Chapter 8
Liam sat in his chair, a chair made by a luxury Italian car design firm. It always made him confident, helped him handle business associates who attempted to play hardball. The fabric molded to his body. Right then, his chair did nothing to ease his anger from watching a perfect rose with thorns make her grand exit.
Liam let her name roll off of his tongue. Unconvinced that it was real, he glanced to the cognac snifter at the bar. I haven’t had a sip today.
Jaw tense, his mind flashed back to her time-stopping beauty. Her blue eyes had turned into a gray storm as she ranted. In my office!
At first, he’d been amused, hypnotized at her forbidden golden-toned thighs when she sat on his mahogany table. Forget about her attitude. He almost laughed when she’d mentioned Scandalous magazine. If she’d done her homework, she’d have known Delacroix Communications owned it and the complementing television show.
The letter almost made him snap. “I’d never infer that my child was …” There was no fucking way those awful words she’d used would ever pass his lips. He’d loved Raven, proposed to her—so it was with an antique spoon ring from Pierre’s collection—but he’d promised to get her something better later.
“I was going to leave my life for her and our baby. This is the thanks I get!” He walked to the silver cart, picked up the drink, and downed it. Liquid fire seared his throat, warmed his body as he remembered the cold letter she wrote. “I just can’t have a baby with you …”
Each word wove through his brain like a disease as he picked up the crystal bottle and poured another glass. Hell, she’d even added some biblical scripture and finished the story with she was sorry, but she wasn’t keeping it.
About to pour his third, he stopped. He didn’t want to be drunk. Drinking wouldn’t help him forget how he’d cried reading that letter, how he had torn it up, burned it to a crisp. The ashes, the evidence, had dissipated in the lake at the meadow. Their meadow. The very meadow she was supposed to meet him at to run away. I should’ve gone to the meadow that night. No, I should’ve beat on her bedroom window and demanded she keep my child.
Liam remembered his first year in Paris for college. Seven months later and still in a numb state of mind, he’d seen a pregnant teen who reminded him of Raven. It gnawed at the anger he’d felt from getting her letter. He’d gotten drunk enough to call her. Even believing she’d already murdered his child, he would still forgive her. Desperately, he needed to speak with the girl he loved. Come to think of it, Raven didn’t have the decency to return the call.
“Something isn’t right,” he grumbled under his breath. Raven got a letter forged in my name. She was irate about some phantom letter I supposedly wrote. And there was no fucking way Liam would bring up her letter, because she’d been moved in the same manner he had about her letter. He’d already left her before high school. By damn, he needed proof he hadn’t willingly left her pregnant. She probably thinks of me just like Charlene. Fuck.
Liam’s forearms swiped over tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of scotch. The shattered crystal wasn’t nearly as loud as his contemplation. All these years and Raven had kept the baby. Eyes closing with uncertainty, he leaned back on his table.
*** 5 Years ago ***
“Raven is … Sh-she’s pr-pregnant?” Elise croaked.
“I’m going to Raven’s right now, she is keeping my child!” an eighteen-year old Liam shouted as he stood in the vast courtyard of his parent’s mansion in North Carolina. He held the letter Raven wrote.
“Liam, please come inside so we can all talk,” Elise said, her eyes flitting from his to her father’s.
Pierre leaned against the marble fountain, pinching the bridge of his nose. “My son, I do believe Raven needs—”
“You don’t call me son!” Liam turned to his grand-père. Then he held his hand up to calm his mood—Pierre wasn’t his target. “Grand-père, take Mom inside.”
He stalked to his Ducati. Before he could swing his leg onto the superbike, Elise grabbed his arm. For a thin woman, she was tall. They stood eye to eye. “Raven is not getting rid of my child. If I have to tie her ass up in one of those rooms—” he pointed to the mansion “—and make sure she takes her prenatal vitamins, and whatever the fuck needs to be done for my child to be born healthy, safe, that’s what will be done. Got that?”
The sound of his mother’s palm against his cheek rung through his ears, but he didn’t feel a thing. “She is not some animal.”
“Oh, sure, don’t be condescending, Mother. You’ve always hated Raven, and the disrespect from you stops now.”
Elise took the letter from his hand. “Yes, I have always wanted the best for you, Liam. And—”
“And it’s Raven! My best is with Raven at my side, regardless of how she feels now.”
“Please let me speak.”
Liam gestured for her to continue.
“But I am a woman, Liam, and as I reviewed Raven’s letter, I understand that she is a young woman at the end of her rope.”
He bit his fist. He loved Raven more than life itself, but the fear of them finding out about her pending DNA test scared him shitless.
Elise’s continued, “Liam, you and I aren’t religious.” It wasn’t a question. It was a fact, yet Elise paused for emphasis. “You’ve always attended church, though Raven was your reason. She is a beautiful girl, obviously. I do believe her God wouldn’t want her to abort. However, I do believe her God wouldn’t want her to have a child out of wedlock with her half-brother. This is a very difficult predicament, Liam.”
Liam had no rebuttal. True, he’d attended church off and on since he could walk. He knew there was a God, but he’d never visited for that. The moment he laid eyes on Raven as a toddler in church, each and every single time he returned, it had been for her.
“It’s all in this letter, Liam. The shame Raven feels, and how it’s projected onto you in such an angry manner.” Elise held up the letter, green eyes glossed over, yet no tears fell down her milky skin. “Give her a moment to digress.”
Liam was silent for a second. When he glanced back at his mother, he thought he saw a split-second of anxiety. Then her gaze was constant once more, empathetic and strong. Who was this woman, too willing to agree with Raven, too nurturing to him. Elise never considered other people’s perspectives.
“For the first time in my life, Mom, your parental advice holds clout. I know you love me, in your own way. And I have nothing but love for you—we’re just unique about it. So I appreciate your guidance. Raven must be overwhelmed with the pending paternity test with Dad. And we’re young. So let me tell you how everything is going to play out.” Liam stepped closer to his mom, caressing her cheek.
She pursed her lips, smiling weakly.
“If Raven never talks to me or sees me again, the same applies to you. I will never lay eyes on you, or utter one single word to you, Mother. Not now, not ever again. And we all know that I’m a man of my word.”
***
That was the last day Liam spoke to his mother. Though the letter from Raven hurt him to his core and zapped any confidence he had of going to see her, somewhere deep down, Liam felt convinced that Elise had a hand in everything. Perhaps it was paranoia. Elise was a Delacroix. His family had the ability to play people like chess pieces. But I’m her son.
Patricia rushed through the double doors. “Are you all right?” she asked, glancing at the amber stains on the white couches and floor. Shards of glass were all over.
Shoulders tensed, he commanded, “Everything will be fine soon. Clear the rest of my week. Have the jet ready; I’m headed to North Carolina.”