The Heiress (12 page)

Grace released an annoyed breath. “I’ve already had a call from a New York City gossip columnist and
Personalities
magazine, wanting to know if it’s true.”

Tom ignored the hope rising inside him and focused on her face. “What did you say?” he asked with deceptive casualness.

Grace made a so-so motion with her hands. “That I returned to Charleston after my stint at
Rise and Shine, America!
because my family is here and you’re part of that family, even though we’re still divorced.”

Tom knew the media well enough to realize the scandal-hungry press would not have been satisfied with just that. “What did you say about the Paulo part of it?”
Was it over? And why did he care so much if it was?

“That there’s nothing to report,” Grace replied, the look in her eyes turning both steely and defensive.

“Which is true as far as it goes,” Tom guessed warily, pushing the lingering image of his ex and her lover from his mind.

“Which is true, period,” Grace corrected, candidly meeting his glance.

Was that regret Tom saw shimmering in her eyes?

“I’m not seeing him anymore in any capacity.”

Tom should have felt happy about that, maybe even relieved, given that a guy like Paulo was all wrong for Grace. But he felt angry and resentful instead. Hating that he was reacting like a jealous husband, when he and Grace were way past that, and had been for years, until he had foolishly got his hopes up about a reconciliation once again, Tom turned away from her, pushed back his chair and stood.

Striding out of the dining room, he dismissed her
with a curt “Thanks for coming by to alert me, but this is really none of my business, Grace.” And in future, he amended silently to himself, he’d rather not hear about it or know who she was or was not sleeping with. It hurt too much going back down that road.

Grace followed him down the hall and into the portal of his study. “I know, but I just thought you should know the truth and be prepared for anything, if reporters start calling your office.”

Tom grabbed the files off his desk and slid them into his briefcase. “I appreciate the heads-up,” he said brusquely.

Grace lingered in the doorway, her cheeks unusually pink. The morning sunlight pouring in through the windows sparkled in her casually coiffed hair, making it look even blonder. “How are you doing?” she asked with more than the usual interest.

Tom shut his briefcase with a snap, aware this whole encounter had turned way too intimate and personal for his comfort, under the circumstances of their latest estrangement. “All right.”

She straightened and glided closer, in a drift of Chanel N
⁰
5 perfume. “What about Daisy and that whole situation?”

Despite his aggravation with her, Tom could see Grace really wanted to know. Because what happened with Daisy would in turn affect the four children he and Grace shared, Tom had no choice but to inform her. He grabbed his cell phone out of the charger and slipped it into the leather holder on his belt. “Daisy agreed to a DNA test yesterday. We should have the results back in a couple of weeks.”

To Tom’s surprise, Grace looked accepting of that.
If not necessarily happy about it. “And in the meantime?”

Tom tensed as he thought about all the things that could still go wrong as they attempted to sort out this very difficult and delicate situation. “Daisy and I have agreed to say nothing publicly about what we know.”

“You think she will hold to that?” Grace asked sympathetically.

Tom shrugged, feeling as uneasy about the possibility of this scandal exploding in their faces as Grace was. “I don’t know,” Tom told his ex-wife honestly. “As you know, Daisy is unpredictable, to say the least.” Tom paused, and seeing no way to preface it, finally said bluntly, “For example, she married Jack Granger two days ago.”

Grace blinked. Her mouth opened into a round “oh” of shock. “What?”

Tom knew just how Grace felt. He was still reeling from the news, too. Grimacing, he continued, “Apparently, they slept together the night she came back from Switzerland, when she left the party. I sent Jack after her.” Jack, Tom realized in retrospect, had been following the Daisy trail for too long. Enough to become fundamentally attracted to her on some level, Tom guessed. He shook his head in silent regret, reflecting. “I suppose, knowing Daisy, how wild and reckless she can be, that what happened next was as much my fault as anything.”

Grace tilted her head at Tom and gave him a familiar glance. “You don’t look as if you really believe that.”

Tom shrugged. He should have known Grace would have picked up on that—her parental instincts were unmatched. “You’re right… I think Jack could have—should have—restrained himself. It would have been a
lot better for all of us if he hadn’t slept with Daisy that night. But the bottom line is he didn’t use good judgment, nor did she. And Daisy did what she always seems to do when she is hurt or upset or frightened, she took off on another wild jaunt.”

Grace regarded Tom with a mixture of shock and sympathy. “Jack told you this?” She seemed unable to imagine this, and again, Tom knew exactly how she felt.

“Reluctantly, the very next morning,” Tom replied, remembering that emotional confrontation and the resulting scene, when everything became clear to Tom. He shook his head, continuing, “He had no choice. He’s too honest and straightforward. I’m sure he knew it would be a mistake for me to hear the news from anyone else first or find out what had happened any other way—say, from Daisy herself.”

“But you didn’t fire him.”

Tom shook his head. He had been sorely tempted, and was, in fact, still so disappointed in his employee for what he had done that he could barely talk to the man in a civil manner. But Tom had also known this was more and more a situation of his own making. Jack hadn’t offered to get involved in this whole Daisy mess. Tom had drafted him into it and kept him involved, even during the times when he knew Jack did not want to be dealing with whatever it was that was going on. And Tom had done so because Jack was the kind of man who could be trusted to be completely discreet, which he had been. Jack didn’t ask questions of Tom that he did not want to answer. Instead, Jack simply did what his employer wanted him to do. Until now. And as much as a part of Tom wanted to, he could not discount everything Jack had done for him over the years.

“It wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to fire him,” Tom explained eventually. “Not from Deveraux-Heyward Shipping.”

Grace looked even more distressed. She flattened a hand over her chest. “Did you at least tell him to stay away from her—I mean a month ago, when all this was first going on?”

No, he hadn’t. And that had been another mistake, Tom reflected. A big one. Again, he shook his head, and briefly explained about the stolen SUV, credit card and cash, the decision by Jack, Harlan Decker and Tom not to go to the police but merely to wait until Daisy surfaced, as they knew she eventually would. “When she turned up in Lake Tahoe a few days ago, Jack came to me and asked me what I wanted him to do. I told Jack to go and get her, and do whatever he had to do to straighten things out between the two of them, and then bring her back to Charleston ASAP.”

“And did he?”

“Yes.” Tom grit his teeth. “But as his wife.” And Tom was still trying to figure that one out. Had Jack really felt Tom expected him to make an honest woman of Daisy and marry her? Was Jack going the extra mile to impress Tom, the way he had on so many other Deveraux-Heyward Shipping–related tasks in the past? Or had Jack eloped with Daisy simply because Jack wanted to, for reasons of his own? Either way, Tom concluded angrily, Jack and Daisy did not behave as if they were in love. Lust maybe, but not love. And lust was capricious at best, Tom knew.

“Thereby, adding one mistake to another,” Grace added softly.

Tom nodded, agreeing with his ex-wife’s assessment. Except he didn’t know who to blame for this latest fool-
hardiness. Daisy, Jack or even himself for allowing any further contact between Jack and Daisy, period. The only thing Tom knew for sure was that none of what had happened was like Granger. Jack simply did not behave in an impetuous, irresponsible manner. Daisy, however, excelled in such reckless and inappropriate behavior. There had been dozens of stories about her antics over the years, starting when she was a little girl. Some had made the newspaper, many had not. But all were reported and savored—sometimes viciously—in Charleston society. Tom sighed, for the first time having an inkling of what Richard and Charlotte Templeton had been dealing with all these years. He didn’t envy them the task of trying to rein Daisy in. Or himself, for having to possibly try and parent such an accomplished hellion at such a late stage. “I don’t know what either Jack or Daisy was thinking,” Tom stated finally.

Grace leaned toward Tom confidentially. “You don’t think she’s pregnant, do you?”

Daisy and Jack’s actions would make sense if Daisy was carrying Jack’s baby. But Jack hadn’t said so and Tom would have expected Jack to have come right out and done that if that was indeed the case. Tom shrugged in open frustration. “If she is, they’re keeping mum. Although, I wouldn’t put it past Daisy to have forced or talked Jack into this marriage simply to get under the Templeton family’s skin. Jack Granger is an excellent attorney, and aside from this mess-up, a fine man.” One Tom respected. “But Jack Granger isn’t what Charlotte and Richard would have wanted for Daisy, that’s for certain.”

“L
OOKS LIKE WE’VE GOT
company,” Jack said as he and Daisy drank coffee together the next morning. Her
whole body still tingling and alive from the night of nonstop lovemaking, Daisy glanced out the living-room window and swore like a longshoreman. Oh, no, she thought, vaulting up off the sectional sofa. No…

Jack, who was just about ready to leave for work, anyway, arched a teasing eyebrow her way. “Not very ladylike, Daze.”

Daisy smiled at the endearment he’d adopted for her, even as she sighed in unmitigated dread. “You want ladylike, you’ve got the right person coming up the front walk.” Ducking beneath the view of the picture window, she grabbed Jack and pushed him toward the visual cover of the foyer. “Let’s just pretend we’re not here,” she hissed, even as the doorbell rang. “Or we’re still in bed or something.”

Already tying the tie he had carelessly looped around his neck, Jack headed for the door. “No sense putting off for tomorrow what can be done today.”

Jack opened the door, and Daisy looked at the woman she had called “Mother” for as long as she could remember. Only, Charlotte Templeton wasn’t just her adoptive mother, Daisy reminded herself firmly. The silver-haired, beautifully put-together Charlotte was also her biological grandmother.

Daisy could tell by the way she was dressed, in a lovely lavender suit and matching low-heeled shoes, that Charlotte was on her way to a steering committee breakfast meeting or one of the many charities she supported. No one worked harder to raise funds for the less fortunate, and Daisy couldn’t help but respect Charlotte immensely for that, even as she braced herself for the inevitable confrontation that always came when Daisy did something Charlotte and Richard had not preapproved.

Deciding it was better to be the aggressor than the victim, Daisy demanded brusquely as Jack ushered her mother inside, “What are you doing here?” Daisy knew she had every right to refuse to see Charlotte at all. After all, Charlotte and Richard had not only lied to Daisy for years about her parentage, they had disinherited her to try and manipulate her behavior. So Daisy knew she didn’t owe them anything. But the need to be unconditionally loved and accepted by the family who had reared her, made her want to at least listen to what Charlotte had to say, in the vain hope that something—anything—would have changed for the better, in light of her discovery. Because she didn’t enjoy fighting with her family or feeling so chronically misunderstood.

Charlotte stepped over the portal and took a brief unhappy glance around before returning her attention to Daisy. “Connor came over to see us last evening and told your father and I about your elopement.” The gently disapproving look Daisy knew so well was back in Charlotte’s pewter-gray eyes. “Your father asked me to come and talk to you this morning about your actions.”

Which meant, Daisy thought, she was about to get blasted with Richard’s words coming out of Charlotte’s mouth. “Don’t you mean grandfather?” Daisy asked sweetly. “Grandmother?”

Charlotte didn’t blanch at her rudeness, merely said in the same cordial tone, “Darling, don’t be difficult. It isn’t becoming.”

“Would you like to come in and have a cup of coffee with us, Mrs. Templeton?” Jack asked.

“Yes, I would. Very much.” Charlotte smiled at Jack in the way people smiled at each other as they moved
down a receiving line of relative strangers. Daisy reluctantly introduced the two. Then, while her limousine and her driver, Nigel, sat at the curb, Charlotte followed Jack down the hall to the breakfast nook. Jack helped Charlotte with her chair while Daisy dutifully found a mug, paper napkin and spoon, and put them in front of her. Sitting ramrod straight in the sling-back chair, Charlotte continued in a pleasant but serious tone. “Daisy, your father wants you to annul this marriage.”

No surprise there, Daisy thought, although she was willing to bet those were not the words Richard Templeton had used. “And what about you?” Daisy asked casually as she poured and Jack brought out the sugar and cream. “Are you in agreement with Richard on this?”

Charlotte sighed audibly as she stirred in a tiny amount of cream and set her spoon on the paper napkin beside her plate. “If you want an annulment, if you’ve made a mistake, we can make this all go away. But you need to understand, Daisy darling, that if you decide to stay married to Jack, you will be married to him
for life.
” Charlotte paused to look solemnly at them both. “There are no divorces in this family.”

“I don’t want a divorce,” Jack said as he refreshed his own coffee then pulled out a chair for Daisy and autocratically motioned her into it.