“No, thanks. I know right where the air-conditioning controls are.”
“Oh, I know you do.” He grinned wickedly and she knew he was thinking of the time he’d all but begged her to pleasure herself while he watched. The resulting earth-shattering sex was no doubt seared into both of their minds. “I was just offering to take care of it for you. If you wanted me to.”
Damn, but she did want him to take care of it for her. Right here. Right now.
But that was the very last thing she could do. Because the only thing worse than sleeping with your boss was sleeping with your boss in the middle of the day on the middle of the executive board table.
“Ugh, this is so frustrating. It feels like we’re never going to get anywhere like this.” Especially because the only place she wanted to get was into Griffin’s pants. Yeah, frustrating was the perfect word. Unfortunately. “I wish we could just talk to your mother about it.”
Griffin gave a bark of shocked laughter. “Why?”
She shrugged. Wasn’t it obvious? “Presumably she could tell us exactly who this nanny is.”
“I doubt that.”
“You don’t think she’d remember?”
He gave a snort. “I’d be shocked if she ever knew the woman’s name to begin with.”
“I find that hard to believe.” What kind of woman wouldn’t know the name of her children’s nanny?
“Do you remember Mrs. Fortino?” he asked.
“Yes. She’s Laney’s grandmother. She was your housekeeper for years, right?”
“Exactly. Thirty years. I was fourteen when I realized my mother had been saying her name wrong. With an A on the end instead of an O.”
“So? That’s an easy mistake to make.”
“Yeah, sure. So I corrected my mother. We fought over it. My mother refused to admit she was wrong. Finally, my mother called Mrs. Fortino in and told her that regardless of what her name actually was, from that moment on she was to go by Mrs. Fortina in my mother’s presence. She told the poor women that if anyone addressed her by her real name, she would be instantly fired.”
“That’s absurd. You can’t fire an employee over something like that,” Sydney protested.
“When you’re a self-indulgent narcissist you can do whatever you want if other people let you get away with it. Mrs. Fortino merely nodded and asked if that was all. As soon as she left, my mother told me to never again interfere with the way she ran the household.”
“You think she did it to punish you?”
“She did it because she wanted me to know she was in charge.”
His cold conviction unsettled her. She knew, of course, that he wasn’t particularly close to his family, but she’d written it down as a peculiarity of the rich.
“Well, that’s certainly not very nice, but it has nothing to do with this.”
“I didn’t tell you the story to elicit your sympathy. I told you to explain why I don’t think talking to Mother would make any difference.”
“Surely she’s not that bad.”
“I think they said the same thing about Nero’s mother.”
“Oh, come on.” She sent him a teasing smile. “You’re comparing her to one of the most reviled women in history? Did she commit murder? Are there plots to overthrow the government I don’t know about?”
“Wow, you really know your Roman history.”
“What can I say? I liked I, Claudius. My point is, a simple conversation with your mother might answer many of our questions.”
“First off, there’s no such thing as a simple conversation with my mother. And second, a conversation with her has never made any situation better.”
Sydney stared down at the open file in front of her, gnawing on her lip as she considered her next words. Sure, just asking him was the most straightforward course of action, but she was definitely treading on new ground here. They didn’t have the kind of relationship where they talked about their families or their childhoods. He’d already revealed more to her now than he ever had before. And if it was just human curiosity driving her, she would have let it go. But there was far more at stake here than her fascination with this man. If they didn’t find the heiress, the future of the entire company was at stake. Thousands of people would be out of work, herself included.
“You really don’t like your mother, do you?” she quipped, trying to make light of an obviously difficult situation.
“What gave me away?” He smiled at her. It was an expression very similar to his normal charming grin but without any warmth in his gaze. “Was it the comparison to Nero’s murderous mother?”
She ignored his glib words and asked, “Why?”
He blinked in surprise. “What?”
“Why don’t you like her? Or more to the point, why are you so angry at her about this?” She gestured to the mess of papers in front of her, partly to indicate the mass of files his mother had sent over, but also referencing the mess with his father. “This thing with the missing heiress? That’s your father’s mistake, not hers. She’s the victim here—”
“My mother is never a victim,” he interrupted.
“She’s just as much a victim as you. Maybe more so. The way I understand it, in his original will she was going to receive ten percent. Now, no matter what happens, she gets nothing.”
“You think I’m being too hard on her?” His voice was flat.
“I don’t know. I guess I just…” She stared down at the page in front of her. One of the corners curled up, and she ran her fingers back and forth over it so it rolled and unrolled. “I get why you’re angry at your father over this. I get that. But I don’t understand why you seem to be mad at your mother, too.”
Without really meeting her eyes, he rounded the board table that dominated the room and crossed to the antique bar that stood in one corner. In her months here, she’d never seen Dalton—or anyone else for that matter—pour themselves a drink in the middle of a meeting. However, Dalton kept the bar there because that was the kind of businessman his father had been. Apparently, among Texas oil men of that generation, a deal wasn’t considered sealed until you’d shared a drink over it. It all seemed very Dallas to her.
Even though she’d never seen Griffin drink before now, he poured himself a Scotch and tossed it back quickly before pouring himself another.
Finally, he turned and faced her, the glass cradled in his hand, his legs stretched out in front of him as he leaned back against the bar. “You’re right. My father is a lying, cheating bastard and he always has been.” He took a drink before continuing. “But at least he never pretended to be anything other than what he was. He never hid the fact that he’d do anything to increase Cain Enterprises profits. He never lied about the other women. He’s a bastard, but he’s an honest bastard. My mother, however, spent our childhoods alternately pretending to be the perfect loving mother and ignoring us completely.”
She studied him with a tilted head. “What makes you think she was pretending? Maybe she really was a loving mother.”
“Let me ask you this. What would you have done in her shoes?”
His question surprised her so much, she blinked in surprise. “What do you mean?”
He pushed himself away from the bar and took a slow step toward her. “What would you do in her shoes? What would you do if your husband cheated on you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.” But everything inside her recoiled from the idea. She wouldn’t tolerate it. Still, every woman was different. “I guess if I still loved him, I might try to make it work. Marriage counseling. Something like that.”
“No,” Griffin said, and at first she thought he was arguing with her logic. But he took another step toward her. “No. Pretend you don’t love him at all. That you only married him for the money. Would you stay with him? Just for the money?”
“I would never marry someone just for the money.”
“Pretend for a second that you would. Pretend that you were rich already and could have married anyone, but you chose someone so ambitious and ruthless, you knew he could make you rich beyond belief. And then pretend he turned out to be just as ruthless in his personal life. Pretend he slept with whoever he wanted and humiliated you in public and in front of your friends. Would you stay?”
“No.” She felt the flame of embarrassment for his mother just listening to him. Not just embarrassment, but anger, too. At Griffin, for so ruthlessly displaying his mother’s shortcomings. Anger made her meet his gaze as she defended his mother. “But everyone is different. I can’t judge her for staying. I don’t know her well enough.”
“Well, pretend for a second that you would stay with a man you abhorred. Pretend you’d put up with his cheating and his mistresses. Pretend you’d put up with it for more than a decade because the money was just that important to you. Pretend you’re just that stubborn or proud or greedy. Now pretend that the same man who stomps all over you every chance he gets treats your kids just as badly as he treats you.”
She dropped her gaze as she felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. She licked her lips because her mouth had suddenly gone dry. Suddenly she understood why he harbored so much anger toward his mother. Suddenly she got it.
“No.” Her voice came out as a whisper. She didn’t have kids. She didn’t even know if she would ever have kids—at least, not biological kids. She’d always had the idea of doing the foster kid thing someday. If she did have kids—biological or foster—she would do everything in her power to protect them. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Griffin nodded, then tossed back the rest of his drink and set the glass down with a thud. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
With that, he turned and walked out.
He didn’t have to say anything else. Because now she got it. His father may be a bastard, but that didn’t really bother him because he’d never really cared about his father. He’d loved his mother. He probably still did. Despite everything, he would love her. That, more than anything, explained why he harbored so much anger and resentment. He loved her, but he was constantly disappointed by her.