“His mistress and son.” He turns to me. “And no, I don’t mean his mistress’s son. I meanhisson.”
I’m speechless. Nothing could have prepared me for this, but I somehow regain my vocabulary. “Your mom—”
“She knows. Tries to deny it, but she knows. Why else do you think she’s more drunken robot than human? If she’s not popping pain pills she’s drinking her misery.”
“Oh, Corbin—”
“Don’t.” He shakes his head. “Don’t apologize. He’s had a woman on the side since I was a kid. Found out about her when their son was a teenager. Kid’s twenty-four years old now and is a worthless piece of shit, but to my dad, they’re more important than we ever were. We’re the pretty picture he has in the city and his woman on the side is the one he really loves.”
I reach for him and stop. There’s no comfort I can give him and none he wants. This has burned a hole in him his whole life and destroyed his mom.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing to say. You have to know this because for the next two years you’ll pick up on it. Everyone fucking knows. No one says obvious shit, but it’s alluded to enough. Enough for the gossip queens to do damage and ostracize my mom even though half the men in town do the same damn shit to their women; they’re just smart enough not to fall in love with their side pieces or have bastards with them.”
Barbed pain slices through me with every word he speaks. His pain is so hot it heats the car. I’ve never felt so lost, so distraught for another person in my life. It’s worse than losing my parents, because I had closure. I had a mourning period and was able to grieve, and I’ve healed from the pain and replaced it with memories of the people I love.
He has a constant scab, scratching it wide open and making it bleed every time he’s around his parents.
“Met him once.”
“What?” Oh God.
Heat stings my eyes but I push it back. He needs to unload, so I listen.
“Only Trey knows. We came back from Stanford. Christmas morning, junior year. Dad took off on Christmas fucking morning, snuck out before we opened presents and did any of that shit. Followed him to the Humboldt area. Fucking set her up in some pretty little bungalow in a family friendly neighborhood and I pulled up, seconds behind him, and before he could tell me shit, a teenager bounded out of the house and called him Dad.”
“Corbin.” Instinct guides me and I unlock my seatbelt, throwing myself at him despite the fact he’s driving. As I bury my head into his shoulder, one of his arms wraps around my back, holding me against him. “I’m so sorry. That must have been so hard.”
“Fucking killed me. He didn’t even do shit, you know? I mean, fuck, I was twenty-one years old and suddenly everything made fucking sense. Nights he worked late he was actually at fucking T-ball games. He put Grant in the best schools, treats his mom, Jill, like a queen, keeps her away from his real life, but he’s been more of a husband and father to his side family than he ever was to his real one. Fuck!”
He pounds the steering wheel and I hold him tighter.
Let him unleash all the bullshit that has snaked its way into his heart and body and soul, making him despise the man in his life he should admire more than anyone else.
So many things about him start to make sense, clicking into place and creating a devastating and yet beautifully broken picture. Franklin’s comments from the gala make sense. He thinks Corbin is doing the same thing he has done, creating a family with a lower-class woman.
Disgust buries itself deep inside my stomach, but I don’t push it or him away. I hold him until we reach his condo in the city.
Chapter 19
Corbin
I had no intention of spewing all of my family’s sordid history and reality in such a harsh way. I’d intended to share it in small, manageable doses where it wouldn’t overwhelm me and suffuse my anger, which seeps into my marrow whenever I think of Jill and Grant Maverick. My father has given them everything but his name, because he refuses to claim his own child publicly, yet he’s given him everything else. Paid for the best schools, set Jill up in a safe neighborhood so she could stop working her waitressing job at the restaurant where they first met.
For me, he’s groomed me since the day I was born to take over Lane Holdings.
Lane men earn their own way, son.
Lane men work to prove they’re the best men, Corbin.
I might have a trust fund that allows me never to have to work a day in my life. I might have a Fortune 100 company I will someday run when it’s required of me, but I have never been handed anything except expectations, where Grant has been given everything: schools and money and the thing that pisses me off the most—affection and genuine love.
And all the pissant does is spend his money on drugs and alcohol, a spoiled selfish fuck of a guy who throws away everything my father gives him, everything I’ve always wanted, because he knows exactly who he is, who I am, and he despises us all for it.
My father leaves destruction in his wake and pays no consequences for his actions.
Well, fuck him.
