Handle With Care (Shacking Up 5)

“You were the other woman.” It sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.

“As a result of circumstances beyond my control, yes. I’m so sorry, Lincoln. I’m sure this is painful to hear, but your father was a good man with a good heart. He was trying to do the right thing for everyone, although we all suffered for it, you the most, I think.”

I don’t know if that’s true. I wonder how much Hope suffered, having a father she couldn’t name. But the connections finally come together in my head, memories making more sense than they did before. My mother’s outbursts, my father’s stoicism, the way she’d break down on me and tell me if it weren’t for me, she’d have nothing. G-mom always swooping in when she went into one of her emotional tailspins. And then I’d been put in boarding school. From my perspective, I’d had a shitty father who was a cheater. And in a lot of ways I understood his absence and maybe even his infidelity, because there was nothing loving about my self-absorbed mother. And now I know where it all came from, but it sure doesn’t make it any less painful. We were the second-string family he was forced into keeping.

While this certainly explains a lot, it doesn’t explain everything. “That room in the penthouse…” I let it hang there, because what the hell else can I say?

Jacqueline makes a face, and her cheeks flush. She shifts uncomfortably. “I’d hoped to have cleared that out before anyone discovered it. I’m not sure there’s an easy explanation. He ran a massive company and was always in charge. Gwendolyn essentially blackmailed him into staying married. It all took its toll on him, I think. He was a complex man who tried to do the right thing, despite the pain it caused him and everyone he loved.”

I hold up my hand. “I don’t need more of an explanation that that.”

“That’s good because I wasn’t planning to elaborate further. I couldn’t bring myself to go to the penthouse for a long time after Fredrick passed.”

“But someone cleaned out the closet.”

“Your mother went.”

“Why would she do that?”

More tears stream down Jacqueline’s cheeks. “He was with me at the penthouse the night he suffered the heart attack. It was a sensitive situation, and Gwendolyn had to be called, which was difficult for everyone. He passed on the way to the hospital. If I had to guess, she came to the penthouse to get rid of the evidence of my existence.”

I blow out a breath. “This is a lot to take in.”

“I’m sure it is. He never wanted to hurt you, or anyone. And if you have more questions, I’ll do my best to answer them. Talking about him helps ease the loss, at least for me.”

“What about Hope?”

Jacqueline looks down at her hands. I notice a ring on her right one, opposite where a wedding band would go. A simple gold band and diamond decorate her finger. “It’s been difficult for her, obviously, losing her father, being unable to attend the funeral. The lack of closure is challenging.”

I can relate to that feeling. After hearing all of this, I’m lacking closure too, because I didn’t even know my father. I think about those times over the years after I graduated when he gently requested that I consider coming back to New York to work at Moorehead. More than that, I remember those tense times when it seemed like he had something he wanted to say, but never did. This secret was the divide between my father and me. “Do you think … I’d be able to meet her one day? Do you think she’d want to meet me?”

Jacqueline seems surprised. “Is that something you’d want?”

“She’s my sister. I’d like to know her if she’d like to know me.”

Her smile is both sad and hopeful. “I can speak with her.”CHAPTER 25BLOW IT ALL UPLINCOLNThe following morning, Wren decides the best thing for her to do is go to work like everything is normal. As much as I don’t want to send her right into the wolf’s den, she’s right. If she doesn’t show up, it’s going to raise suspicions.

So Wren heads to Moorehead, and I make a stop at my g-mom’s house before I do the same. My plan was to keep her out of this as long as I possibly could, but considering my mother is blackmailing my girlfriend and pretty much blackmailed my father into staying married to her—and making his life and everyone else’s miserable as a result—it’s time she knows the truth. Or a version of it. Also, I don’t want her to find out she has a granddaughter she never knew about from anyone other than me.

She answers the door in a pair of yoga pants and a shirt I bought for her two Christmases ago that says WORLD’S BEST G-MOM. She pulls me into a hug. “Lincoln! This is a surprise! Did I forget a meeting?”