Saying Yes to the Boss

“How do you take your tea, miss?” she asked.

“One sugar and a splash of cream, please.”

The woman handed her a cup. “Is there anything else I can get you, Mr. Winchester?”

“No, thank you. That will be all.”

The woman nodded and disappeared as quickly as she had arrived.

Georgia studied her tea, taking a tentative sip as she thought over everything Sutton had told her. “Why are you telling me before anyone else? Why did you ask me here today?” She hated being burdened with this knowledge, knowing how it would affect Carson and his brothers.

“Because I like you, Georgia. You’re smart. You’re attractive. You’ve got a great head for business. If I was twenty years younger, you would be in trouble.” He sighed wistfully and shook his head. “But my mind and my body don’t really cooperate the way I’d like them to anymore. I asked you here today because I wanted to tell you this in person so you’d understand where I was coming from. Since you and Carson are together, I thought maybe you could help him process it all.”

Georgia was surprised by Sutton’s thoughtfulness. Despite his physical and emotional distance from his son, he seemed to know that this would be hard on Carson. And not only that, but he knew, too, that Carson wouldn’t turn to him for comfort—he would go to Georgia.

“I also wanted to give you something.”

Sutton reached over to his nightstand and pulled out a sealed envelope from the top drawer. It had Carson’s name written on the front in his handwriting. “This is the check I promised you for the hospital. I wanted to give it to you personally. Please see to it that Carson gets this when you see him next.”

Georgia took the envelope from him and slipped it into her purse. “I will.”

“He hates me, you know?” Sutton said matter-of-factly. “I’ve given him every reason to. I doubt that check will help, but it’s all I can offer. Cindy was a bright spot in my life. When I lost her, I gave in to the darkness once and for all. Honoring her memory by contributing to the children’s hospital is the least I can do.”

Georgia couldn’t help but notice the soft, sentimental expression on Sutton’s face when he talked about Carson’s mother and how he referred to her as Cindy. Was there more between them than just one more of his dalliances? She and Carson would probably never know. But she did understand how Carson felt.

“He doesn’t hate you,” Georgia argued. “He hates how you treated his mother.”

At that, Sutton laughed. “I bet Cindy told the boys quite the tale to keep them away from me. She probably did it to protect me. That’s why she left the company,” he said. “My wife at the time was threatening all sorts of chaos if I didn’t break it off with Cindy. I couldn’t do it, though. I didn’t care if she ruined me. But Cindy cared. She said she wouldn’t let me give up everything for her, and she left. All I could do was give her a severance package to ease the loss. She told me not to look for her. She made me promise, so I kept my word. I wish every day that I hadn’t. I would’ve known about Carson if I’d searched for her.”

Georgia perked up in her seat. “You didn’t know about Carson?”

Sutton shook his head. “No. I knew about the twins, of course, but they weren’t mine. When they started their business and became my main competitors, I knew who they were. I started to contact Cindy, then thought better of it. It had been a long time and she probably didn’t want me interrupting her life. When I realized there was a younger Newport boy, I figured he was the child of Cindy’s next lover. It never occurred to me…”

There was a sadness in Sutton’s eyes that she didn’t expect to see there. “I’d always wanted a son. I love my girls more than anything, but it pains me greatly to know that I had a child out there all these years and I didn’t know it. And now—” he gestured toward the medical equipment next to the bed “—it’s too late.”

This was a side of Sutton that Georgia had never expected to see. He wasn’t a saint by any stretch of the imagination, but he wasn’t the monster he’d been painted to be, either. She felt a genuine pain coming from him as he spoke about his regrets. Perhaps she was right and his relationship with Carson’s mother had been more than just a sleazy affair. It sounded like love to her. She knew how that felt, and how much she was willing to do for Carson because she cared. Was Cynthia willing to go to such great lengths to protect Sutton from financial and corporate ruin?

“It’s not too late,” Georgia said. “You and Carson can still have a relationship. You just have to convince him to give you a chance. If all those things his mother told him about you aren’t true, he needs to know that.”

Sutton listened to her thoughtfully, then shook his head. “He won’t listen to me. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

ELEVEN

“Mom?”

Georgia pushed her way through the front door of her loft, her arms filled with groceries. It was late enough when she’d left the Winchester estate that she’d had the car drop her at her neighborhood grocery store instead of returning to the office. She’d picked up a few things her mother liked, and got what she needed to make her famous lasagna for dinner. Misty had been asleep when she got home from Carson’s the night before, so Georgia had planned a nice evening for them to spend together before her mother took the bus back to Detroit.

She’d been feeling quite sentimental since she left Sutton. If there was hope for his relationship with Carson, perhaps there was hope for her relationship with Misty. Things had gone well so far.

She dropped the bags onto the dining room table and listened for sounds of Misty in the house. The last few days, she’d returned home to find her curled up on the couch reading one of her books or watching television. But there was no murmur of voices coming from the TV set or the radio.

“Mom?” she said again, but there was no answer.

Frowning, Georgia made her way through the living room. Everything seemed to be in place. The book her mother had been reading was sitting on the coffee table where she’d left it. The lamp was on nearby. Perhaps she’d gone upstairs for something.

She climbed up the stairs to her bedroom loft and stopped short when her eyes took in the sight. There it seemed like a tornado had flown around the room. All her drawers were open with clothes cast to the ground, her closet door was ajar, and her jewelry armoire had its now-empty trays tossed onto the floor.

Her first reaction was to be scared and worried for Misty. She ran into the closet, half expecting to find her crumpled, beaten body there. Nothing. Then she went into the bathroom, once again hoping her mother hadn’t been attacked when her apartment was robbed. Nothing there, either. Then she noticed among the chaos that her mother’s backpack and duffel bag were gone.