Violet nodded again, this time in understanding. Edith had lost a beloved husband just last year, then a son months later. Since Violet had lost, well, everyone, she knew all too well the ache, the sense of being unmoored with nothing—and no one—to hold on to. “What can I do? What do you need?”
Edith’s blue gaze searched Violet’s face affectionately. “You’ve always been so good to me.”
Violet gave her a gently reprimanding look. “Says the woman who helped raise me. You’re practically family. Tell me what’s bothering you. We’ll fix it.”
Edith’s fingers went to her temples, past the point of pretending she was fine. “It’s no secret Adam was always a bit wild.”
Understatement. “Sure.”
“Well, it would seem he had one particularly wild escapade during spring break his junior year of college. He went to… Cabo… Cancún… I forget,” Edith said with a wave of her hand. “He met a girl, and, well, you know Adam. He always liked women.”
Lots of women, Violet mentally amended.
“Is there… is this woman threatening blackmail of some kind?” Violet asked, trying to keep from begging Edith to spit it out already.
“She’s dead.”
Violet jolted, because the cold pronouncement hadn’t come from Edith, but from a harsh, masculine voice behind them.
Violet stood, the smooth motion belying her galloping heart as she searched for the source of the voice.
She stilled when she saw the man leaning against the mantel at the far side of the room. How in the world she had missed him when she’d entered was beyond her. Violet couldn’t make out much of him from his place lurking in the shadows, but his sheer presence seemed enormous. Looming and very male, especially when contrasted with the fussy Victorian decor of Edith Rhodes’s parlor.
For that matter, this man didn’t even look as though he knew what a parlor was. He was dressed in faded jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and scuffed boots, and one thing was abundantly clear: he did not belong here.
“Get out,” Violet said, taking calm command of the situation. “I don’t know who you are, but you can’t just come barging in like some sort of… some sort of—”
A very dark eyebrow lifted in insolent challenge. Some sort of what?
“Violet.” Edith’s voice was quiet.
Violet meant to look at the other woman, but she seemed to be locked in the angry, sullen gaze of the stranger.
“Violet,” Edith said, her voice a bit more steady this time. “I’d like to introduce you to my long-lost grandson.”
Two
The silence went off like a rocket, explosive and all-consuming in its stillness.
Grandson!
Edith didn’t have a grandson. Adam was an only child, had never married, had never had children—
Violet’s brain slowly caught up as she recalled what Edith had just told her about Adam’s “wild” spring break. It had clearly resulted in…
Him. The man leaning against the mantel hadn’t moved a muscle.
Violet blinked rapidly, trying to regain her composure. Tried, and failed, because the next words out of her mouth were atypically rude. “Are you sure?”
“This is Cain Rhodes,” Edith said, her tone leaving no room for doubt. “Adam’s son.”
“Stone,” he snapped.
The single word, harshly uttered, rippled through Violet with unsettling intensity. He had a rasp of a voice: low, angry, and… southern? It certainly wasn’t the crisp tones she was used to hearing from men in her social circle.
“Stone?” Violet repeated.
He dipped his chin downward. “My name is Cain Stone. Not Rhodes.” He practically spat the last word as though it was an obscenity.
Cain Stone.
She repeated his name in her head, decided it was fitting. It had a sharp brusqueness to it, which certainly fit its owner.
Edith stood, and Violet instinctively reached out to keep her steady. But Edith gave her a sharp look, and Violet dropped her hand, knowing Edith’s dislike for demonstrations of weakness.
Edith nodded toward her grandson. “When Adam was in college, Cain’s mother and Adam had a—”
“They fucked,” Cain said in a bored tone.
If he was going for shock value, he succeeded in surprising Violet, but Edith merely shot him a cool, disapproving look. “Cain was the product of their union.”
Violet pressed her lips together, torn between amusement and alarm. The contrast between grandmother’s and grandson’s word choice could not be more telling.
“How did he find you?” Violet asked Edith, trying to pretend that Cain’s intensely masculine presence didn’t unnerve her.
He picked up on the skepticism in Violet’s tone and gave an incredulous laugh. “You think I’m a fraud?”
Actually, yes. Violet did think that. She lifted her chin and met his eyes to let him know it.
There was no way this rough, ill-mannered man had Rhodes blood running through his veins. Adam Rhodes may have been a dedicated party boy, but he’d had blue blood through and through, polished to the point of slickness. Violet found it hard to fathom that Adam could have fathered someone so… coarse.
“Listen, Duchess,” Cain said mockingly, pushing away from the mantel and standing to his full height, which was… tall. Very tall. “Her majesty here came and found me, so you can take all your suspicious snobbery and shove it right up your tight little—”
“He’s quite right,” Edith interrupted quickly. “I sought him out. Not the other way around.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Violet asked softly, trying to hide her hurt. Edith was as close to family as Violet had, and she’d thought the sentiment went both ways. Just in the past few weeks, they’d celebrated Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s together.
Holidays and personal relationship aside, they’d also spent countless weekday hours together, Edith as the CEO of Rhodes International, Violet as her right hand. There’d been more than enough opportunity for Edith to bring Violet up to speed on something this momentous, she’d just…
Chosen not to.
The appearance of a grandson was easily the biggest event in Edith’s life since her husband’s and son’s passing, and yet somehow, Violet hadn’t made it onto her list of confidants.
Violet inhaled, trying to tuck the pain away to be unpacked later, but her tone was still accusatory. “How long have you known?”
“Just after Thanksgiving, I finally forced myself to go through some of Adam’s things. There was a birth certificate. Eve Stone was the mother, Adam unmistakably listed as the father. And a baby boy. Cain.”
A flicker of amusement edged out some of Violet’s hurt, and she lifted three fingers to her lips in an unsuccessful attempt to hold back a laugh. “Adam and Eve had a baby, and they named him Cain? As in Cain and Abel?”
“She,” the man corrected in a low warning tone. “My mother named me. Adam didn’t have shit to do with it.”
“Fine,” Violet said in a reasonable tone, shifting to face him. “So your mother named you after an Old Testament murderer who committed fratricide?”