Griffin didn’t have an answer to that. The conversation moved on to other Hope2O business, and he stayed on the phone with Carl taking care of obligations he’d been neglecting for a week until long after the traffic on the loop cleared up. It was well after noon when he finally got back on the road and finished the drive to his parents’. All the while, in the back of his mind was the question Carl had posed. What had all the Cain money ever gotten him?
*
Because Griffin was going to talk to his mother, Sydney felt no compunction abandoning her drudgery to head back to her desk so she could catch up on her normal duties as EA to the CEO. After a morning away from her work, things had started to pile up. The whole EA thing hadn’t exactly been the career path she’d imagined for herself when she’d done her undergraduate work in psychology. She’d always imagined she’d do postgraduate study and one day get her therapist’s license. She’d taken her first job as an assistant on a whim. Just something to pay the bills while she’d waited for the next semester to start. But she was good at it. The money was great, and she found being in the thick of things in an office surprisingly rewarding. Today was no different. Fifty fires had sprouted up during her morning away from the computer, and she doused them with her usual speed and efficiency. Her inner therapist laughed at her. The joy she took in her job was an obvious attempt to fill her need to be needed. To feel like none of it could function without her. She knew that’s why she loved it and she didn’t even mind.
She was cruising through her work when the phone rang. “Griffin Cain’s office. How can I help you?”
“Is Griffin available?” asked a woman’s cool voice.
“He’s not in right now. I may be able to transfer you to his cell phone. May I ask who’s calling?”
There was an annoyed huff as though the caller had expected Sydney to recognize her voice. “This is Caro Cain. I am allowed to call my own son, aren’t I?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cain. I’ll patch you through.” But the phone rang and rang and Griffin never picked up. Sydney switched back over to the original call and apologized again. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cain. I’d be happy to connect you to his voice mail or take a message. Was this in regard to the conversation you had this morning?”
There was a pause and then, with a touch of uncertainty in her voice, Caro asked, “The conversation?”
“Yes. The conversation,” Sydney repeated, feeling dumb. “Griffin left the office, oh…nearly three hours ago.” Surely that was enough time to get to his parents’ house. If he hadn’t gone there, then where had he gone? “He said he was going to your house to talk to you.” Unless Caro wasn’t at home. That explained it. “Are you at home? Perhaps he missed you?”
“You may be my son’s assistant, but I hardly think I need to clear my schedule with you.” There was a pinched quality to Caro’s voice. “What did he want to discuss with me?”
Sydney hesitated, her mind flooding with all the negative things Griffin had said about his mother. But he was the one who’d said he planned to go talk to her. Surely no harm could come from her just giving Caro a glimpse of his cards.
“He wanted to talk to you about the missing heiress. We’ve hit a little roadblock in the course of our research and he thought you would be able to help him narrow down the search.”
“He did?” Caro sounded surprised, but she recovered quickly. “Well, of course he did. I was at the house all morning. I wonder why he didn’t come.”
Sydney nearly harumphed. Caro wasn’t the only one with questions. It wasn’t that Griffin had to tell her where he was going to be every second of every day, but his disappearing act was getting old. As his assistant, it was her job to know his whereabouts, and frankly she was getting tired of feeling left in the dark.
“I wish he had just called. I’ve already left the house and won’t be back until this evening.” Apparently, Caro felt the same way as Sydney. The other woman sighed and then continued in a confidential tone. “We could have talked this morning and been done with it. As it is, it could be sometime tomorrow before he catches up with me. Valuable time is wasting and he’s off doing God only knows what.”
Sydney hesitated a moment before asking, “Then you would be willing to answer any questions he has? You’d be willing to help him find his sister?”
“Willing? Well, of course I’m willing. What sort of mother do you think I am that I might not be willing to help my sons complete this quixotic quest my husband has sent them on?”
“That’s very generous of you. I’ll make sure I pass on the message to Griffin.” When she could reach him. Where was he?
“Or…” Caro let the word dangle there suggestively. “If you happened to know what he wanted to discuss with me, you could join me for lunch and simply ask me yourself.”
“I…” Oh, God. How was she supposed to answer? “I…” On one hand, Griffin was nowhere to be found and, as his mother had pointed out, they were on a time crunch here. On the other, Griffin must have had his reasons for saying he was going to his parents’ house and then not going.
Maybe the same reasons he didn’t share his schedule with her and made bizarre phone calls that he didn’t want her listening in on. If he were a different kind of guy, she might think he was stepping out on her. Maybe she was being naive. Sure, Griffin was a playboy and a charmer, but in the time they’d been together, he’d seemed to curb his outrageous flirting. Plus, the sheer scorn in his voice when he discussed his father’s philandering made her think he just wasn’t a cheater.
What would it hurt for her to go see Caro Cain and just talk to her? Maybe it would even be for the best. After all, Griffin obviously didn’t have a great relationship with her. Perhaps a neutral party could more easily get an honest answer from her.
“I would love to meet you for lunch,” she found herself saying.
She quickly jotted down the address, even though she and nearly everyone in Houston knew the location of the River Oaks Country Club.
As she packed up her bag, she even told herself she was doing the right thing. She didn’t really believe Griffin would do anything to hurt Cain Enterprises. Not intentionally. But clearly he was not objective here.
Sure, there was a line when it came to respecting a boss’s decisions. But if he wasn’t available to make the decision, that line was blurry. And if he wasn’t being one-hundred percent logical and responsible, then maybe the line even wiggled a little bit.
*
By the time Griffin pulled up in front of his parents’ house, he still hadn’t decided what do to about Hope2O. He was so lost in thought he almost didn’t recognize the Jaguar XK parked at the curb. Only when he saw the sticker for the rental car company did he remember that the same car had been parked there nearly three weeks ago when Hollister had made his big announcement. Which meant Cooper must be visiting. Of all his father’s possible visitors, only Cooper was enough of an adrenaline junkie to rent a Jaguar every time he came to town.
Ever since their father’s first heart attack, Hollister had been sleeping downstairs, in the room at the front of the house that had once been his office. Now, all the furniture had been replaced by a hospital bed and enough medical equipment to sustain a surgical ward in a third-world country. Griffin knew this because he’d actually visited clinics in Africa that got by with less.
Today, he peeked into the room and saw that his father was sleeping. He briefly considered waking his father up, but instead he quietly closed the door just as a nurse bustled around the corner. She was one of three who cared for Hollister around the clock. Patting her mouth with a napkin, she said, “I’m sorry, sir. I was just taking a lunch break.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he assured her. “You’re allowed to eat.”
The nurse, a pretty woman in her mid-twenties with curves and twinkling eyes, giggled a little. “Thank goodness,” she said with a smile.
Instead of hurrying back to her food, she lingered. There was something coy in her posture and expression that let him know that she’d stay and chat if he wanted her to. It’d be easy enough. He could ask how her lunch was, tease her about being away from her station, listen sympathetically about her grueling hours. There’d been a time he would have chatted her up, gotten her number and a few days later probably taken her to bed. There’d even been a time when he would have thought that the break he and Sydney were on meant he was free to do just that. Today, he wasn’t the least bit interested.
Instead of flirting with the girl, he just asked, “His condition is still stable?”
Her expression faltered, but she quickly rallied, nodding professionally and saying, “Yes, sir. One of us will contact you if there’s the slightest change.”
Which answered the question at the back of his mind. She knew exactly who he was—the heir to the fortune. The man with his hands wrapped around a golden ticket.
That was always the problem with women who knew about the money. And, somehow, they always knew about the money. Except with Sydney. Sydney had never seemed remotely interested in that.
He nodded politely to the nurse. “Thanks.”
Then he made his way down the hall toward the back of the house, only to see Cooper leaning in the doorway to the kitchen, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans and a smug grin on his face.
“Boy, you’re slipping.” Cooper liked nothing more than to get a rise out of him or Dalton.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Griffin said.
Cooper nodded in the direction of the hall down which the nurse had disappeared. “Come on, a prime piece of ass like that? Normally you’d be all over that.”
“I think I have a little more restraint.” He couldn’t resist adding a subtle dig. “And a little more class.”