Passionate Proposals. Andrea Laurence

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СКАЧАТЬ was too tense. Despite the fact that he didn’t care if anyone knew they were seeing one another, she still wasn’t comfortable with it.

      The contents of the shoe box had slipped his mind as the final paperwork on the hospital property went through and the finishing touches were put on the plans. Then Graham burst through his office door and it all came back to him.

      Graham flopped into a chair at the table where Brooks and Carson were sitting. There was a light of excitement in his blue eyes, like he’d get when he had a breakthrough in a legal case. They’d given him the box because sorting through paperwork and finding clues was his specialty as a lawyer. Carson would’ve fallen asleep before he found anything important.

      “Well?” Brooks prompted after several moments of silence.

      “Well,” Graham began, “as I went through everything, I was surprised to find a few months’ worth of pay stubs from Elite Industries. Apparently Mom went to work there right before Brooks and I were born and stayed until seven months before she had you, Carson.”

      Carson frowned. She’d never mentioned that, not once in all those years. Not even when they complained about their competitor around the dinner table. “I thought she worked as a waitress at the café with Gerty.”

      “She did until she was in the third trimester of her pregnancy with Brooks and me. She went back to the diner again after her time with Elite. It looks as though she was laid off from her job after six months, although I don’t know why. The paperwork I found showed she was given a very generous severance package and a glowing letter of reference from her boss when she left. Guess who she worked for at Elite? Starts with an S...”

      Carson’s stomach started to ache. He didn’t really want to know where this was headed.

      “Sutton Winchester?” Brooks guessed with as much dread in his voice as Carson was feeling.

      “Yep,” Graham confirmed, nearly boiling over with excitement. “She was his executive assistant.”

      Carson pushed up from his chair and shook his head. “I need a drink. Anyone else?”

      “I think we all could use one,” Brooks said.

      Carson busied himself pouring them each a finger of scotch over ice. He carried the three short tumblers to the conference table and flopped back down into his chair with a sigh of disgust. Without waiting on his brothers, he took a large sip of the scotch, savoring the burn as it rushed down his throat into his empty stomach.

      “So Mom was his executive assistant? That’s a big leap from a coffee shop waitress,” Brooks noted with a frown as he picked up his own glass.

      It was. How could she have possibly qualified for a job like that? Knowing what Carson knew about Sutton, the answer wasn’t one he wanted to consider. Would his mother really have accepted that sleaze’s secretarial position when it came with sexual duties? Especially when she was seven months pregnant with twins? Or was she already his lover long before she went to work for him?

      “Carson?” Graham said with concern in his voice. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”

      He understood why. He could feel the blood draining from his face as the reality of their past solidified in his mind. He hadn’t had enough scotch to handle this. No wonder their mother didn’t want them to know the truth. No wonder she said their father was a horrible person. He was. Still, he had trouble believing it could be true. It just couldn’t be. And yet...he knew the truth almost instinctively.

      “He’s our father,” Carson blurted out.

      Brooks narrowed his gaze suspiciously at Carson. “How can you be so sure?”

      “The letter I showed you guys the other day from the box. It talks about hurting her, missing her terribly and how sorry he was about everything that happened. How she and the boys would be better off without him. It’s signed ‘S.’”

      “That’s still a bit of a stretch,” Brooks argued. “There are a lot of people with a first name starting with S in the world.”

      “Yes, but we’re talking about Sutton Winchester here. I don’t know if I told both of you, but when he demanded that Georgia meet with him, he offered her quite a sweet deal to come work for Elite Industries. The job came with a million-dollar signing bonus and the role of his mistress.”

      Graham’s mouth dropped open, his glass of scotch hanging in his hand midair. “Are you serious? That old dog!”

      Carson nodded gravely. “If that’s how Sutton recruits employees and lovers, it all makes sense. Say he met Mom at the diner and they started an affair. When she ends up pregnant, he offers her the job as his assistant so she would have medical benefits and maternity leave. Being on her feet all day carrying twins had to be rough on her. I can see why she would accept the offer, especially if she was put on bed rest or something until you two were born.”

      Brooks looked at him thoughtfully. “If he went to all that trouble when she was pregnant the first time, why would he fire her when she was pregnant with you? It seems inconsistent.”

      Carson shook his head. “I don’t know why. But I think it all goes back to the letter I found in the shoe box. It sounds to me like it might not have been Sutton’s decision to let her go.”

      “Well,” Graham said, “he was married at the time. Do you think his wife found out about his family on the side and made him put an end to all of it?”

      Brooks chuckled. “Have you met Celeste Van Houten? She’s one icy-cold woman. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

      “We need proof,” Graham argued and ran his fingers through his blond hair. “If we want to know the truth, once and for all, we’ll need a paternity test. I doubt the old man will just go along with it to be nice, especially when it would mean we’d be eligible for a chunk of that multimillion-dollar estate of his when he dies. There’s no way I can compel a paternity test just on the basis of our mother having been his employee at the time of Carson’s conception. We need something that shows they actually had an affair.”

      “Who would know aside from the two of them?” Brooks asked.

      “That’s a tough one. Sutton wasn’t likely to broadcast what he was doing, even though it looks obvious to us.”

      “Someone would have to know,” Carson insisted. “Maybe someone who worked for Sutton at the time at his office or his house.”

      “That’s someplace we can start,” Graham agreed. “I’ll do some more digging and see what I can find. Maybe we’ll luck out and find someone who still remembers that far back. It’s been thirty years.”

      Carson knew Graham was trying to be upbeat, but he could hear the discouragement in his voice. The odds of finding someone who knew about their mother’s relationship were pretty low. Most of Sutton’s employees were probably paid handsomely to keep their mouths shut. But if anyone could track them down, Graham could.

      “It’s more than we knew a week ago,” Brooks said.

      “That’s true,” Carson agreed. “I just wonder what the point of it would be.”

      “What do you mean?” Graham asked.

      “Well, СКАЧАТЬ