning evidence to me.”
She drew a breath, prepared to advance the plan to save her marriage. Getting down and dirty. “That’s because you want to believe the worst of me,” she said, inclining her upper body toward his to make her point. “You were happy with me, Killian, and on some level I don’t understand and you probably don’t, either, happy doesn’t work for you. You’ve chosen against it. You work night and day and offer up on the altar of your sister’s disappearance whatever part of you might once have been fun.”
He took a step toward her, his eyes darkening. “Don’t speculate on what you don’t understand,” he threatened.
“Then tell me about it so I do understand!” she pleaded. “Explain to me what the kidnap of little Abigail did to you. Let me close enough to help you!”
“I don’t need you to do that,” he said with alarming sincerity. “You’re always trying to root around inside me and clean things up with your terminal good cheer. Well, you were like a…an aberration for me! I’m attracted to serious, stable women, not impulsive ingenues who laugh and party all the time as though life were just one big high.”
Hearing herself described as an aberration hurt, but she stood her ground and swallowed the pain. “You fell in love with me,” she said unequivocally.
He denied that with a shake of his head. “At a difficult period in my life, I fell in love with the idea of escaping through you.”
She scoffed at that notion inelegantly by blowing air between her lips. “Escaping it, my aunt Fanny! You thrive on the crunch, Abbott! You love facing down the enemy and making him flinch. The November Corporation is never going to launch a successful takeover and you know it. Abbott Mills is too strong. Brian probably set up that whole hotel-room scenario to rattle you, and you fell for it because you wanted a reason to send me away. I was helping you forget business once in a while and that terrified you because it meant you had to be a real human being instead of a hard drive, a digital modem and a collection of sophisticated circuitry.”
Apparently unimpressed with her assessment of his personal makeup, he put a hand to his chest and asked calmly, “Well, if you’re so offended by this machine, why did you apply for and accept a job here?”
“Because while I am offended by what you’ve turned yourself into,” she replied candidly, “I know the man you really are inside. And I want that man back.”
He stared at her for a moment in silent disbelief. Then his gaze hardened. “I’m divorcing you,” he said finally.
“I have to sign the papers,” she reminded him.
He accepted that with a nod. “If you refuse, that won’t hold it up forever. Eventually, the divorce will be allowed, and that’ll be that.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But until that happens, I can live in hope that you’ll wake up one morning and remember what life was like when you let yourself be happy. What it was like when we were together.”
Clearly surprised and angered by her stand, he opened his mouth to offer an argument, then seemed to change his mind. He turned and stalked away.
KILLIAN HEARD Cordie following him as he headed for the elevators. She ran around in front of him and walked backward as he kept going.
“Am I fired?” she asked. “You didn’t say. Because I have scores of appointments with suppliers over the next few weeks and several critical shows scheduled for—”
Yes! he wanted to shout as she went on. But that little union troublemaker, Hunter, was pretending to sort through a rack of shorts while clearly tipping an ear in their direction. He didn’t need November to hear rumblings among the employees of an unfair firing.
Jack’s Soprano interpretation of termination would have been simpler than this, he acknowledged to himself grimly.
“No,” he replied, pushing the Down button. “But I’ll be going over your performance with a microscope. And I’ll take advantage of the first excuse I can find to fire you.” The elevator bell dinged and the doors parted. He stepped onto the car and turned to her with an air of dismissal. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going down.”
She looked into his eyes with a gleam in hers as the doors began to close. “Yes,” she said. “You are.”
Chapter Two
In the back seat of a Lincoln limousine, Killian took one last look at Abbott’s market quotes, checked the status of his personal portfolio as well as Chloe’s investments, then closed his laptop and put it aside with disciplined determination. He had to clear his mind this weekend. He could usually work sixteen-hour days for months at a time, but he hadn’t taken a full weekend off since before the Cordie-Brian debacle and he was due.
He could forget about business for forty-eight hours. Chloe was spending the weekend in the city, his brother Sawyer had left yesterday for New Hampshire on a chore for the Abbott Mills Foundation and Campbell had left a message saying he was going to Florida to check out a position at Flamingo Gables, the summer home of the Elliott Prathers.
Great. He really didn’t need his estate manager to quit at this point in time, but he knew his younger brother had issues with Shepherd’s Knoll and no amount of reasoning with Campbell seemed to change his mind. Even Chloe’s pleadings had been to no avail. So all Killian could do was let him go and hope that distance made Campbell’s heart grow fonder of his half brothers and the headache that was Shepherd’s Knoll, their family home.
“Finished for the day, Mr. Abbott?” Daniel Chambers asked from the front seat. He was African American, in his early sixties and wearing a dark business suit. Killian’s father had hired him decades ago.
Initially, Nathan Abbott had refused to hire him because he’d refused to wear a uniform. Nathan had driven himself to town the morning after the interview and had an accident on the Long Island Expressway while trying to talk to his secretary on the car phone. He’d hired Daniel that afternoon.
“Yes,” Killian replied, stretching out his legs. “You’re not going to ask for investment advice again, are you?”
Daniel laughed. “Linus Larrabee gave Fairchild advice in Sabrina and the chauffeur had millions by the end of the movie.”
“True. But it was the senior Mr. Larrabee who gave him advice, and Fairchild had a beautiful daughter for Linus to fall in love with.”
“You’re a married man!”
“Not anymore.”
“Come on, Mr. Abbott. You’re going to love Miss Cordie till the day you die. Only trouble is, you don’t know how to live with her.”
“God wouldn’t know how to live with her. I don’t need that kind of trouble.”
Daniel didn’t reply. That meant he disagreed. Killian felt alarmed at how little stock the family and staff put in Cordie’s adultery. “You’re supposed to humor me, Daniel,” Killian teased. “Tell me I’m right, that women are generally no damn good—except for your Kezia, of course—and that nobody needs the kind of trouble they bring.”
“Man’s character is honed by trouble, Mr. Abbott,” Daniel philosophized with a bright smile in the rearview mirror. “Your mother running off made a hardworking man out of your father. Otherwise, the way he was goin’, he’d have gambled away your inheritance.”
“But she proved the women-are-no-damn-good theory.”
“Yep. Every once in a while there’s one. Still, she’s responsible for you and Mr. Sawyer bein’ here, and that’s no small thing. You make money like nobody’s ever seen and Mr. Sawyer makes sure all the extra gets spread around, doing good work.”
That might have been an oversimplification of the situation, but Killian liked the sound of it.
“Thank you, Daniel. By the way, you can have the weekend off. I’m not going back to town until Monday morning.” Daniel lived with Kezia in what had once been the guest house.
“You sure about that, Mr. Abbott?”
“I’m sure.”
Killian loved Shepherd’s Knoll. He didn’t spend nearly enough time here now that Abbott Mills had holdings overseas, but he got the same feeling of security and history he used to get as a child when his father turned onto the long, poplar-lined driveway that led to the house.
On Sunday-afternoon drives around Long Island, Nathan Abbott used to tell Killian and Sawyer about Thomas and Abigail Abbott, who’d come over on the Mayflower and raised sheep outside of Plymouth. Over the generations, the frugal, clever Abbotts had prospered, and William Abbott had started a woolenmill early in the nineteenth century.
Jacob Abbott, Killian and Sawyer’s great-grandfather, had continued to run the mill, but he’d fallen behind the competition when he’d failed to install new and more sophisticated machinery, considering it frivolous. His losses were considerable by the time he’d realized the error of his ways, but by then he didn’t have the capital to purchase new equipment.
So James Abbott, Jacob’s eldest son, had been encouraged to marry a cotton heiress from Virginia. New equipment and the new bride’s knowledge of business had improved the Abbott fortunes considerably.
With the advent of synthetics in the middle of the twentieth century, Nathan, now in control of the company, had diversified. He’d married Susannah Stewart, the daughter of a Texas oil baron, and they’d moved to her family’s summer home in Losthampton, New York, situated in the small cleft of an inlet on the south coast of Long Island between East Hampton and Southhampton.
When Nathan and Susannah Abbott had moved into her family’s palatial home, it had been known as Bluebonnet Knoll because of the Stewarts’ Texas connection. But when Susannah had run off with the chauffeur, giving Nathan the house to assuage her guilt over leaving her children, Nathan had changed the name, wanting it to reflect his family’s business rather than hers.
Killian remembered his mother. Instead of warm, fuzzy recollections of a loving woman, he had strong, clear memories of a light-haired goddess always in gowns and sparkling jewelry, waving to him from across the room. She’d seldom come into the nursery, simply blown kisses from the doorway.
He’d harbored the hope that someday when he was big enough and smart enough, she’d come and talk to him, possibly even hold him. But that had never happened.
One day his father had called Sawyer and him into his study and told them their mother was gone and a new woman was coming into their lives. She was French, he’d said, and a designer for one of the clothing companies Abbott’s owned.
Killian remembered clearly the shock and distress he’d felt at having to accept that the goddess would never get to know him, never hold him, that she was lost to him forever. He’d been five.
Someone had to pay, so he’d made the new woman, named Chloe, the culprit. He’d told her straight off that he didn’t want anything to do with her, didn’t want her in his house and didn’t want her touching his brother.
Sawyer, though, even at three a man with a mind of his own, adored her instantly. Killian had resisted heroically, but had finally lost the battle to hate her when she’d walked into the nursery with his father about a week after her arrival and asked, “Is there a reason the children must be confined to this floor while we are home?”
His father had thought a moment. “Susannah liked it this way. She said it kept them out of her hair when her friends came around.”
Chloe had shrugged. “Well, as I have no friends yet and…” She’d patted a very short haircut. “As I have no hair for them to get into, I don’t see why they can’t have the run of the house. Except for your office, of course, when you are working at home. The staff tell me they are very good children and usually behave themselves well.” She’d put a hand to Killian’s face and one to Sawyer’s. It had been warm and smooth and had smelled of lilacs. “And you will continue to behave for me, n’est-ce pas?”
A whole new world had opened up. Although Susannah had never come back and Killian, ever her champion, had sat by his window every night before going to bed and watched for her, during the day he’d loved being with Chloe as much as Sawyer had. She took them everywhere—shopping, to church, to visit the friends she eventually made, to the beach. He’d maintained a locked-up corner of his heart for Susannah, but he’d let Chloe in and allowed himself be happy again.
Campbell was born the following year and Abby, almost four years after that.
Killian smiled at memories of his big-eyed, plump-cheeked baby sister, then straightened in his seat and put all thoughts of her out of his mind. He wanted to relax this weekend, to refill the well of his usually nimble mind and steady focus.
Thoughts of Abby, and, of course, her disappearance, wouldn’t allow that.
Daniel pulled around to the front of the house. Its cozy grandeur was somehow welcoming. To this day, Killian wasn’t sure what to call the architectural style. His father had referred to it as Seaside Victorian. Unlike the many slope-roofed and angular federal-style homes in the region, this one had large, long windows all around, a tower on one side and a circular porch on the bottom of the tower, one on the second level where the tower connected to the main part of the house, and on the back of the top floor with its view of the ocean. The frame exterior was painted a cheerful butter yellow.
Winfield opened the front door before Killian could open it himself. Campbell had hired the former boxer a year ago as a sort of butler-bouncer. Campbell resented Killian’s use of that term, insisting that Killian never took his vulnerability to theft or kidnap seriously.
Actually, Killian did. He’d thought about it every night since Abby had been taken almost twenty-seven years ago. But he didn’t want someone around to remind him that that kind of thing could happen. And he was a much less likely target than a fourteen-month-old child.
“What about Mom?” Campbell had asked when Killian had denied he himself could be a target. “Sure, you’re six foot three and trained in self-defense, but she isn’t. And you’re gone so much of the time.”
Killian had conceded. For their stepmother to have protection in the guise of a butler was a good idea, and he knew Campbell remembered Abby’s kidnapping, though he’d only been five and a half at the time. He was working out his own demons brought to life by the event.
So Killian cooperatively handed Winfield his briefcase and let him take his jacket.
“How are you, Mr. Abbott?” Winfield asked in a voice more suited to a boxing ring than a stately home. Though he was two inches shorter than Killian, he was probably twice as broad and all of it muscle. He had thin blond hair, pale blue eyes and a boxer’s nose.
He’d caused a few second looks when he’d first opened the door to guests a year ago, but his courtesy and kindness had since won everyone over.
“I’m good,” Killian replied. “How are you, Winfield?”
“Fine, sir. Though I’m worried about your mother.”
“Why is that?”
“She’s going to Paris, Mr. Abbott.”
Killian, in the act of looking through the mail on the hall table, blinked at him. “Paris? I thought she was going to the city for the weekend.”
“I was, I was!” High heels clicked down the marble floor as Chloe hurried toward them at a run slowed down by the beginnings of arthritis and her Prada shoes. She was small and graying, with a face filled with warmth. In a silk suit, with a hand-painted scarf trailing behind her, she was the picture of a society matron. “To stay with the Mitchells in their city condo and go to the theater. But their daughter’s with the Ballet de Paris, and she sent them tickets for her début—” she gave the word its French pronunciation “—next week and they’ve invited me along. You know how I love the ballet. And I can visit Tante Bijou while I’m there!”
Tante Bijou was legendary in their lives. Chloe’s mother’s sister had been in the Resistance during World War II, had written a much-acclaimed book about her experiences and had married five or six times—even Chloe had lost count. She was Chloe’s only living relative in France, and Chloe leaped at every opportunity to visit her.
“I was hired to protect you, Mrs. Abbott,” Winfield said politely. “How can I do that when you’re there and I’m here?”
Chloe rolled her eyes. They’d apparently been having this argument for some time. “I won’t have you coming with me and leaving the boys here defenseless.” Even she had difficulty keeping a straight face when she said that. Killian had boxed in college, Sawyer was a third-degree black belt and Campbell had a chip on his shoulder the size of Alaska and everyone seemed to know better than to mess with him.
Winfield faced her resolutely. “Mr. Campbell would insist…”
Killian patted Winfield’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Steve Mitchell was a marine,” he said.
“Sir, he’s in his sixties!”
Chloe slugged his arm. “So am I! And I’m hardly at death’s door.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“I’ve golfed with him,” Killian said. “He has quite a swing and considerable endurance. He’ll take care of the ladies.”
“I’ll be fine,” Chloe insisted.
Winfield opened his mouth to protest further, but Killian silenced him with an unobtrusive shake of the head.
Winfield appeared puzzled, but closed his mouth.
The doorbell rang and Winfield opened it to Steve Mitchell, who greeted Killian, then took Chloe’s bag. She followed him out to a shiny black Cadillac, chattering incessantly.
“The minute they’re out of sight,” Killian whispered to Winfield, “we’ll call your company and get someone to trail her and the Mitchells while they’re in Paris.” To his mother, he asked, “Where you staying, Mom?”
“At the Hôtel Clarion St-James et Albany. The duke of Noailles once entertained Marie Antoinette there, you know.”
He raised an eyebrow at Winfield, who nodded, the data obviously stored in his memory.
“Good strategy, Mr. Abbott,” Winfield praised under his breath.
“Never fight a battle you can’t win,” Killian replied, even as he blew Chloe a kiss.
That was good advice to apply to Cordie, he suddenly realized. But there was no such thing as a nonconfrontational way of dealing with her. She was a forthright, in-your-face kind of woman. Even Sun Tzu, the brilliant strategist, would have had difficulty dealing with her.
CORDIE FINALLY PUT her feet up at about eight o’clock. She sat on the sofa in her elegant, quiet-as-a-tomb apartment, alone except for her cat, and tried hard to be interested in the steaming square of lasagna on the tray in her lap. She’d anticipated it all afternoon, but now that she had the food, it made her stomach churn.
She put the tray aside and leaned her head back against the ticking-striped sofa cushion and wondered grimly if this was what had happened between her and Killian: that he’d found her less than interesting once he had her, and put her aside.
She hoped simple ego wasn’t at work, but she couldn’t believe he’d just lost interest in her. The kind of earnest determination with which he’d pursued her couldn’t simply evaporate. The fervent passion with which he’d made love to her couldn’t just cease to be.
A waning of interest had happened even before the Brian thing had given him an excuse to talk divorce. She’d caught glimpses of regret in his eyes, felt it in his touch when he pulled her to him on impulse and wrapped his arms around her, only to change his mind and push her away.
What had happened?
She’d racked her brain over the question all the time she’d spent in Scotland, but she hadn’t come up with an answer. And the problem couldn’t be solved without one. It would take time spent with him. Either the attraction that had drawn them together so explosively the first time would take hold again and last, or he’d react as he had the first time they’d met. In that case, she’d be on guard and able either to ward off his displeasure or figure out what brought it on and do something about it. Or not. But at least she’d understand.
Loving a man who didn’t want anything to do with her was tough. Before she’d met Killian at his stepmother’s fashion show for charity, she’d have considered herself the last woman on the planet who’d pursue a man who didn’t want her. But gut instinct told her that he did still love her and that his sudden withdrawal from her was a self-inflicted punishment for some imagined guilt over Abigail’s disappearance.
Kezia had told her the story shortly after Cordie and Killian’s Thanksgiving wedding. Kezia and Daniel had been working for the Abbotts less than a year one late December night when they were planning for a New Year’s Eve celebration in two days’ time. Killian, eleven years old, had been at a sleepover at a friend’s house, and Sawyer, nine, Campbell, five, and fourteen-month-old Abby were asleep in their beds. Kezia had been up late baking pies when she heard the screams.
She and Daniel had run upstairs to find Kate Bellows, the nanny, pacing the second-floor hallway, screaming. She wore a billowing silk robe, her gray hair hanging in one long braid. “‘She’s gone!’ she kept saying over and over. ‘She’s gone! I got up to go to the bathroom and checked the children like I always do—and she’s gone!’ For a minute, I didn’t know who she was talking about, until Mr. Abbott came out of Abby’s room and I saw the empty crib.
“Mr. and Mrs. Abbott searched the house like mad people,” Kezia had said, her eyes sad and focused on the memory. “Mrs. Abbott kept screaming Abigail’s name while Sawyer ran up and down the stairs looking for her, and Daniel and Mr. Abbott searched the grounds. Campbell and I cried.
“Mr. Abbott called the police, but they found no evidence of a break-in. They thought either the laundry chute or the dumbwaiter might have been entry points if someone had gotten into the basement. But the door was still locked from the inside, and none of the windows was broken. They interviewed the staff, thinking, I guess, that one of us might have kidnapped her, but that was preposterous. We all loved the children like our own.” Kezia paused and sighed heavily, spreading her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “They even sent the police to get Killian at five-thirty in the morning to see if he remembered seeing anyone around the place, or if any of the many tradesmen who’d worked on a plumbing and carpentry repair problem several weeks earlier had shown a particular interest in Abby. Killian was a sharp little boy and never missed anything. He didn’t remember anyone with an interest in his little sister, but he did recall the name of everyone who’d been in the house. Then…” Kezia drew a ragged breath. “I remember him turning to his father and telling him he was sorry he hadn’t been home. That if he had been, the kidnapping might not have happened. His father told him not to think that, that he’d been home and he hadn’t been able to stop it. But Killian was a dedicated big brother, and I think he carries guilt to this day.” Kezia swiped a hand across her eyes and went on.
“Then it was as though life in this house just stopped. There were no clues, nothing at all to go on, and the Abbotts just waited and prayed. At that point, they’d have been happy to get a call for ransom, to know that Abigail was alive and could be paid for and brought home again.
“They went on television and begged for her return. They spoke to any reporter who’d listen. And we all waited. No conversation in the house, no laughter and eventually no hope.”
“How horrible,” Cordie whispered.
Kezia nodded. “Then one day Mrs. Abbott got up, called us all together—husband, kids, staff—and said we weren’t going to live this way any longer, that there were three other children to think about and everyone’s lives had to move on. We would hold Abigail in our hearts and keep praying, but we were to start living again.” Kezia’s lips trembled. “I thought it was very brave of her.”
“Yes.” Cordie wrapped her arms around herself and tried to imagine how she would feel if a child was stolen from her with no evidence of what had happened and no knowledge whether he or she was dead or alive.
“But Kate was devastated, felt responsible and finally quit the following year to go live with her sister in Los Angeles.”
“How awful for everyone.”
“Yes, it was. Everyone was affected. I think all the boys carry scars from the ordeal. Chloe dedicated herself to her remaining children, but sometimes I see a terrible sadness in her eyes. And Mr. Nathan put on a good front, but Abby was his little girl and he never got over losing her. He died with her name on his lips.”
Cordie groaned and put a hand over her eyes as tears welled. What an old and deeply rooted pain for Killian—for all the family. Killian, though, was her primary concern, and wanting to remove his guilt so she could put her love there, instead, would be no easy task.
She wondered now if her initial approach had been wrong. He was so serious-minded, such a workaholic, that when she’d married him, she’d tried to joke him out of his grave nature, lure him away from work once in a while in the hope that his having a personal life would help him loosen up, open up. But in the end he’d resented her for it.
This time, she had to find another way. Take things more seriously, so that he didn’t mistake her for a lightweight. Work as much as he did so that he’d know she wanted success for Abbott Mills as much as he did.
She groaned again and laid a forearm across her eyes, propping her feet on the coffee table. That would be a big job. She generally found life amusing, so she was always joking, pulling pranks. She liked sound and color and gravitated toward those things. That was why she loved fashion and concerts and parties.
Of course, all she had to do was reconsider the status of her relationship with Killian—that put a genuine pall over everything. Working a lot would give her less time to think.
She carried her untouched tray into the kitchen, covered the lasagna with plastic wrap, put it in the refrigerator and left the salad out to pick at.
She should call her parents and let them know how she was. They’d been worried about her when she’d gone to Scotland, and finally flown out from Texas to check on her. They’d been horrified to find her pale and thin and holed up in the lodge like a recluse.
“He isn’t worth it,” her mother had said firmly. Judith and Gregory Hyatt had loved Killian, though they’d known him only briefly. But Judith had always been her only child’s staunchest support system, and though Cordie had been caught in another man’s bed, Judith was sure the problem couldn’t be with Cordie and therefore Killian had to have misunderstood.
When Cordie had told her parents she was going back to New York to apply for the position of buyer that had miraculously opened up at Abbott Mills, her father had thought her crazy. “Cord, he’s furious with you. He’s divorcing you. Why give him the chance to deny your application or use it as an excuse to dump all over you again?”
Cordie had shaken her head. “He won’t even know about the job until it’s time for the quarterly personnel report. The hope is that I’ll be so entrenched by the time he notices I’m on board that my immediate superiors will support me.”
“She loves him, darling,” her mother had tried to explain to her father.
He didn’t get it. “You said this divorce was all his fault.”
“It is.”
“Then why does she love him?”
“Because…the separation is his fault, but the problems he has that are making him do it aren’t.”
Her father, the CEO of one of the country’s finest furniture makers and a millionaire in his own right, though not in the Abbott class, stared dumbly at his wife.
Her mother patted his chest. “It’s love, dear. You just don’t understand those things. Trust Cordie. She’s always known what she’s doing.”
While she appreciated her mother’s confidence in her, she now hoped it wasn’t misplaced.
Suddenly, taking a shower and going to bed had it all over eating and spending an evening watching television.
Loving Killian Abbott was exhausting.
Chapter Three
Killian intended to sleep late Saturday morning, but his room was flooded with sunlight at 6:00 a.m. After tossing and turning for an hour, he finally got up, pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and went down to the kitchen and made himself an omelette.
Kezia discovered him as he was buttering toast, her expression horrified. “You fend for yourself all the time,” she said, looking with surprise into the frying pan. “When you’re home, I’m supposed to cook for you.”
He kissed her cheek, scooped his omelette onto the plate that held his toast and headed for the porch. “It’s okay,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s the weekend for you, too. I told Daniel I wouldn’t need him until Monday. Don’t fuss.”
She grumbled further, but he stepped out onto the deck and closed the door behind him. A large lawn sloped to blueberry bushes, then a small apple orchard that sheltered a path to the beach.
He was just beginning to mellow out from a hectic week when again Cordie came to mind. He envisioned her in the back room of her department, her red hair in two French braids looped around the back of her head, giving her a false air of dignity. Her brown eyes had been enormous against her natural redhead’s pallor, but they’d had little of the frivolity he remembered from their marriage. She was taller than average, but looked thinner now. Their separation had probably upset her, but he could make no concessions. They weren’t compatible. They never had been.
Too bad he hadn’t seen that when they’d first met. But he’d been blinded by her glorious hair and her ivory shoulders in a little black dress.
He shook his head against the thought and reminded himself that he was here to relax.
He ate his omelette and made himself count the bank of trees in the distance to prevent himself from thinking of her.
He went to the beach with an old paperback copy of a Robert Parker book and read until he reached a point in the dialogue where the hero and heroine argued about their relationship. Suddenly, his mind was replaying his conversation with Cordie rather than focusing on the dialogue he was reading.
He got to his feet, wondering why a very busy man ever thought his body would allow him to relax for a weekend. It was accustomed to action—albeit corporate action—and his brain was used to making big, quick decisions.
He went back to the house and called Lew Weston, Abbott Mills’s troubleshooter and one-man think tank.
“I thought you were taking the weekend off,” Lew said.
“I am,” Killian replied. “I just wondered if we got that report I asked for on the Florida Shops.”
“We got it. It’ll wait for you until Monday.”
“Your wife wasn’t upset that you volunteered to work the weekend?”
“No. I promised her dinner and the theater.”
“Smart man.”
“Yes, I am. So let me do my job and you get back to the beach or whatever it is you’re doing.”
Killian hung up and headed for the Vespa Campbell kept in the garage. He took a tour of the acreage. Nothing to find fault with here. Acres of apple trees blossomed in perfectly formed rows all the way up to the trees on the neighboring property. Campbell knew what he was doing.
The roads were bumpy and dusty, but the air smelled of sea grass and salt and held the unmistakable sweetness of early summer. The fragrance filled his being, and for reasons he couldn’t explain, seemed to distill itself into the image of Cordie.
With a growl, he rode the bike back to the garage and went into the house to find Kezia fixing dinner despite his insistence that he was self-sufficient. So he went upstairs to take a shower, dressed in fresh slacks and a white cotton sweater and asked the staff to join him for dinner.
Winfield frowned at him. “We know you’re a democratic despot, Mr. Abbott,” he said politely. “You don’t have to prove it to us.”
He denied that was his point. “You eat with Mom all the time. She told me.”
“But that’s Miss Chloe,” Daniel said with the same frown Winfield wore. “You’re…you’re…”
“The democratic despot?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You used to eat with me when I was a child.”
“No, you ate with us in the kitchen. That was before you became one of the Fortune 500.”
“Then sit down with me or heads will roll.”
They did, but it was dessert before they were comfortable.
He slept in Sunday morning, then took a call from Chloe as he ate breakfast on the deck.
“Tante Bijou isn’t at all well,” she told him, “and the housekeeper is worried. She wouldn’t let her call me. So I’ve taken over her care and I might be longer than I expected. Is that all right with you?”
“Of course,” he answered her. “Stay as long as she needs you.”
“Thank you, Killian. Give my love to Sawyer and Campbell.”
“I will.”
Campbell arrived home Sunday night—by helicopter. It landed in the middle of the front lawn with rotors beating so loudly that the sound brought everyone in the house to the side porch.
As they watched, Campbell leaped to the grass, ran clear of the rotors, then waved as the ’copter pulled up again and sailed off into the sky, causing a wind storm in the fruit trees and the poplars.
“He didn’t get arrested again, did he?” Winfield asked. He held a large free weight in one hand, obviously interrupted in the middle of his evening workout.
“He didn’t call us for bail,” Killian replied. “And that wasn’t a police helicopter.”
Kezia used the wooden spoon in her hand to point in the direction the helicopter had taken. “That’s his friend Billie Sandusky. She flew him to his interview.”
Killian and Winfield both turned to her in interest.
She shrugged. “No, I don’t know if they’re romantic,” she said, apparently eager to fend off their questions. “But I hope not. She drinks straight shots, and I don’t like to see that in a woman.”
Daniel, standing at the bottom of the stairs with a greasy rag in his hands, warned her with a quiet, “Kezia.” He didn’t wear a uniform and his manner was easy and friendly, but he was always careful never to overstep his position as an employee in the Abbott household—something that was difficult to do in a relationship as long-standing as theirs.
Kezia, on the other hand, often offered her opinion, and seldom with any deference. But the whole family loved her anyway.
Killian frowned at her. “And how do you know what Billie drinks?”
“I play bridge with her mother’s housekeeper. The girl’s out of control, and with Campbell’s confusion about who he is and where he belongs, he doesn’t need that.” Then she seemed to realize that was crossing the line, even for her. She cleared her throat. “Not that that’s any of my business. I’ll just go back to my cake.”
“Hey, Daniel!” Campbell slapped Daniel on the shoulder as he loped past him and up the steps.
“Mr. Campbell.” Daniel shrugged an apology at Killian for his wife’s candor and went back to the garage.
Campbell grinned at Killian and Winfield. “Gentlemen.” He transferred his grip on his overnight bag to shake hands. “Winfield. Killer. Nice of you to meet my helicopter. Did you miss me, or is this an attempt to prevent my return?”
Winfield clapped his shoulder. “Nice to see you back safe and sound, Mr. Campbell.” Then he took off toward the basement stairs and the gym.
Campbell was dark-featured like Chloe, a few inches shorter than Killian and more slender, though his work on the estate had given him well-developed shoulders and upper arms. Chloe was always telling him that his job was to oversee the temporary help harvesting the apples, but he’d never been one to stand by and watch.
Killian remembered trying to teach him to bat a baseball as children. The lesson had resulted in Campbell’s taking the bat from him and swinging until he was exhausted. His father had told Killian that determination was sometimes more important than skill in achieving success.
“Depends,” Killian teased in response to Campbell’s question, even as he gave him a fraternal shove into the front hall. “Did you take the job?”
“It hasn’t been offered to me yet,” Campbell replied. “They have six other applicants.”
“Do you want it?”
“It’s Florida.”
Killian shrugged. “Sunshine every day. Funny-tasting tropical fruit. Big deal.”
“Women in string bikinis,” Campbell countered with a longing look, “all day, every day, all year long. Going to the beach on your coffee break in February, baseball spring-training camps.”
“You’re only yards from the beach here.” That was a flimsy argument and Killian knew it. But there were issues unresolved between the brothers, and he didn’t want him hundreds of miles away until they’d fixed them.
Campbell put his bag down near the hall table. “If you went to the beach here in February, you’d be the ice sculpture at Mom’s next party.” Suddenly he seemed to notice her absence. “She gone already? She left a message on my voice mail saying she was off to Paris with the Mitchells.”
“Right. Winfield had fits, but she went anyway. Need a coffee nudge? I’ve got a pot going in the library.”
Campbell studied him suspiciously. “You’re not planning some big heavy conversation about the family, are you?”
The kid had a good brain. “No,” Killian lied. “My offer was just an effort to help you relax after your flight.”
“Aha!” Campbell pointed a finger at him. “You want to know about Billie!”
Killian shook his head. “I know about Billie. She drinks straight shots and she’s out of control. I was just interested in your weekend.”
Campbell followed him as he led the way to the library. The room was paneled in warm oak and had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves protected by doors with wire mesh. A ladder on runners provided access to top shelves. Killian and his brothers had terrorized many a nanny on it when they were children. Deep blue upholstered sofas and chairs with an even darker blue stripe were arranged near the fireplace, which now held a pot of flowers.
A granite counter ran along one side of the room as a sort of study area, and Killian, who’d adopted this room as a home office, had installed a bar at one end of it. The aroma of a simple French roast filled that side of the room.
At the far end, Palladian French doors opened out onto the side porch and garden.
Killian poured Kahlúa and brandy in a glass pedestal mug, added coffee, then picked up the drink he’d left there when he’d heard the helicopter. He took them to the sofa where Campbell had settled, handed him his drink, then sat in the chair opposite.
“So, you had time to sightsee?” he asked as Campbell angled one knee over the other and leaned back.
“No,” Campbell replied, “but the sights I described are everywhere you look. Definitely one of the perks.”
Silence fell. Campbell was waiting for him to ask more questions, and sure his brother would hate that, Killian waited for him to volunteer information.
Campbell sipped his drink, rested the glass on his knee and finally said in a defensive tone, “You know, I wouldn’t be abandoning the family if I left here.”
Killian nodded calmly. There were only six years between them, but since their father died when Campbell was only seventeen, Killian had taken charge to keep him in school when he’d been offered a job with a software company, to chase him down when he’d run off, to bail him out of jail when he was picked up in a bar brawl in Southhampton. So they had what amounted to father-son issues, though they were brothers and not that far apart in age.
“I know that,” Killian said. “And no one’s suggesting it.”
“Mom is.”
“Well, you’re her favorite. She’d—”
“No!” Campbell interrupted, grabbing his cup and lowering his foot to the floor in a gesture of impatience. “See! There it is again! That’s not true. I’m not her favorite.”
Killian raised an eyebrow. “There’s what?”
Campbell gestured toward him in clear exasperation. “That…that suggestion that Mom cares more about me because I’m her natural son. You act like I’m the one who’s always seeing differences between your half of the family and mine, but you’re the one—”
Killian concentrated on keeping his voice down as he interrupted. “There are not two halves of this family.”
“There are! You don’t want to acknowledge it because you consider yourself the benevolent ruler of all of us, but we’re not the same. You’re from the first line of Abbotts—the founders’ circle. Wealth, position, bloodline. I’m from the second wife, with none of the above. And when Mom tries to offer guidance to me, all she talks about is you!”
The volume in Killian’s voice grew harder to control. “Wealth, position and bloodline did a lot for Sawyer and me, didn’t they?” he demanded. “You got the mother who stayed!”
Campbell looked taken aback for a moment, then he said more quietly, “Well, cry me a river. You got her, too. She didn’t give birth to you, but you’re her favorite.”
Killian shook his head as the absurd words reverberated around them. “We sound like a couple of children. Isn’t the important thing that we’re all here?”
Campbell ran a hand over his face and sighed. “You would think so. But I feel as though I’ll never know who I am as long as I’m here. You’re brilliant in business, Sawyer lives life on the heroic edge and I’m just here—the farmer, the plodder.”
“Campbell…”
“You can deny it all you want, it’s still true.”
“You’re the best estate manager this place has ever had.”
“I’m the only one it’s ever had. You just gave me the job because you got too occupied with the business, and Sawyer has his hands full, what with running the foundation and trying to get himself killed.”
“It doesn’t matter how you became the estate manager. You are great at it.”
Campbell nodded, suddenly calmer. “That’s why I think my skills could be marketable elsewhere. If I’m ever going to feel like an Abbott in my own right, I have to do it away from here.”
“Away from where the Abbotts are?”
Campbell acknowledged with an exasperated nod that that might sound strange. “I know. My life doesn’t seem to make sense on any level. I’m just going with my gut.”
“Here’s something for that gut.” Sawyer walked into the room with three dessert plates of chocolate cake. Two were splayed in one hand with great dexterity and the third was in the other. He’d been a waiter at the Plucky Duck in town his senior year in high school and every summer in college. Killian remembered that Sawyer’s charm had earned him big tips that had helped support his weekend activities when their father had insisted the boys earn their own disposable income so they’d understand what real life was like.
Killian had always considered that the absence of one’s natural mother had been a serious dose of real life, but he’d understood his father’s point.
Campbell laughed as he reached up to accept his plate. “How do you rate?” he asked.
Sawyer handed Killian a plate, then went to sit at the opposite end of the sofa. “I came in through the kitchen. Kezia was just frosting the cake and I turned on my charm.”
“Nice of you to share with us.” Killian saluted him with his fork. “I remember a time when you’d have absconded with the whole thing and not even worried about us.”
“I would have now,” he admitted with a grin, “but Kezia said clearly, ‘Your brothers are in the library. Two of these are for them.’ I wouldn’t want to have to answer to her if I didn’t share. And I knew you’d blab if I didn’t.”
“Damn right,” Campbell said. “How was your trip?”
“Good. A bunch of nice ladies in New Hampshire trying to build a teen shelter with no money. They think if we help them put it up, they can find funding to run the operation.”
“Help them?” Killian asked.
“Give them the money,” Sawyer clarified.
“Can we do it?”
“With a little artful manipulation.”
“Legal manipulation?”
“Of course.” Sawyer replied with wide-eyed innocence, but Killian knew him to be good at that. He told you what you wanted to hear, then went off and did whatever he damn well pleased.
And usually got away with it. He had their mother’s straight blond hair, which he currently wore in a spiked style Killian was amazed to find appealed to women. It also stunned boards of directors, who expected to deal with a wild man and found themselves head to head with a savvy street fighter who did everything as though he had nothing to lose.
Sawyer had the same blue eyes Killian had inherited from their father, but his were set in a sophisticated face that didn’t look like a Mount Rushmore carving, the way Killian’s did.
His smile, too, charmed the ladies, and he had a sense of fun that was hard for anyone to resist. Until he inevitably found the threat in an undertaking and it grew too dangerous for his companions.
He found a way to use that to his advantage by volunteering his daredevil skills every year at the Children with Cancer fund-raiser. Everyone donated eagerly to see what Sawyer would do this year. In the past years, he’d sky-boarded, rappelled the Abbott Building and offered himself at a bachelor auction—less physically arduous but certainly as dangerous.
This year he was waterskiing. Killian wasn’t privy to the details, but the stunt didn’t sound as harrowing as his previous ones.
Everyone at Shepherd’s Knoll worried about him, Killian included—maybe even Killian particularly. They’d been partners in crime as children, support for each other when they couldn’t figure out why their mother didn’t like them, and they’d decided together to like Campbell when he was born, then to adore Abby.
But something had changed in Sawyer when Abby was taken. Killian was aware of the subtle difference, the slight pulling away, because he himself had been desperately trying not to change. Yet the small distance had happened and there’d been nothing he could do about it.
They’d grown to adulthood with a tight fraternal bond, though they’d gone on completely different roads.
“Good,” Killian said. “Because bailing out Campbell for brawling is one thing. Pleading your case before the Federal Trade Commission would be something else.”
Campbell laughed.
Sawyer glowered at his younger brother. “I thought you and I were allied when it came to standing against Killer’s stuffy big-brothering.”
“We are,” Campbell replied, spearing a large bite of cake. “Unless he’s really trashing you, then I kind of enjoy that.”
Sawyer sighed. “Tell me you got the job and you’re moving soon.”
Campbell shook his head while he chewed. “Sorry,” he said finally. “You’re going to be cursed with me for a little while yet. A few other candidates are under consideration and I’m sure there’ll be a second round of interviews.”
Sawyer pretended a long-suffering sigh. “I’ve been trying to get rid of you for thirty plus years. I guess I can wait a little longer.”
Campbell shrugged, forking another bite. “Sorry to make it hard for you, but Killer’s working against you.”
Now Sawyer pretended disgust. “You’re not encouraging him to stay?” he asked Killian. “Come on, this is our chance! We’ve been plotting it our whole lives.”
“Yeah, but Mom’s gone and I’m going to make him host the Women of Losthampton Historical Society. If he leaves, it’ll have to be one of us.” The small-and-aged group met in the house’s great room once a month, a perk Chloe had granted them when she joined many years ago.
Sawyer nodded. “I missed that completely.”
Sawyer and Campbell also had a rapport that didn’t involve Killian. Being younger, they’d supported each other’s resentments of privileges and attitudes enjoyed by the eldest sibling. So if Killian had any concerns that Campbell would be offended by Sawyer’s teasing, they were laid to rest by Campbell’s grim expression as he caught chocolate crumbs—all that was left on his plate—with the flat edge of his fork. The look was completely false and there was laughter in his eyes.
“The ladies like me better than either of you, anyway,” Campbell said, getting to his feet. “Four or five of them have me lined up for their daughters.”
Sawyer smiled at Killian. “That could work. We’d still get rid of him.” Then he looked puzzled. “I thought Mom was just gone for the weekend.”
“Tante Bijou’s under the weather. She’s staying to take care of her for a while. She sends both of you her love.”
“Well, you’re getting rid of me right now.” Campbell stretched and Sawyer moved his head aside theatrically, evading the fork in his right hand. “Selling my good qualities has been more exhausting than I realized.”
“Mmm,” Sawyer said. “All that stuff you had to make up, probably.” He had to shout the last few words as Campbell left the room.
Sawyer stood up to pour himself a cup of coffee, then sat down again and picked up his cake. “Does he think he aced the interview?” he asked Killian, suddenly seriously.
Killian shrugged. “He didn’t say. He got defensive about why he wanted to leave, and I tried to tell him he was valuable here, and we got into it like we always do. So, I don’t know.”
Sawyer nodded, familiar with Campbell’s attitude. “He just needs to get away and realize we don’t make him feel he doesn’t belong—he does it to himself.”
Killian couldn’t help a laugh. “You just told him we’ve been plotting to get rid of him for years.”
Sawyer laughed, too. “Yeah. But he knows I’m kidding. Doesn’t he?”
“I’m sure he does.”
“What’d the two of you fight about?”
Killian said intrepidly, “Which one of us Mom loves the most.”
Sawyer made a scornful noise. “That’s easy. Me.”
KILLIAN RODE to work Monday morning in the back seat of the limo, checking stock-market quotes on his laptop, grateful that his calendar showed a relatively easy day. He’d had a good weekend, but he feared he was losing what little ability he had to relax. Not that he understood why he was worried about it. He’d been a workaholic since college, when his father had given him a part-time job keeping statistics on production costs for every business within the corporation, sales figures and every other recordable process in between.
Once in the city, he thanked Daniel and wished him a good day, then took his private elevator to the twenty-third floor. He responded with a smile to all the polite “Good morning, Mr. Abbott’s” directed at him. His mail was on his desk, along with a steaming cup of coffee and a brioche Barbara had bought from the Montmartre Bakery on her way in from the subway.
Life was good at the office, he thought as he remembered his pleasant but very quiet weekend at home. There, he’d had to work to fill the time. Of course, Chloe had been gone, and his brothers hadn’t returned until Sunday night. But was he so unused to his own company that he was now lonely by himself?
The notion surprised him.
He took a sip of coffee, bit into the freshly baked roll and went through the mail and e-mail messages.
He noticed a memo from human resources, asking him to call Jack regarding the sudden revelation of confidential information about an employee. He was about to put the memo aside until after he’d handled a few things he thought had priority, when he saw that the employee in question was Cordelia Magnolia Hyatt.
He called Jack.
CORDIE READ the current issue of InStyle while eating a bagel and drinking a cup of tea at a little deli across the street from Abbott’s. She’d worked all day Sunday, taking advantage of the quiet of the closed store to put out new stock and fill a sales rack, so she could afford a few moments to herself this morning. The staff knew where she was if there was a problem.
Not that she was enjoying her solitude. The sesame-and-asiago bagel that had looked so appealing when she’d ordered it didn’t want to go down, and she was having second thoughts about her decision to work at Abbott’s and try to reclaim her marriage. The idea had seemed like such a good one, until she’d come face-to-face with Killian’s hostility on Friday. In her absence from him, she’d managed to forget how completely disgusted he’d been with her when he’d found her in Brian’s bed, and how serious he’d been when he’d told her their marriage was over.
She tried to brace herself with a sip of peppermint tea. “Come on,” she told herself. “You knew this would be hard. Did you think the circumstances were going to change and make it easier for you just because you dreamed of Killian welcoming you back with open arms? You knew there was no real chance of that. You analyzed this from all angles and decided you loved him enough to try it. Buck up! You’re not going to weasel out at the first roadblock. You’re just discouraged because you feel a little puny this morning.”
She took another sip of tea.
Her mind in a muddle, she didn’t even notice Killian walk into the deli until he stood directly across from her.
His eyes were dark but unreadable. She didn’t quite see anger in their depths, but some other black emotion she couldn’t analyze.
“You’re pregnant,” he said in a tone that was more of an accusation than an announcement.
She closed her eyes and accepted that this day was not going to improve anytime soon.
When they’d gotten married, she’d fantasized about announcing a pregnancy to him one day, but in her dreams that moment had never taken place in a deli buzzing with conversation. And he’d been proud and happy, not…whatever that dark look was in his eye.
He took the chair opposite her.
“How far along are you?” he asked tersely.
She knew what the question really asked. “Yes, it’s your baby,” she replied. “Even if you don’t believe me, the hotel incident was three months ago and I’m four months along. I can provide proof, if that’s necessary.”
“It isn’t necessary. The report from your doctor said so.”
“But that’s not why I’m back. I don’t have some plan to prove your paternity and secure an Abbott inheritance for him or her. I just want to work, I love fashion retail and Abbott’s is the best there is.” She drew a breath and made herself look him in the eye. His dark expression was darkening further, but she refused to be intimidated. “You were pretty clear the other day about any hope of reconciliation, so I’ve given up on that.” She willed herself to appear clear-eyed and honest rather than like the big fat liar she really was. “But I want to keep the job.”
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