All He Really Needs(49)

“I found out about it purely by accident. A few years ago I was having lunch with some of the women I’d worked with at Cain Enterprises. Griffin’s assistant happened to be there and she complained about how difficult it was to manage his schedule. How secretive he was. How he appeared to spend far more time vacationing than actually working. This description of him seemed very unlike the boy I’d known. So I looked into the matter.”

Sydney didn’t know what to say. She was all too familiar with complaints made by Griffin’s former assistant. He was difficult to work with. He did have a reputation for playing more than he worked. But she had just assumed that was who he was.

“You looked into the matter?” Sydney repeated dumbly.

Sharlene sighed, a sound full of guilt and regret. “I know I shouldn’t have. I should have trusted that the Griffin I knew as a boy would grow into a decent man. More than decent, in fact. Extraordinary. But I didn’t trust what I knew of him. I nosed around in his business and uncovered just how generous and selfless he is. Believe me when I tell you that I’m not proud of myself for doubting him.”

Sydney tried to squelch the sick feeling in her stomach. Sharlene felt badly? That was nothing compared to how Sydney felt. Sydney hadn’t just doubted that Griffin might be generous and extraordinary. She’d fully believed he was a self-absorbed playboy. She’d slept with him—for months—without ever knowing the person he truly was.

Finally, Sydney willed herself to take the pamphlet that Sharlene was holding. She glanced down. There was a logo at the top of the page, with the word Hope and the letter O written in nice big letters and the 2 done in subscript, the way you’d write the chemical name for water. Beneath was a picture of a beautiful young African girl carrying a jug on her head along with the statement “Women spend 200 million hours a day collecting water.” She flipped open the pamphlet, not reading it, just letting it soak in. Not really believing that Griffin would have anything to do with this organization.

It was too noble a cause for her charming playboy to be involved in. Too far outside the realm of their lives. She could picture him attending charity galas at the country club dressed in a tux, but not drilling water wells in Africa.

Then on the back, she saw it. A picture of a ribbon-cutting ceremony somewhere. In the background, standing just behind the man cutting the ribbon, was Griffin. The picture was small and cluttered with people. If she didn’t know every line of his face, she wouldn’t have even recognized him. But she did.

Sydney flipped through the pamphlet again, her eyes scanning all the words without really reading them. She looked for any reference to Griffin at all. Any mention of Cain Enterprises. She wasn’t particularly surprised when she found none.

Still, when she looked up, she couldn’t help voicing her question. “Why would he keep this such a secret?”

Sharlene sighed. “Why does anyone keep anything a secret? I suspect he’s ashamed of it.”

“Of doing charitable work? It’s not like he’s a drug addict. He’s not laundering money or hosting dog fights.”

“Yes, yes, for someone like you or me, charity is a virtue.” Sharlene shook her head. “But in Griffin’s world, wanting to help others is a sign of weakness. One that Caro and Hollister worked hard to stamp out of her boys from a very young age. Griffin especially.”

“Why Griffin especially?”

“He was always much more sensitive than Dalton. He cared about other people. I remember once, in the mid-eighties when the famine in Africa was getting a lot of coverage in the news, Griffin had the nanny bring him up to the office so he could talk to his father. He asked Hollister why they couldn’t just give all their money to the people in Africa. I never heard Hollister’s full answer because he shut his office door, but by the time Griffin left, he was in tears. Caro was furious. She fired the nanny the very next day.”

“That’s awful.”

“It was. And whatever Hollister said to Griffin, it must have made an impact because I never heard him talk about helping other people again until I found out about Hope2O.”

Sydney tried to imagine what Hollister must have said, but she couldn’t. Griffin had only been a child. In the mid-eighties, he would have been six or seven. Eight or nine at the oldest. That was awfully young to have human compassion stamped out of you.

She glanced up to find Sharlene watching her. “Why show me this?” She waved the pamphlet between them. “Why tell me this at all? What do you want from me?”

“I would think that’s rather obvious.”