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“I’m sorry this is so hard.” His voice was without inflection, but she thought she caught the sheen of sincerity in his dark brown eyes. Still, his being sorry didn’t change anything.
“I don’t even know what to say,” she whispered, staring at her father’s handwriting. She’d have known that scrawl anywhere. She knew it was genuine because as her older brothers had long said, what forger could ever reproduce such hideous writing?
God. Her brothers.
Half brothers.
Did they all know? Had they been lying to her, too, all these years? Was nothing in her life what she’d thought it was? If she wasn’t Erica Prentice, then just who was she?
“Ms. Prentice … Erica,” Christian said, “I know you’re having a hard time with this.”
“I don’t think you could have the slightest idea,” she told him.
“Fair enough,” he said. “But I do know that your biological father regretted never being able to know you.”
“Did he?” She shook her head, unsure just what she felt about Donald Jarrod. What kind of man was it who slept with another man’s wife? Who created a child and then never made an attempt to acknowledge it? Had Walter’s letter really kept Don Jarrod away? Was he that easily put off? Had his affair with Danielle and Erica’s birth meant nothing to him?
As if he knew exactly where her thoughts had taken her, Christian said, “Donald’s wife, Margaret, died of cancer, leaving him with five children to raise alone when the youngest, your sister Melissa, was only two.”
“My sister,” she repeated.
“Yes,” he said, “and Melissa is eager to meet you, by the way. She’s delighted she’s not the only girl in the family anymore.”
“I’m the only girl in my family, too—” Erica laughed shortly as she looked at him. “But then, apparently I’m not.”
An icy wind blasted down the street and the sun slipped behind a bank of gray clouds. Erica shivered, but didn’t know if it was the emotional reaction or the sudden drop in temperature that caused it.
Christian said, “Don met your mother at a vulnerable point in his life—”
“And that excuses him?”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said, his features tightening even as his voice grew clipped. “I’m simply trying to explain it to you the same way Don did for me. He knew how you’d feel hearing this news.”
“I’m surprised he gave it a thought,” she said. “Not one word from him my whole life and now I’m supposed to be grateful that my biological father is popping up after his death?”
“He didn’t contact you because he thought it would make your life more difficult.”
“Putting it lightly.”
“Exactly. Don’t think you weren’t on his mind, though.” Christian folded his hands around his coffee cup. “I knew him for a lot of years and I can tell you that to him, family was most important. It must have driven him insane knowing you were here and completely out of his reach.”
“So my father’s—Walter’s—threat worked. Donald stayed away from me to avoid scandal.”
“No.” Christian smiled a little at that. “Don wasn’t worried about what other people thought of him. My guess is he stayed away out of respect for you and your father. He wasn’t the kind of man to go out looking to destroy marriages.”
“And yet …”
Christian shook his head. “Just before he died, Don talked to me about all of this because he knew I’d be the one coming to see you.”
“So even when he knew he was dying, he didn’t get in touch with me.” Erica wasn’t sure how she felt about that. If Donald Jarrod had contacted her, would she have believed him? Would she have welcomed him? She couldn’t say. Her relationship with her father had never been a good one, but she did love Walter. He was her father. The only one she’d ever known.
Didn’t she at least owe him loyalty?
Frowning, the man across from her admitted, “I argued with him about that. I thought he should talk to you. Tell you this himself. But he refused to go back on his word. He’d sworn to Walter he would stay away and he did, though I believe it cost him a great deal to keep that promise.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that, won’t I?”
“I guess so.” Their waiter appeared with a coffeepot to refill Christian’s cup, but when he would have stayed to take their order, he was waved away again. “Look,” Christian continued when they were alone again. “Just do me a favor and read the last letter in that envelope before I say any more.”
She really didn’t want to. What more was there to tell? What in her life was left to shake up and rearrange? Yet, morbid curiosity had a grip on her now and Erica knew she’d have to satisfy it.
Somehow, she wasn’t surprised when she glanced at the bottom of the page and saw the name Donald Jarrod in a bold signature. Lifting her gaze to the top of the paper, she read,
My Dear Erica,
I know how you must be feeling right now and I can’t blame you. But please know that if I had been given the opportunity, I would have loved you as I cared for your mother.
People—even parents—aren’t perfect. We make mistakes. But if we get the chance we try to correct them. This is my chance. Come to Colorado. Meet your other family. And one day, I hope you’ll be able to think of me kindly.
Your father,
Donald Jarrod
Again her eyes misted over. She had never known her mother. She’d grown up with a stepmother, Angela, who had been as distant in her own way as Walter had. Now, it turned out, she’d never known her father, either.
“Did you read these letters?”
“No. Don gave them to me in the closed envelope and they’ve stayed sealed up until just now.”
She looked at him. “And I’m supposed to take your word for that, too?”
He met her gaze. “I’ll never lie to you, Erica. That is one thing you can depend on.”
Since she’d only just discovered that her entire life had been based on a lie, that should have been a comforting statement. On the other hand, she didn’t know if the statement itself was a lie.
A headache burst into life behind her eyes and Erica knew it was only going to get worse. So it was best if she just finished this meeting as quickly as possible. Then she could get away. Think. Plan. Try to make some sense out of this insensible situation.
Pushing her hair out of her eyes as the wind whipped it into a frenzy, she said, “All right. Say I believe you. I’m Donald Jarrod’s daughter. What now?”
He reached down for his briefcase, opened it and extracted the manila envelope he’d shown her earlier. “As a beneficiary of Don’s will, you receive an equal share of his estate.”
“What?”
He gave her a small smile. “The estate’s been split between all six of his children.”
Erica sighed and took a gulp of her iced tea. “I can imagine how news of me went over at the reading of the will.”
“As you might guess. Surprise. Shock.”
“Sounds like we’ll have a lot in common,” she said wryly, still reeling from the information overload she’d experienced.
“More than you might think,” he told her as he slid the envelope across the table toward her. “There’s a catch to your inheritance, though.”
“Of course there is,” she mused, laying her fingertips atop the will as if she needed the physical contact to assure herself that this was all for real.
“Each of you has to move to Aspen to help run the family business. If you don’t …”
“If we don’t, then no inheritance.”
“Basically.”
“Move to Aspen?” She glanced around her at the city she’d grown up in and loved. The city sidewalks were at the bottom of canyons built of steel and brick. Sly sunlight poking through gray clouds appeared and disappeared as if performing magic tricks. Crowds of pedestrians hustled along, everyone hurrying, fighting the wind and the snarls of traffic. Car horns blared, music from a street corner musician peeled out and somewhere close by, a tiny dog yapped impatiently.
The city was hers.
What did she know about Colorado?
But was that even the point? How could she not go? Yet, if she did, how would her father and brothers react?
Christian watched her features and knew just by looking at her that her thoughts were tumultuous. Why wouldn’t they be, though? He’d known that what he’d had to say to her would shake the foundations of her life. Make her question everything she had ever known.
And he still resented the hell out of the fact that Donald had left this mess in his hands.
“You don’t have to make any decisions right now,” he said after a few long minutes had passed.
She gave him a reluctant, halfhearted smile. “That’s good, because I don’t think I could.”
Nodding, Christian offered, “Why don’t you take a few days? Make your decision, then call me.” He scribbled his cell number on the back of his business card, then handed it to her. “According to the will, you’ve got a couple of weeks to take up your place at the resort. Use the time. Think about what you want to do.”
She held his card and ran her thumb over the embossed lettering in a slow stroke that mesmerized Christian. His body stirred and he shifted uncomfortably on his chair. He didn’t need this attraction to her and wished he could shut it all down.
Unfortunately, the longer he was with her, the stronger that attraction became. What he’d like to do was blow off the business talk, take her for an elegant meal and then off to his hotel where he could lay her down across his bed and they could spend a couple of hours enjoying themselves. If she was any other woman, that’s exactly what he would do.
That thought made him even more uncomfortable than he had been before.
Erica Prentice was off-limits and if she ended up going to Aspen—which he thought she would—then his body had better get used to living with disappointment.
“A decision,” she said softly, locking her gaze with his. “We both know what that decision will be.”
“I think I do,” he told her. “You’re going to accept the conditions of the will.”
“How can I not?”
He smiled in approval. “You have more of your father in you than you know.”
“Which one?” she asked.
“Does it matter?” he countered.
Christian studied the woman across from him and tried once again to take a mental step back from the raging lust pounding through him. He’d never had such an immediate reaction to any woman before, and it was disconcerting as hell when he was trying to concentrate on business.
Her face was an open book. Every emotion she felt was written there for the world to see and he had to admit that he liked that about her. There were no artifices. What you saw with Erica Prentice was what you got.
She was strong, as well. The kind of news he’d just delivered might have flattened most women, but she was already finding a way to deal with it. Might not be easy, but he didn’t think she was the kind of woman to run from a challenge. Her whiskey-colored eyes shone with tears she refused to shed and that, too, struck a spark of admiration in him. She could control her emotions, which would be good once she hit Aspen.
Dealing with a whole new family wouldn’t be easy, but he was willing to bet she’d make it work. But he had to wonder how the Jarrod siblings were going to handle it. They’d all been shocked of course, but he’d expected that. He hadn’t counted on the outright hostility he’d sensed from Blake and Guy. If they tried taking their outrage at their father out on Erica, Christian would just have to stop them.
Surprised at the thought, he realized that he was feeling … protective of her. Which didn’t make a bit of sense since he’d only just met her. But there it was. She’d had her whole life turned upside down and inside out and damned if he’d let the Jarrod twins make her feel even worse about it.
“Is there something else you’re not telling me?”
He looked at Erica. “What? No. Why do you ask?”
“Because you suddenly looked fierce enough to bite through steel.”
“Oh.” Apparently his legendary poker face, his ability to mask his emotions, was slipping today. “No, it’s nothing. I was just thinking about some business I have to take care of back in Aspen.”
“Right. You live there, too.”
“I do.” He smiled to himself, thinking about the home he had built on the Jarrod property. “I’ve got a house on the resort grounds. Don wanted his lawyer close by.”
“Handy.”
“It has been.” He shrugged and expanded on that a little. “I grew up in Aspen. Worked at the Jarrod Resort as a teenager.”
“So you knew my—” she stopped and rephrased what she’d been about to say “—Don Jarrod a long time.”
“Since I was a kid.”
“So you know his children, too.”
“Sure. We didn’t hang out together as kids, but I knew them. Got to know them better later on.”
“What’re they like?”
“You know,” he said, glancing around for the waiter that had apparently given up on them ordering lunch, “we should get a meal while we talk.”
“I’m not hungry, thanks.”
“Oh.” He should have figured she’d still be too shaken to eat. “Are you sure?”
“I am. Just tell me how they took this news. Are they furious? Am I going to be facing a firing squad in Colorado?”
He gave her a smile he hoped was reassuring. “Nothing so dramatic. I admit they were as stunned as you. But they’re nice people. They’ll deal with it.”
She took a deep breath and blew it out again. “I suppose we’ll all have to.”
There it was, he thought, that thread of steel running through her slender, feminine body. “I have to say, I’m surprised at how well you’re taking this. I actually expected you to need more convincing.”
