What a Girl Wants (21 page)

“Abso-frickin-lutely. It’s time you tell me the truth.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Alex said to Hollister. “I’m not signing another nondisclosure agreement.”

“And why the hell not?” Hollister snapped back.

Alex pushed himself up from the sofa where he’d been sitting for the past hour, waiting while Hollister made some calls in his office to reschedule his evening. At least it gave Alex time to call Maddie and to catch up with Tim, who had been following Victor Grant. It hadn’t taken Tim long to get back to him.

“Of all the gin joints in Hawaii,” Tim had said, doing a Bogart drawl. “Guess who walked into the Makana Piano Bar?”

“I’m guessing not Ingrid Bergman,” he had answered.

Tim then went on to tell him that he had followed Ferret Face, aka Victor Grant, into the bar and not five minutes later, in walked Crystal Washington. Undetected, Tim scored a booth nearby and eavesdropped on their conversation.

Alex now tumbled back to the conversation at hand with Hollister and said, “If what I suspect is true, Maddie has every right to know.”

Hollister leaned forward and just when it looked like he was going to argue with him, a light tap on the door interrupted them. “Come in.”

Two young men entered the room, each carrying a tray. One tray held a silver coffee pot, cups, saucers, cream and sugar bowls, and the other carried a tray with an assortment of cheeses, crackers, fruit and sandwiches.

“That will be all,” Maxwell told the two men as they placed the trays on the mahogany table.

Hollister poured coffee into two cups, handed Alex one, and took a piece of cheese from the tray. “Help yourself.” He waved to the trays.

Alex took the coffee, but declined any food. His stomach was in knots as it was at the thought of Washington’s presence on the island, but he’d deal with her later.

“As I was saying,” Hollister said. “I’d like your cooperation again. Sign the—”

“Not going to happen.”

Hollister put his cup down, shattering the saucer. “Then I want your word that you will keep this information to yourself for the time being.”

“I can’t make any promises. Not when it comes to something like this.”

Tension as thick as the sandwiches on the tray filled the room. After a few beats of silence, Hollister said, “Let me ask
you
something.”

 “Go ahead.”

“What are your intentions with regard to Madison? I know for a fact she spent the night in your room.”

Alex scalded his tongue with the coffee. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I don’t
kid.”

“Your fatherly concern is twenty-eight years too late.”

“You’ve already judged me without knowing the whole story.” The old man’s face reddened. “I am not a deadbeat father.”

“Jesus, it’s all so obvious.” The pieces of the puzzle clicked into place in Alex’s tired brain. “You, George and Felicia Saunders cooked this up, didn’t you?” He blew out a short laugh. “This magazine spread is nothing but a sham. Why now?”

Hollister wiped his mouth with a linen napkin, placed it on his knee and waved to the suede chair in the corner. “Sit the hell down. Your pacing is irritating. I’ll explain if you don’t interrupt and promise to keep this to yourself for a few days.”

Alex sat on the arm of the chair. “I’m listening.”

“And you’ll keep this to yourself for the time being?”

He crossed his arms across his chest. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

Hollister bunched the napkin into a ball. It looked like he was going to stuff it in Alex’s mouth, but instead he threw it on the table. “Stubborn asshole.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

The lines around Hollister’s eyes deepened, giving him a haggard look. “George Saunders is the one that brought it to my attention. Until a year ago, I had no idea I may have fathered a daughter. Saunders contacted me. The short of it is that after a lot of discussions and meetings we struck a business deal. I bail his magazine and publishing house out of financial ruin and in return he tells me a well-kept secret. It took so long to get her here because of Madison’s schedule, not mine. We kept this confidential at my request. I wanted to meet her, get to know her and I wanted her to get to know me before I introduced myself as her father. George is no fool, he saw a good thing, and it seemed simple enough to him. Felicia had no choice but to go along with it.”

“Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling all over.” Alex shook his head in disgust. “I was right then. This assignment is nothing but a ruse?”

“Not entirely. I would still like Madison to showcase the island’s amenities.” Hollister cleared his throat and ran his hand through his hair. “When I found out what Felicia had named her daughter I was,” he fingered the napkin on the table, not meeting Alex’s stare, “even more determined than ever to meet her.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Hollister sagged, now looking every minute of his sixty-eight years of age. His voice was now hoarse. “Elizabeth is my late wife’s name, and Madison…well, Madison Avenue means something to Felicia and me.”

“Jesus, you people are all bent.” Alex rose again and paced. “Is it safe to assume you were married when Maddie was conceived?”

Hollister nodded. “To my second wife.”

Alex poured himself a glass of water and took a sip. “There’s a hell of lot more to this story, isn’t there?”

Maxwell bent his head, rubbing his temples. Alex thought it was as if he were talking to himself. “Where do I begin?”

Alex wasn’t in the mood for the gory details of an affair obviously gone bad, so he suggested, “Let’s start with the
unauthorized
DNA test.”

Maxwell raised his head and voice. “How else was I going to be sure? I may have been the first, but I doubt I was her only client.”

“Client?”
Mother of God.
He felt as if someone had pressed an ice cube against his neck. “Are you implying that Felicia Saunders was a call girl?”

“You want to have a conversation
now
?” Felicia said after Maddie was instructed to hang up and wait for Felicia to shake the cobwebs off. She promised Maddie she would call back, and surprise of all surprises, she actually did, thirty minutes later. But she didn’t sound as though she would be receptive to a Q-and-A session with her daughter.

“Yes, now,” Maddie continued before Felicia hijacked the call with inane topics. “I’ll make this quick.” Frustration pulsated through her, but she managed to keep her voice steady. “Who is my biological father?”

Were it not for the white-noise machine Maddie could hear in the background, she would have thought Felicia had hung up.

Finally Felicia answered, “Madison, I told you, it’s complicated.” Maddie thought she heard a sniffle, as if Felicia were crying, but it must have been a sigh combined with the humming of Felicia’s white noise machine. “You’ll find out soon enough. On that island. That’s all I’m going to say.”

“What are you talking about? What does this assignment have to do with it? Why can’t you for once act like a parent, take some responsibility and have an adult conversation with me?”

“I’m sorry, but I won’t discuss this with you.”

“Fine then.” Maddie grabbed a cookie, biting down hard. “I probably have enough information to figure it out myself.”

“What…what information?”

“Thought you didn’t want to talk about this?”

“Madison! You called me. Woke me up in the middle of the night. Started in on me with no provocation on my part. I deserve an explanation. Now what information are you talking about?”

Un-frickin-believable. I owe
her
an explanation?

“I hired a private investigator a few months ago,” Maddie blurted out.

“Is this one of your pranks?”

“No.”

“You’re serious?”

“As death and taxes.”

Felicia gasped. “Oh. My. God.” She gasped again. Louder, this time. “You had no right. What did you do?”

“I said I hired a private investigator and—”

“I heard you the first time.” There was no mistaking it this time. Felicia was definitely sobbing. Shit. Maddie swallowed hard. She couldn’t back down now, even though she felt guilty about reducing Felicia to tears.

 “Why couldn’t you wait? You’re not only hurting me, but your whole family! Uncle George and his business. How could you go behind my back like this?”

“What does Uncle George and his company have to do with any of this?”

“Never mind that,” Felicia yelled. “What did this investigator dig up?”

Maddie picked up the paperwork, clutching it to her chest. She took a deep breath and shoved her guilt aside. “He sent me a lot of information. Some of it is confusing, and if you don’t want to answer my questions, then I’m going to keep digging.” She didn’t mention that Reece was helping her out. Her best friend and mother disliked each other immensely, and mentioning Reece’s name would only piss Felicia off more.

“One thing I know for sure, nothing on this island ties in to the information I have.” Maddie threw the papers, watching them float on the bed, along with her hopes that her mother would actually help her, but she was still going to needle her. “Do you even
know
who my biological father is? Did you bother getting that information for yourself? Or do I have to go to all the places listed?

“I also found a Yahoo chat group that was founded by a woman in my situation, and she lobbies for people like us to know the truth. Our medical background, any siblings—”

 “What woman? What is a Yahoo group? What did you join?” Felicia blew her nose. “For Godssakes, besides hiring someone, which by the way nauseates me, who else knows about your interference into
my
personal life?”

Maddie rolled her eyes. Typical Felicia to be more concerned with outward appearances than the fact that her daughter was in possession of a smoking gun.

“I asked you a question, young lady. Who did you discuss this with? What group are you talking about?”

Here goes. No guts, no glory. “If the information I have is accurate, and only you can verify that, then I am going to join a group that supports children conceived via sperm bank donors.”

Maddie heard a glass shatter, followed by a click and a dial tone.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“It was a woman who drove me to drink. I never thanked her for it.”

—W.C. Field

“I was mistaken to have described myself as Felicia Saunders’s client,” Maxwell said. “I’m wired to think like a businessman at all times.”

Donovan hiked up his eyebrows. “This is going to be a long night if you keep recanting—”

“Recanting?” Maxwell huffed. “This is not a trial. I said I will explain if you—”

Donovan threw his head back, blew out a breath and held his hand up. “Yeah, yeah, this is off the record. I have no intention of writing about any of this.”

“What about Madison? Will you promise not to tell her anything before—”

“The
unauthorized
DNA test confirms or denies what George told you?”

Maxwell poured a generous splash of brandy into a snifter, and he took a sip, swirling it around in his mouth before swallowing. “I don’t need to see the results of the DNA test, especially after meeting her.”

Besides, over the course of his investigation, he had found out she carried the relatively rare
Thalassemia
minor gene, passed down from his own mother. “She looks like my older sister,” Maxwell continued. “Same green eyes, same sense of humor, same refreshing honesty. She’s not only beautiful but intelligent and talented, with an effervescence about her that is quite contagious. She deserves to lay claim to her birthright and embrace the family that was kept from her through no fault of her own or
mine
. She will never want for anything again.”

Donovan rolled his eyes. “You have no idea what she’s all about. Yes, she’s everything you described and more, but you can’t pay her to fill whatever gap you think she can in your sunset years.”

He hated to admit that Donovan was right, that yes, after meeting her he’d recognized not only an independent streak, but that even with his power, he couldn’t necessarily ensure a father-daughter relationship, or her participation in the Hollister business empire. The most he could ask for, at this point, was her friendship.

Donovan stood and leaned over the table inches from Maxwell’s face, pounding the table with his finger as he spoke. “She has every right to know what’s been going on behind her back. The DNA test and why she’s on this island.” He straightened. “Even though I think she should be told right away, I have a feeling that a lot of what you’re about to tell me should come from you and her mother. Not from me.”

“Thank you.”

Donovan grabbed a chair and straddled it. “Don’t thank me yet. I won’t divulge any sordid details, but I also won’t lie to her if she asks
¾
”

“Does she suspect anything?”

“She knows something is up.” Donovan rubbed the back of his neck. “She said as much when I walked her outside.”

Maxwell tilted his glass and stared at the caramel comfort swirling inside the crystal goblet. For him, memory lane was strewn with dead ends and lined with boulders of lies.

“Your dislike for me has something to do with all of this, doesn’t it?” Donovan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sure you noticed the feeling is somewhat mutual.”

Maxwell nodded with a wry grin. “I dislike your profession, in particular.”

“I figured that from day one. If you can’t tolerate or even like reporters why did you agree to having me here to write your interview?”

“My investigation prior to your arrival here confirmed that you and Madison have been good friends for a number of years.” He bit back the urge to let Donovan know he did
not
approve of the change in their platonic relationship. “George Saunders assured me you would be a great source of support for her when she found out the truth about who I was.”

“Absolutely.” Donovan rubbed the back of his neck again. “Okay, so back to why you said you were Felicia Saunders’s
client.
” Donovan extended his hand to him and Maxwell kept his arms to his side. “I give you my word, it will not leave this room. The only thing I can’t promise is that I won’t tell Maddie about why she’s here or who you may be.”

Maxwell stared at Donovan. As much as it pained Maxwell to admit, Donovan’s word held validity with him at the moment. He could see why he was a successful reporter. Though abrupt and in your face, he did exude confidence and intelligence and his mannerisms gave the impression that he was, indeed, a man of his word. He couldn’t blame Donovan for the confrontational stance he’d taken with him. He would be the same way with regard to a good friend like Madison.

He shook the reporter’s hand.

“Continuing on,” Donovan said. “You were married to your second wife, Celeste Beaumont. I did some research on her. Only thing I found was that her family founded Beaumont Steel, she was an international tennis star and then made headlines when she was dubbed the First Lady of Poker and donated her winnings to different charities.”

Maxwell nodded. “‘Mixed Game She-devil’ was the name she used on the circuit. When it came to high-stakes games, she was the best. She loved the thrill of winning and being one of the only women to beat out international poker stars. Her poker nickname came from the fact that she loved mixed games like Omaha, Hold ’em, Blackjack and many others, at times playing in more than one tournament.”

“Did she love a challenge or did she bore easily?”

“It was mostly boredom,” Maxwell said. “On paper she was the perfect wife for a man in my position. Beautiful, intelligent and connected in social and business circles.”

Maxwell had discovered during their honeymoon that it was fitting Celeste’s family produced cold steel. But he hadn’t complained at the time. A lot of men he was acquainted with then would have envied him if they’d known about their private arrangement.

“Celeste and I had an understanding.” Maxwell took a sip of his drink. “She proposed that as long as I carried out my indiscretions outside the USA, and I continued to bankroll her high-stakes tournaments in the style in which she’d always been accustomed, she would never interfere. She pledged she would never do anything to embarrass me or my family name, and she expected the same in return.”

“Sounds like something out of the House of Windsor.”

“It worked for us.” Indeed, it did sound rather blueblood-like, and people outside their circle probably couldn’t fathom such a cold union lasting, let alone succeeding. To the outside world, the grieving widower had found his happily ever after.

Five years after Elizabeth’s death had blackened his world, his family had encouraged and sanctioned his marriage to Celeste. Maxwell had not wanted a love union. He had been lucky to experience that with Elizabeth. Losing her had frozen his heart and soul, and he’d refused to re-experience a love so intense that his world had been shattered when he’d lost her.

“Our philanthropic work benefited and so did Hollister shares.” Especially after Beaumont Steel became part of the Hollister conglomerate. He was able to concentrate his energies into wheeling and dealing without having to invest emotion or time into his marriage. His hard work paid off as Hollister Corporation became one of the biggest and most successful conglomerates in the world.

“I publicly supported her, and she played the perfect socialite wife and demanded no explanations after my return from trips abroad. I afforded her the same courtesy.”

“So you met Felicia outside the USA?”

Maxwell shook his head. “No. I met her through a private exclusive organization I used to belong to.”

“The Manhattan Private Chamber?”

Maxwell lifted his brows.

Donovan smiled. “Research.” Maxwell thought the reporter’s smile actually looked genuine. “What’s Felicia’s connection with the Chamber?”

Maxwell took another sip of his drink, this time, a longer one. There were only so many ways someone could delicately describe the organization Felicia had joined. “I met her at the Chamber’s one-hundredth-anniversary party.” Maxwell visualized the ballroom at the Ritz Hotel, with Fortune 500 CEOs, senators, judges, even a few princes in attendance. “She worked for CCA. Champagne Consultant Agency.” Felicia Saunders, so young and naïve that she had used her real name when she was hired at CCA. “She attended the function as a…c
onsultant.
”

“Consultant as in call girl?”

Maxwell hesitated for a fraction, then nodded.

Donovan stood. “Think I’ll have that drink now.”

Maxwell pointed to the bar. “Help yourself.” While Donovan poured himself a shot of bourbon, a picture of the first time he met Felicia flashed behind his tired eyelids. It was so vivid, he sucked in a deep breath, and swore he could smell her scent: a mild rose essence combined with a subtle hint of vanilla. What a vision she had made that night.

She was by far the most beautiful woman in the room. She wore a gown that looked like it was spun from twenty-carat gold thread, with a sleek fitted shape to show off her curves. Her bare alabaster shoulders sparkled with what looked like gold and silver dust. The dress dipped low in the back, hinting that there was nothing between her creamy skin and the silk. In contrast was her thick, shiny chestnut mane, cascading down to her waist.

Felicia wasn’t as seasoned as the other women, the majority of whom he’d seen at other exclusive parties and had never approached. Felicia hadn’t yet mastered the art of mingling at these affairs, and when she smiled in his direction he caught her nervousness in the slight tremble of her full, cherry red lips. One had to study her intensely as he did all evening, to see the sadness that lurked behind her brown, almond-shaped eyes like a dark shadow over a flickering candle. It was this vulnerability that had hijacked the breath from his lungs and drew him to her side that night.

For the first time since Elizabeth’s death, his mind was overwhelmed with exquisite and unexpected thoughts.

For the first time since he could remember he laughed out loud.

For the first time since attending those functions, he had left with a woman.

Maxwell pulled himself back to the conversation as Donovan, drink in hand, sat, facing him. “I drove Felicia home that night. She lived in a third-floor walkup, a postage stamp–sized apartment on the lower east side. While we sipped cheap wine, she explained how this apartment was a temporary stop on her way to Madison Avenue. She was confident in her ability to become a highly paid Champagne Entertainment Consultant.

“She’d been recruited by the agency’s owner herself, after cleaning the woman’s Fifth Avenue condominium. She was assured the agency, which catered mainly to high-profile men, was discreet and medically staffed. She was guaranteed an annual six-digit salary. Felicia jumped at the opportunity and saw it as her ticket out of the road of dead-end jobs and second-hand stores that lay ahead of her.”

“How old was she?”

“Barely twenty.” But that hadn’t stopped him from drawing her into his arms and glorying in her scent, her hair, her skin, smooth as a July peach and her voice, soothing and soft as a zephyr. He knew at the time he was being foolish and taking a big risk, but it was as though his Elizabeth had come back to him. In Felicia’s naked and warm embrace, he bared his sorrow and found comfort in being able to share memories about Elizabeth. Felicia slowly added color to his dark world.

Maxwell sighed. “I set her up in a condominium on Madison Avenue and covered her expenses. I made it clear to her that she was no longer free to pursue a career with CCA.”

“How long did this last?”

“A little over a year.” Their affair was passionate but also tumultuous. Felicia had wanted more. She repeatedly told him that she loved him, that she didn’t want his money. She wanted him. Wanted him to leave his wife. Start a family. He knew from what little she had told him that she had never had a stable home. It was atypical of her to talk about her childhood in detail, but on one occasion she’d told him about the aunt she’d lived with. This aunt hadn’t been able to cope so she and her brother were put into the foster-care system. She’d alluded that being a good-looking young girl in the system had not been a good thing, and that her brother had fared much better.

“Goddamn me.” Maxwell shot a generous amount of brandy to the back of his throat. Looking back, he should have realized what a broken person Felicia was, even more vulnerable and broken than he was.

“Are you okay?” Donovan asked.

Maxwell must have exceeded his brandy quota, because it seemed to him that Donovan’s tone had changed from that of a curious reporter with a chip on his shoulder to one of empathy.

“Felicia was unhappy with our arrangement. Not only was I unable to spend a lot of time with her, but she claimed she was in love with me. Asked me over and over to leave my loveless marriage. I had thought of divorcing Celeste, and even broached the subject with her.”

“She probably saw that as a challenge and refused you, right?”

Maxwell nodded. He reached for the liquor decanter on the table and refilled his glass. Blowing out a loud breath, he forced himself to continue. “I confided my desire to divorce Celeste to my father.”

His father—also a longstanding member of the Chamber and a frequent CCA client—had always been his idol, mentor and the man who had instilled a deep sense of family values in him. Hollister family values, anyway, which defined fidelity as not having more than one woman in your bed at the same time and warned him never to fall in love with an indiscretion.

 “Your father didn’t support you?”

“You have to understand that outward appearances had to be kept up for the sake of the family business and our social network. Even though behind closed doors our marriage was as cold as a bank vault, the outside world saw a scandal-free, smiling couple.”

“You had no idea Felicia was pregnant at this point?”

“Thanks to Felicia, my father, Celeste and a reporter by the name of David Kirby.”

Dragging his hands down his face, he blew out another breath to ease the squeezing sensation in his chest. He had wanted children with Elizabeth, but her illness had progressed too quickly. Celeste had not wanted children. His three sisters had produced children who now worked for Hollister Corporation in different parts of the world, doing a damn good job, so there was no fear that there wouldn’t be a Hollister at the helm of the family business his grandfather founded.