Gently, he set her away from him, and a chill prickled over her skin. Withdrawal.
“I need some time alone. We both do. I think it would be best if-”
A muffled sound from behind her closed office door made them both turn. “No! I absolutely forbid it,” Dylan said outside.
“She’s got to know,” a female voice said. “Better I tell her than she gets blindsided in the hall or worse, during town hall tomorrow.”
“Girl, you ain’t goin’ in there and showin’ her that. What kind of a friend are you?”
Whatever it was must be serious if it made Dylan revert to what he called “informal speech.”
“Dylan?” Eve called. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” A torrent of hissed whispering ensued, and something thumped against the wood.
Eve crossed the room and jerked the door open. Nicole practically fell into her office, Dylan right behind. Each of them hung onto a side of a rag-mag that Eve recognized as the Peachtree Free Press.
Nicole gave a final yank and ripped the tabloid out of Dylan’s hands. Flushed with triumph, she glared at him, then turned to Eve.
“Some people might think it’s better to keep you in the dark, but I thought you’d want to see this,” she said.
“What?” Eve took the paper.
And then everything seemed to fall away as time ground to a halt.
TV MILLIONAIRE’S SECRET REVEALED
EVE BEST IS TYCOON’S DAUGHTER
Eve Best, the darling of daytime talk shows, Atlanta’s go-to girl for everything the city wants to know about sex and relationships, has been hiding a relationship of her own. No, not the handsome executive arm candy from CWB recently seen squiring her about town. This relationship goes deeper into the dark secrets of her past.
A recent investigation has revealed that Eve, supposed daughter of the late Gibson Best, who died tragically in a car accident in 1990, is not Gibson’s daughter at all. Rather, she is the illegitimate child of tycoon Roy Best, Gibson’s brother, who married socialite and Atlanta Ballet Theatre director Anne Delancey in 1985.
A close family friend, who declined to be named, has known the ugly truth for years and only recently was prevailed on to bring it to light. “I’m no gossip, mind,” says the source, “but those boys confided in me right up until they went away to college. I’ve kept my mouth closed for nearly thirty years, but that poor girl deserves to know that her father did not die in that crash. Her real father, that is.”
All Atlanta knows that, as a member of the old-money set, Best used her social connections and obligations to pull some golden strings, propelling her from the obscure position of junior weathergirl to that of Atlanta’s most popular TV star. But how far will she go now that it’s known she’s not entitled to the Best name in quite the way she thought?
According to our source, Loreen Calvert Best became pregnant by Roy Best just before he went away to Yale. Gibson went to school, too, but before he left, he married the deserted Loreen in a secret ceremony attended only by our source as witness. When Roy came home, he went into business, trading on the Best name to attain a fortune in the electronics and then the real estate markets. He married Anne Delancey in what was then billed as the Wedding of the Year, and two other children followed immediately.
Repeated calls to Eve Best at CATL-TV have gone unanswered. Roy Best has refused comment.
The investigative staff at Peachtree Free Press challenge Eve Best to come out of hiding and tell her viewers the real story. After all, why should she put the blinding spotlight on the secrets of others on live television when she’s so unwilling to bring her own to the light of day?
Eve looked up, and Dylan flinched. She could only imagine what her face must look like. Nicole reached out a tentative hand and laid it on Eve’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Nobody could be fine after reading something like this.”
Mitch took the paper from her and scanned the article. “It’s a bucket of lies, Eve. They’re just trying to sell more of their lousy rag.”
“You’ve never heard this rumor before?” Nicole asked.
“Never.” But the word rang hollow. Because it would explain that photo. And Adele Pierce-so obviously the paper’s so-called source-who had said Uncle Roy needed to clean up his mess. And Aunt Anne at dinner, behaving so strangely. What had she said? Something about the truth.
“I have to talk to my uncle,” Eve blurted. “Today. This minute.”
“You’re not driving anywhere after a shock like this.” Mitch picked her cropped linen jacket off the back of her chair and handed it to her. “I’ll take you.”
Her phone rang, and Dylan picked it up, waving the two of them toward the door. Then he called, “Eve. There’s a visitor in the lobby for you.”
“Not interested. We’ll go out the back door.”
“Yeah, you are. It’s your uncle.”
Eve stopped dead in the middle of the carpet. “My Uncle Roy? Is downstairs? Now?”
Dylan nodded.
She resisted the urge to ask Dylan why he wasn’t already on his way to fetch him. “Escort him in here, please, Dylan. And find us some brandy or something. Don’t look at me like that-this is a crisis. Raid Dan’s office-I know he’s got liquor in his sideboard.”
Mitch backed toward the door. “I’ll give the two of you some privacy. This is a family matter.”
She grabbed his jacket. “Please don’t. I need you. Please.”
For a moment, she thought she’d lose him-that the shaken self-confidence he’d allowed to swamp him earlier would come back and separate them just when she needed him more than ever before. But then a new expression filled his eyes, and he straightened his shoulders.
“You do?”
“Yes.” She burrowed into his arms and felt like shouting hallelujah as they went around her body, strong and sure. “Now. Later. Forever. Just stay.”
And that’s how her Uncle Roy found them when Dylan ushered him in a moment later. Dylan put a brand-new bottle of Courvoisier and three ceramic coffee mugs from the kitchen on her low table and shut the door behind him.
Roy Best looked as though he didn’t know what to do with himself. He stood uneasily, searching Eve’s face, no doubt for some clue as to her feelings.
She could have helped him out if she’d only known herself what those were. To give herself a moment to find her equilibrium, Eve poured a shot for all of them, then sat next to her uncle on the short couch. Roy was neatly put together in an expensive suit and sober tie, but his face…he looked as though he were in shock.
Maybe he was. Even though Mitch stood behind her, Roy didn’t seem to be aware there was anyone but Eve in the room.
“You must hate me,” he said at last, swirling the brandy in the mug but not sipping it. She supposed they were committing some kind of brandy sin by not drinking it out of snifters, but they had to work with what they were given.
“Of course not,” she assured him softly. “I only saw the paper just now, but ever since I went to Mirabel on the weekend, I’ve seen and heard things that have puzzled me. The paper has one slant that would explain them. I’d love to hear yours, if you want to tell me.”
He gave up on the drink and put it on the table. “That’s just it. It isn’t slanted. Except for the nasty tone of it, the paper has its essentials correct. I’m your biological father.”
Luke, I am your father, she heard James Earl Jones say in her head. You look like Evalyne, Adele said, her voice threading over it. So does my niece. She’s fourteen, her own voice said, adding to the mix. She wasn’t blond, like both Loreen and her da-Gibson. She was a green-eyed brunette. Like Evalyne. Like Roy.
“Do Karen and Emily know?” she rasped, her throat dry. “And Aunt Anne?” She took a gulp of the brandy, and it burned all the way down.