The Billionaires: The Stepbrothers (Lover's Triangle 3)

with ovarian cancer and you can be damn sure he did everything in his power to try to save her. The best doctors, the best treatments, everything.”

“I know.” She swallowed down a lump of emotions as tears built in her eyes. “I didn’t want to be an additional burden. I just wanted to be with him. And the added benefit was that Sam finally had a safe place to live, an extraordinary world to grow up in. One I could never give him on my own. I’m eternally grateful for all the things your father has done for us. I didn’t want to heap one more thing on him. But I did.”

She walked past Michael. But he stopped her in her tracks as he said, “Sam and I certainly clashed with my father on a regular basis, but he never expected either of us to be flawless. He didn’t gloat when we tried something new and failed at it. He didn’t hold it against us. Just told us to try harder, do better. Yes, it was frustrating, but … he always made a good point. And when we did something to make him proud, he let us know. He never demanded absolute perfection from us—or from you, either, Karina.”

“I feel as though he deserves it from me,” she asserted.

“Christ, you’re still taking on so much. He loves you, Karina,” Michael imploringly said.

“And I love him. I would do anything for him. Anything and everything. I would go to any length; do you understand that?”

“Yes. You’d go so far as to harbor anything that might seem the tiniest bit displeasing or distressing to the family. But you’re forgetting that you are a part of this family, Karina. No matter what. We’re all a part of this family. That’s not going to change.”

She raised a hand to splay across his cheek. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me, Michael.” Her hand slipped away and she continued out of the room.

He found it disheartening that she put so much pressure on herself. Knew he hadn’t helped the situation. And Michael could clearly see that all of this weighed heavily on his stepmother’s mind. Even years later.

She’d made the transition seem easy, but Michael had never looked close enough to gauge whether that was actually true. He’d just assumed. Because he hadn’t wanted to be bothered with her emotions when he was so bogged down by his own. And so angry with his father for abruptly moving on.

Fuck.

If his father just would have expressed some of his feelings, shared some of his pain with Michael, come home more often than once or twice a week during that pivotal time of their lives, maybe the initial adjustment period following his marriage to Karina would have been a smoother one for everyone concerned.

But Mitcham had kept it all to himself. So had Karina.

Now it was biting them all in the asses, including Sam.

Michael left the gallery and found his father in his study. The conversation they were about to have was a long time coming. That was if he could engage Mitcham.

Michael’s father glanced up from his laptop at the interruption. He said, “We just saw you on Sunday. This is a surprise.”

“I came to apologize to Karina for the tough spot I helped to put her in.”

Mitcham sat back in his large executive chair. “She knew Scarlet was an insurance fraud investigator looking into the art theft. I gave her an out—told her take the plane to Paris for the weekend. She said no.”

“I’m thinking that maybe she was in need of getting it off her shoulders.”

“Could be.”

Michael took a seat in front of his father’s massive mahogany desk and said, “I’m not just talking about apologizing about the tough spot I put Karina in this past weekend. I’m talking about all of it. Dating back to the first time you brought her here.”

“You weren’t exactly welcoming.”

“And you weren’t exactly forthcoming.” Michael stared his father down. “You could have told me more about how the two of you met. You could have said she was more than just a waitress—that she was someone who’d stood by you when you’d needed it most and that there was something about her that made you open up to her. Something that made it okay for you to talk to her about my mother and everything you felt about her illness, your inability to save her, and your love for her.”

Mitcham pushed to his feet. He raked a hand through his thick hair and began to pace.

He didn’t speak for a spell and Michael didn’t press him. He recalled what Karina had said about that single tear sitting on the rim of Mitcham’s eye—his father’s eye.

Michael had never seen this man demonstrate emotion to that degree. Even at the funeral. He’d been impassive, a pillar of strength, perpetuating the image everyone had of Mitcham Vandenberg—powerful and in control.

But he’d had no control over cancer. No control over losing his wife and the mother of his child. No control over how it gutted up.

Michael understood his father’s living hell now. Because of the admission Scarlet had coaxed from Karina. He said, “I wasn’t ready for you to bring another woman into this house. Not so soon. But I feel differently about that today. I’m glad you met Karina. I’m glad you fell in love again and that she’s so devoted to you. So much so that all she’s ever wanted from the time she moved in was to please you and to prove that what the two of you have is real.”

Mitcham drew up short and speared Michael with a tormented look. “I didn’t think of the challenges she’d face. Your mother was a New York socialite. There was nothing about marrying me or living in the Hamptons that evoked insecurity or a sense of inferiority. She handled it all beautifully, gracefully. Karina did as well—on the outside. I had no idea how she was beating herself up on the inside, feeling as though she’d never measure up or be good enough.”

Michael nodded. “I feel bad for her. I really do.”