“My aunt Margot.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“Mom was a party girl. She loved going out and having fun. In fact, she and my dad first met at a pub in Paris, where she often hung out. She had just finished college and was working as a journalist for Le Monde, France’s leading newspaper.”
She paused, thinking. “I was told that they were immediately smitten with each other and in less than three months, they ran off and got married. I remember how much they adored each other. I knew they loved me because I was a product of their love, but they also liked traveling and spending time alone together. That’s how I got to spend so much time with my aunt, my mom’s older sister, who was unmarried and had no kids of her own. They would leave me with Aunt Margot while they traveled all over Europe, having fun and socializing.”
She took a deep breath. “According to Aunt Margot, my paternal grandparents blamed Mom when Dad started slacking at his job at the Sharpe Corporation’s Paris office. They thought it was all her fault.”
She saw the skepticism in his features. “I’m just telling you what I was told, Cobra.”
He leaned back against the sink when she closed the dishwasher. “Even if that’s true, which I seriously doubt it is, I-”
“Are you saying my aunt lied?”
“No. I’m just saying that there are two sides to every story. Even if what your aunt told you is remotely true, what does thathave to do with Richard extending his trip abroad because of you?”
“I am my mother’s daughter. He didn’t like her, and he doesn’t like me either. He only took me in because he felt he had to. After all, I was his granddaughter. But right after I came to the States, just weeks after my parents’ deaths, he shipped me off to boarding school. He thinks I am my mother’s clone and that I spent most of my college days partying instead of studying. And that’s not true.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you saying you didn’t take off a semester in college to zig-zag across the country, having a good time, without letting Richard know where you were or that you were okay?”
“Yes and no.”
He rolled his eyes. “It has to be one or the other, Desiree.”
She gave him a frustrating look. “Yes, I took off a semester in college to zigzag across the country, but I needed that time, Cobra. My aunt had died the year before, and the day I took off was her birthday. I needed to do something to forget. I was hurting really badly,” she said softly. “Aunt Margot and I always did things together on our birthdays.”
She drew a deep breath. “The part about me not telling my grandfather isn’t true. I called the office and left a message, asking him to call me because it was really important. I was going to tell him then what I was going through and what I planned to do about school. My first desire was to come home for a semester. When he didn’t return my call—something he seldom did anyway—I assumed he couldn’t be bothered. So, I took off anyway, thinking he didn’t care.”
“Why didn’t you contact his cell phone? I’m sure you had his number.”
“The boarding school I attended had a strict cell phone and social media policy. Both were banned to deter distractions. Ofcourse, in college, things were different, but by then, Granddad had blocked my number.”
“Blocked your number?”
“Yes?”
“What makes you think he did that?”
“Because whenever I called him, my phone would immediately go to voicemail. So, I got the message that he didn’t want to be bothered at home, and assumed he preferred being contacted at the office.”
“Are you saying he never called to check on you?”
“If he did, I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t allowed to have a cell phone at boarding school. In college, after I found out that he had blocked my number, I blocked his.”
She paused, then shook her head slowly. “I only found out that he had been looking for me when I saw him at Colton’s wedding, and he told you about that time. From what he said, I knew then that he never got my message.”
“What could have happened? Who didn’t give your grandfather the message?”
“His administrative assistant, Eloise Markam. In fact, I confronted her about it on my first day at the office when I was scheduled to meet with him. I told her I had recently discovered that Granddad had never received that particular message. She claimed she didn’t remember me calling, but I assured her that I had called, and remembered talking to her. You should have seen how the blood drained from her face. That made me wonder how many other messages she never passed along to him, and if that’s why he never returned any of my calls. Not once did she ever connect me directly to him. She always took a message, as if she was his guard dog or something.”
***
Cobra couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He knew Desiree and Richard had issues, but damn… It sounded like those issues were deeper than he’d thought.
She honestly believed her grandfather didn’t love her, and Cobra knew for a fact that was wrong. As for Richard not getting any of her messages, well, Cobra could believe that. Last year, Richard had told him that he’d had to have a serious talk with Ms. Markam after he began dating Lolita. Just like with Desiree, the administrative assistant had deliberately not passed Lolita’s messages to him, giving Lolita the impression he had been avoiding her. Richard had threatened to fire his assistant if it ever happened again. If only Richard had known what the woman was putting his granddaughter through…
That was Richard’s story to tell, but there was something he needed to share with her. “Come with me, will you? We need to talk about something.”
