Second Time Around (3 page)

Edward lifted his bulk from the chair using the cane for balance, and walked to the window, his back to the room. “It’s out of the question. He can’t go back there.”

Franklin shook his head. “Edward, he has no choice. This woman could destroy McAllister Pharmaceuticals. She’s holding all the cards.”

“Why can’t you simply send her the papers?”

“Because right now, there’s a chance she doesn’t realize what she could do to us. If we start sending release papers and asking her to sign them, it might put ideas into her head.” The lawyer shook his head again. “No, we need Quinn to handle it, to handle her. He knows her better than anyone else here.”

Quinn tensed as his father remained silent. Every line of the rigid back spoke of righteous indignation. He knew the old man well enough to sense a storm brewing.

When his father faced the room again, his eyes were filled with a hard determination.

Whatever he’d been debating, he had reached a decision.

“If she refuses to sign the papers or makes one move toward the business, we’ll sue her.”

Every eye in the room was suddenly fixed on Edward.

“Sue her for what?” Both lawyers spoke at once.

Edward stared at Franklin, his gaze avoiding Quinn. “Sue her for custody of my grandson. She’ll agree to anything to keep the boy.”

Franklin dropped his head to the table with a groaned, “Oh, God,” but Quinn barely heard him. A roaring filled his ears, blocking sound while blackness threatened the edges of his vision. In his hand, the gold pen snapped, spattering smears of ink over the table.

1A son. He had a son. The boiling rage he’d felt last night was nothing compared to the black fury that hit him now, eating away all vestiges of shock in its need for release.

One more lie. One more betrayal in a viper’s nest of many.

“Get out.”

The words directed at the lawyers were soft, but Franklin knew a command when he heard it. Both men stood and quietly left the room, not even bothering to gather their papers.

Quinn waited until the door close behind them, his hot gaze never leaving Edward’s. “You bastard. How long have you known?”

“From the beginning.” Edward pulled his chair out and sat back down.

As though Edward’s action galvanized him, Quinn leaped to his feet, his leg screaming in protest. But for once, he welcomed the pain, focused on it. Anything to keep him from wrapping his hands around his father’s neck and squeezing the life out of him.

He flattened his hands on the table to still them and leaned toward his father.

“Would you care to tell me why this is the first time you’ve mentioned it? Why you didn’t seem to feel I had the right to know about my own child?” A blood vessel on the side of his face pulsed in time with the anger he couldn’t control.

The cold mask of Edward’s expression never changed as he studied Quinn.

“Because I knew what you’d do. You’d have thrown away everything I’ve created, everything I’ve done for you. Someday you’ll have a son worthy of taking over the company, one that’s accepted by society the way I never was. You’ve got your foot in the door, thanks to me, but they’ll never accept a child born to a woman of Lanie Stewart’s standing. They’d eat both you and the child alive. You were better off not knowing.”

“Any son of mine is worthy of succession, you son of a bitch. How dare you presume you could pick and choose my heir based on his mother?”

Edward’s fingers tightened on the cane, the blue veins standing out in stark relief under the paper-thin skin. “I had no choice in the woman I married. You do, and by God you’ll take advantage of it! You made a mistake when you married Lanie Stewart, and my company isn’t going to suffer because your hormones overrode your good sense.”

“I married Lanie because she did things for me that none of your blue-blooded little debutantes could.”

Quinn’s lip curled at the look on his father’s face. “No, I don’t mean in the sack.

Jesus Christ. She made me feel alive, she made me laugh.”

“And then she betrayed you, divorced you and wound up with your ranch. Now she’s after the rest and you’re going to let her get away with it. You may as well hand her the company on a silver platter.”

1He ran a hand through his hair, trying to get himself under control. “Your company, Edward. Your son, your grandson, your bloodlines. That’s all this comes down to, isn’t it? The ultimate ego trip.”

“The only ego involved is yours. You’re weak, Quinn. You always were. There’s no place in business for emotions, but you’re too much like your mother. I’ve tried to drum it out of you, to give you a chance to succeed, but her blood keeps pushing you, making you rash and impulsive. Any child of Lanie Stewart’s will be even worse. The woman has no breeding, no class.”

“That child is my flesh and blood and you hid him from me. You deprived him of a father, and you deprived me of my son.”

“The boy has a father. Lanie’s fiancé. The man is the only father he’s ever known. I would have told you about him when I judged the time was right.”

“When you judged the time was right.” Automatically, Quinn’s hand lifted to the scar on his face. “And just when was the time going to be right, Edward? When he showed up at my door in twenty years and demanded to know where the hell I was when he was growing up? Would you ‘judge’ that soon enough? Or were you planning to use him to keep me under your thumb for the rest of my life?”

Quinn stared at his father. “That’s it, isn’t it? He was your ace in the hole. A carrot to dangle in front of me if I got out of line.”

He straightened. “The truth is you’ve been controlling my life since the day I was born and I’ve let you. Well, this is where it stops. You aren’t using my son the way you did me even if it means I leave the company.”

“You’re not thinking with your head, Quinn. We both know you’ll never let the company go. It’s in your blood as much as it’s in mine.”

Quinn swept the papers off the table with one vicious movement, then stabbed a finger in Edward’s direction. “I’ve spent my entire life putting up with your schemes and manipulations because I thought you were doing what was best for the business.

But this time, Edward, you’ve gone too far.” He turned his head to the door. “Franklin!”

The door to the boardroom opened immediately, almost as if the lawyer had been leaning against it, and he stepped back into the room, his eyes going straight to Quinn.

“I want you to draw up a legal document. A trust fund for my son that he’ll receive when he’s twenty-five. All my assets, including my shares of McAllister Pharmaceuticals are to go in it with myself as trustee until that time.” He started toward the door.

“Wait! It’s perfect,” Franklin said excitedly. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.

She can’t touch anything if it’s tied up in a trust fund. You can go ahead and get a quick divorce.” He hesitated. “The only problem is, you won’t be able to get it back after the divorce.”

Quinn stopped with one hand on the glossy knob. “There’s not going to be a divorce. At least, not unless she gives me custody of my son.” His eyes closed in pain.

“God, I don’t even know his name.”

1He speared his father with another angry glare. “You disgust me, old man.”

Edward stood slowly. “Where are you going?”

“Wyoming,” Quinn snapped. “I think it’s time I got to know my son.”

“You’ll be back.”

“You’re damn right I will. I’ll be back to make sure my son owns this company in spite of your machinations. You lose this time, Edward. And before I’m done, you’ll lose it all.”

Without waiting for a response, he went out the door, his limp more pronounced than usual as he strode down the flat gray expanse of carpeted hall. Desperately, he fought off the blinding arc of pain that started in his temple and shot through his head like an assassin’s bullet. There was too much to do, too many things to think about. He couldn’t give in to the headache now.

His secretary was absent from her desk as he swept through the outer office.

Probably hiding, if her fearful attitude this morning was any indication. And the way he felt now, she was smart to vanish. He would no longer tolerate Edward’s spies.

Inside his office, the gray carpet was broken by a deep maroon circle edged in black that matched the marble of his desk. All of it was as stark and cold as his apartment, both done by the same decorator, compliments of Edward.

He hated the lifeless color scheme, but at the time it hadn’t seemed worth the effort to change it. His energy had been focused on walking again. Walking and trying to forget that his wife didn’t care enough to visit him while he was desperately ill, had in fact taken the opportunity to divorce him and claim the ranch he loved.

Had Lanie known she was pregnant when he left that night? Even if she hadn’t, she must have known by the time the divorce was final. Known and chosen not to tell him.

But then, what was one more betrayal among the rest?

Quinn moved into the adjoining bathroom and took a bottle of aspirin from the cabinet. In spite of the headache, a sense of exaltation crept over him. He had a son. A child that he and Lanie had created together. Finally, here was a part of her he could love without reservation, a part that no one was ever going to take away from him again.

He swallowed the aspirin, questions swirling through his mind as he headed for the phone. What was the boy like? Did he know who his father was? Where did he think Quinn had been all these years? Did he look like Lanie?

Rapidly, he punched in his home number and waited impatiently for Duncan to pick up. He got the answering machine and glanced at the gold clock sitting on his desk. Duncan must be running errands.

“Dunc? It’s me. Listen, something’s come up. I’ll tell you about it later, but for now, I want you to start packing. We’re leaving for Wyoming first thing in the morning. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone, but it could be for quite a while.”

1He looked up as the door opened and Franklin slipped in, then continued with his instructions. “Also, call the airport and have them get the plane ready, then arrange for a car to be waiting on us when we get to Wyoming. See you when I get home.”

“Did Edward send you?” Quinn dropped the phone back into the cradle.

“No.” The lawyer sank into one of the leather chairs positioned in front of the desk.

“He doesn’t know I’m here. We need to talk, Quinn. I don’t want you walking into that situation blind.”

“Blind?” He shook his head then winced as the movement sent fresh pain streaking from his temple. “I think this may be the first time in my life I see everything clearly.”

“Not if you think you can stop your wife from divorcing you.”

Quinn smiled. “Oh, I know she can divorce me. But I also know I can drag it out for a year or more. And I won’t stop until I have custody of my son.”

Franklin hesitated. “That’s another thing. You can keep her from getting anything with this trust fund, but what about you? How will you survive if you put all your assets into it?”

“My mother’s blood may not have been blue enough to suit Edward, but she was smart. She left me enough money to live comfortably, and she tied it up so no one, not even Edward could touch it. I suspect she’d approve of the use I’m going to put it to.”

He began gathering up papers and shoving them into his briefcase. “How long will it take you to get the trust fund set up?”

“A few days. Week at the most. I’ll need your signature on several documents before it goes into effect.”

“I’ll see to it there’s a fax at the ranch. You can send them to me there.”

“You’re sure this is what you want to do?”

“Positive.”

Franklin stood. “In that case, good luck. I hope it works out for you, Quinn. If you need me for anything, I’ll be here.” He held out his hand and Quinn shook it.

“Thanks, Franklin. I’ll be in touch.”

As soon as the attorney was through the door, Quinn picked up the phone again and dialed the number for his stockbroker.

“Tom? Quinn McAllister. I’ve got new orders for you. I’m going to deposit a large amount of cash into my account. I want you to start buying up every share of McAllister Pharmaceutical stock you can get your hands on.”

Quinn watched the Wyoming mountains loom large as the plane banked and began a slow descent in the bright midmorning sun. Not a single cloud marred the pristine blue sky and he wondered if it were a good omen.

Duncan appeared from the cockpit, his wide frame taking up most of the space in the passageway. With a relieved sigh, he sank down beside Quinn and fastened his seat belt.

“Almost there. Pilots have clearance to land. How are you doing?”

He gave him a wry smile. “No headache, but I’m scared spitless. What if my son hates me on sight? Or worse, what if he’s afraid of me?” His hand touched the scar that ran from his temple into his hair.

Duncan shrugged. “The scar’s not that bad. If he’s like most kids that age, it’ll fascinate the hell out of him for about five minutes, then he’ll forget you’ve got it.”

“Kids that age,” he mused. “That’s the problem, Dunc. The last time I was around preschoolers was when I was one, and I wasn’t taking notes back then. I don’t have a clue how to treat him. Maybe I should have picked him up a gift.”

“No.” Duncan shook his head. “You’re bringing him the only gift he really needs.

His father. All you have to remember is not to push him. Let him set the pace. I promise, he’ll be curious enough that it won’t take you long to get to know him. My sister’s youngest is about that age, and the kid never meets a stranger. He can talk the paint off the walls.”

“Well, since you’re the expert, poke me if I start to do something wrong.”

“Just relax and be yourself. Kids can spot a phony attitude a mile off.”

“Oh, thanks. That really helps boost my confidence.”

Quinn was silent, staring out the window as the plane settled to the ground. Five years. He couldn’t stop his heart from proclaiming he’d finally come home. Would the ranch be the same, or had Lanie changed it to the point where he wouldn’t recognize it anymore?