‘Ask me what you want to know, Lukas.’ Her quiet voice flowed over him.
He didn’t turn around.
‘How about we start with why you went along with your father’s sick story that your brother was dead?’
His choice of words was designed to twist into her, too barbed to go unnoticed. Yet it didn’t escape him that he deliberately kept his back to her so that he didn’t have to see the expression in her eyes. So it surprised him when her tone stayed even.
‘I didn’t go along with my father’s sick story.’
He turned despite himself.
‘It was Edward’s request,’ she continued smoothly. ‘It just happened to have the same result as my father intended.’
‘Edward asked you to say he was dead?’ Lukas asked, wholly unprepared for the look of pain that crossed her delicate features before she seemed to steel herself.
And in that instant he hated that she had to wear such a mask around him.
‘My brother told me on multiple occasions that he wanted to...die.’
Lukas didn’t answer, not having a clue what to even begin to say.
‘The crash was bad.’
‘I saw the news reports at the time,’ Lukas confirmed.
Not to mention the fact that he’d done an internet search that afternoon, unable to concentrate on his meeting. Or any of the work that demanded his attention, for that matter.
It had been late on Christmas Eve, and Edward had allegedly been driving on a narrow, unlit valley road in the driving rain when an oncoming driver had lost control and skidded around the bend on Edward’s side of the road.
His vehicle had been rammed through the drystone wall and who knew how many times it had tumbled down the steep rocky slope before coming to a halt at the bottom, on its roof.
When had he crossed the room again? When had he lowered himself into the chair opposite her?
‘His injuries were...are significant.’
‘But he’s alive,’ Lukas clarified. ‘Is he in a coma?’
‘No, he isn’t.’
He didn’t particularly appreciate the feeling creeping through him at that moment.
‘He has brain damage?’
‘No, he’s alert, and his mind is as sharp as it ever was.’
‘I just bought the controlling shares of his company.’ Lukas eyed her grimly. He’d never regretted a business deal in his life. Until now.
‘Edward’s well aware.’ Her expression was rueful. ‘But, as far as he’s concerned, it’s better in your hands than Rockman’s.’
‘If his mind is still sharp, then why not keep the company? I only met him a couple of times, but he always struck me as a good CEO.’
‘He was. Most of the board agreed,’ she told him in a voice that Lukas now recognised was too calm, too controlled. As if she had a tight lid on myriad emotions which bubbled within but couldn’t afford to let a single one of them show. ‘Sadly, a few didn’t, and Edward agreed.’
She stopped abruptly. Lukas could have asked more, but he wanted her to tell him when she was ready. Clamping his jaw shut, he forced himself to wait.
‘He’s tetraplegic,’ she announced after what felt like an age. ‘He’s stuck in a wheelchair, he can’t move his arms or legs, he can’t even grasp things, and as far as Edward is concerned it’s no life at all.’
‘Yet, asking you to pretend he was dead—’ Lukas shook his head ‘—isn’t that a bit extreme?’