She wished inside she felt the same, instead of the disconcerting torrent of emotions that were rushing through her.
Caro Cain raised her eyebrows coolly as Griffin held out the chair for Sydney. “Well, you were certainly gone a long time. That must have been quite the discussion you had.”
“Just some business we had to clear up from the office,” Griffin answered smoothly.
“Anything I can help with?” Caro asked.
Griffin offered his mother a tight smile. “Certainly not, Mother. You know how you hate talking business at the table.”
Caro sniffed. “As if that ever stopped your father.” Then she blotted at her eyes again. She made a sound like a strangled sob. “What I wouldn’t give just to share a meal with him now.”
“He’s not dead yet,” Griffin said wryly as he sat down.
Caro’s gaze sharpened. “Do not disrespect your father to me.”
Griffin shrugged, but Sydney could tell he was about to launch another volley, so she leaned forward and interrupted the familial sparring. “Mrs. Cain, let’s get back to those questions I wanted to ask you.”
“Yes, of course. But I will say I was surprised that you’re working for Griffin now.”
Sydney wondered just how much Caro had deduced of her relationship with Griffin.
“Of course I am,” she said quickly. “The CEO needs an assistant. And when Dalton left—”
“Yes, of course.” Caro smiled benevolently at Griffin. “I’m sure this won’t shock you, but I can’t say that I’m sorry Dalton has stopped looking for the girl.” Caro leaned close and dropped her voice. “If only one of you can inherit everything, then I’d much prefer it be you.”
Sydney watched the revulsion flicker across Griffin’s face as his mother patted his hand conspiratorially, but Caro didn’t seem to notice it.
However, she did turn her assessing gaze to Sydney. “What I meant earlier was that I was surprised you’re still involved. If Dalton has indeed left the company, then why are you still around?”
Caro’s questions made one thing clear: she was on to them. She may not know for sure that they were sleeping together, but their long discussion out on the balcony—or perhaps her earlier fumble—had tipped their hand. Caro knew something was up.
Before Sydney could answer, Griffin peeled his mother’s hand off his arm and said, “Sydney is working for me now. I needed someone to help me transition to interim CEO.”
“And you didn’t want to bring your own assistant with you?” Caro asked.
“No.” With each question, Griffin’s tone cooled. “I needed someone who was familiar with every project on Dalton’s plate.”
Caro’s lips turned down in disapproval. “And besides, you’ve never really trusted Marion, have you? After all, she worked under your father too long for that, didn’t she?” Instead of waiting for him to answer, Caro turned her cool gaze on Sydney. “You, however, haven’t worked at Cain Enterprises long enough to have any alliance.”
Sydney blinked in surprise at the icy chill in Caro’s voice. “I don’t… I’m not sure what you mean.”
Griffin replied instead of Caro. “She’s implying that you’re not qualified for the position.”
Caro’s lips twisted in an unpleasant smile. “Nonsense. I’m sure that the only qualification that Dalton cared about was that she had never once worked for his father. Naturally that one quality prepared you for a position of tremendous power within the company. Unless there are other qualifications I’m unaware of.”
“Enough, Mother,” Griffin said sharply. “That’s a line you don’t want to cross.”
Caro looked from Griffin to Sydney and back again with her eyebrows raised in feigned innocence. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She patted the back of Sydney’s hand. “Have I offended you, dear?”
Sydney forced a smile past the bitter taste in her mouth. “Not at all.”
But she was starting to see what Griffin had meant about his mother.
“Excellent. I knew you were made of sterner stuff. Now, tell me what you need to know that you haven’t been able to find out from the files I sent over.”
Well, that was tricky because she’d learned precisely nothing from the files at all. In fact, after Caro’s comments about Dalton, Sydney was beginning to wonder whether Caro hadn’t been deliberately unhelpful before now. After all, she’d just admitted that she wanted Griffin to find the heiress instead of Dalton. Dalton had been the one who had originally requested the household documents be sent over. Perhaps Caro had simply sent over forty-two boxes of useless papers just to waste Dalton’s time.
Of course, demanding answers about that would gain her nothing, so instead Sydney said, “I don’t know if Dalton explained why he wanted the household records from that time period, but—”
“He did,” Caro interrupted with a sweeping gesture. The wine in her glass sloshed precariously. “Something about a nanny.”
“Yes.” Sydney paused, wondering if Griffin was going to take over, but he remained silent. “Dalton and Laney had a theory about one of Dalton’s nannies. Apparently, she worked for you when you were pregnant with Griffin. Her name was Vivian. She was pregnant when she worked with you. And they know for sure the child was a girl.”
Caro took another sip of wine and Sydney couldn’t tell if she was stalling for time or if she was merely disinterested.
Griffin lost patience with Caro before Sydney did. He leaned forward. “Do you remember the woman or not?”
“Not off the top of my head.”
“I have pictures of her, if that would help.” Sydney pulled the file from her bag and pushed the pictures across the table to Caro.
Caro glanced at them without a flicker of surprise or recognition.
“Do you know this woman?” Griffin asked.
“Perhaps. I don’t know.” Caro waved dismissively. “If there was a pregnant girl who worked for us, she certainly didn’t stand out. That is the point, isn’t it? That they were the help. Good help isn’t seen or heard.”
Her tone fairly dripped with derision, making it perfectly clear she thought Sydney was well outside her bounds.
Yeah, Sydney got the point. But she hadn’t clawed her way out of poverty by feeling the sting of every subtle insult. Caro would have to work a lot harder to scare her off.
Sydney took a long sip of her iced tea. As she set down the glass she said, “You’re a smart woman, Mrs. Cain. I can’t believe there could be anyone in your home, help or otherwise, who could make a play for your husband without you knowing about it.”
Caro’s expression froze into an icy mask, and for one long moment she neither moved nor spoke. Then, abruptly, she smiled with smooth ease. “Well, there’s your mistake. You seem to be under the impression that there was only one nanny making a play for my husband.”
“There was more than one?”
“Of course. They all made a play for him. Hollister has always been quite charming. Add in his personal wealth and his power, and he was virtually irresistible. Every secretary at Cain Enterprises, every female geologist in R&D, every young nanny who cared for the boys—every last one of them was susceptible to his charms.”
“Every single one of them? That’s hard to believe.”
“Really?” Caro tilted her head to the side, her expression all innocence. “Can you honestly not imagine that a smart and beautiful young woman might try to use sex to align herself with a wealthy and powerful man?”
Aha. And there it was. The cutting jab she’d been expecting ever since they’d returned to the table. Sydney opened her mouth, readying her own defense, but before she could speak Griffin leaned forward. “That’s enough, Mother.”
Caro blinked innocently. “Excuse me?”
“Enough with the thinly veiled barbs. Do you remember the name of the nanny or not?”
For a long moment, Caro studied her son, her gaze cunning in her assessment. Then she cut her gaze to Sydney for an instant before her lips turned up in a coy smile, leaving Sydney with the impression that Griffin’s defense of her had revealed precisely the information Caro had been digging for.
“In the months she worked for us, I barely spoke to her.” Now that Griffin had called her on her attitude, Caro’s tone was clipped and irritated. She was obviously a woman who liked to play with her food but didn’t like it when her food swatted back. “How am I supposed to remember her name?”
Sydney found herself frowning. “You barely spoke to her? How long did she work for you?”
“Maybe five, six months.”
“You had no interaction with her in six months? When she had sole responsibility of caring for your children?”
“She was competent and kept the children out of my hair. Why on earth would I speak to her?”
“Because they were your children.”
Caro just waved her hand dismissively, clearly as disinterested in her progeny now as she had been then.
Sydney glanced at Griffin, expecting to see pain flash across his face at his mother’s matter-of-fact dismissal. Instead, his expression was shuttered, his eyes unreadable. If his mother’s carelessness hurt him, he didn’t show it.
Somehow, his carefully hidden reaction made her ache even more deeply. She didn’t want to see him openly in pain, but she would have understood that. She could have pitied that. But this? This emotional distance? This careful detachment with which he held his emotions in check? This was much harder for her to see. Because it was achingly obvious that he had expected his mother’s reaction. Not because that was how she really felt, but because she’d obviously crafted the barb to punish him for standing up for Sydney.
And suddenly, she got what he’d been trying to tell her earlier about his family. About how ill-equipped she was to deal with their mind games.