Seduce Me by Cheryl Holt

Author:Cheryl Holt [Holt, Cheryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Jacquelyn! Where are you?”

Lucas marched through the mansion, shouting his mother’s name, but he received no reply. His footsteps echoed off the high ceilings, and the drafty place was so quiet that he wondered if it was empty. Maybe they’d all left town, and he was the only one who’d remained in Denver to bicker with Faith.

Since his father’s death, they’d all been eager to dump their problems on him. They automatically assumed he’d carry their burdens, that he didn’t mind becoming the family patriarch.

But why should he bow to their whims? What had any of them ever done for him? When had they ever been close?

His mother was a stranger, and his siblings the mutual catastrophe survivors. His relationship with them was based on their having endured the same calamity. Disaster was the thread that linked them, but it wouldn’t keep them bound much longer. Not after what he’d learned in Boulder.

He’d give Jacquelyn a chance to deny Faith’s allegations. He’d give her a chance to defend herself, but if she couldn’t, then what?

“Jacquelyn!”

Climbing the stairs, he searched the second floor, then the third. He found her in a sitting room at the top of the house where there were big windows and lots of natural lighting.

She was leaned over a worktable, sketching on a large piece of paper. Even though her talent wasn’t particularly remarkable, she viewed herself as a failed artist. She often complained that she could have had a career if she hadn’t married Lucas’s father and wasted her life raising children.

Hers was an old lament, and he was weary of listening to it. Her husband was deceased, so she wasn’t tied down—she’d never been tied down—by the barriers he’d purportedly put in her path. She was rich and independent and could do whatever she liked, but she didn’t have the courage to move ahead.

She was a closet drinker and most likely an alcoholic, though she hid it well. There was a bottle of wine at her elbow, a glass poured. As she glanced up and saw him, she reached for the wine to furtively slide it onto a chair so it would be concealed by the table.

“You don’t need to hide your wine, Jackie. I don’t give a shit if you’re up here drinking all alone.”

“Don’t call me Jackie. It sounds common, and you know I detest nicknames.”

“Oh pardon me, Jacquelyn.”

“I could hear you bellowing from the moment you walked in the door.”

“You couldn’t be bothered to answer?”

“What do you want?”

He approached the table and slapped down his palms, leaning into her space.

“A little bird told me the most interesting story today.”

She wrinkled up her nose. “How nice.”

“You remember Katie, don’t you, Mother?”

A glimpse of panic flashed in her eyes, but it vanished quickly.

“No, should I?”

“Probably not.” He shrugged. “She wasn’t anyone important. I was just married to her when I was nineteen.”

“It’s been eleven years, Lucas. I assume there’s a reason you mentioned her?”

Lucas pushed away and went over to the windows to stare out at the Front Range.

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