"Julianne," his father murmured.
Deacon slapped his hands on the table in front of his father. "How long have you known?"
His dad rubbed the furrow between his brows. "I found out about two weeks after you came back."
"And it didn't bother you that she kept that from you? That she willingly gave your grandson-your only physical link to your dead son-to her sister to raise?"
"Of course it bothered me. But what was I supposed to do at that point? Rip the boy away from the only parents he'd ever known? Fracture our family even more? Annabelle and Derek adore Warren. He has a happy life and everything he'd ever want or need."
Rage continued to build, and Deacon knew he hadn't hit the point of explosion yet. He didn't bother to keep his voice down, his fury absolute. "Annabelle and Derek could provide for him better than you could have? Bull. Shit." He shot his mother a disgusted look. "All because Julianne didn't want to be called Grandma. God forbid anyone ever thought she could be old enough to have a grandchild. That was it, wasn't it? Or maybe, since Warren's birth mother wasn't a society girl, you were afraid her lower-class traits would appear in your grandson? And how would you ever explain that at the country-club brunch?"
"Deacon," his father barked. "That is enough."
"You're trying to muzzle me because you know it's true. If Aunt Annabelle thinks her sister arranged for a private adoption out of love for her, or the child, she's got a fucking screw loose. Julianne has never done a goddamn thing if it hasn't benefitted her. She thought providing Aunt Annabelle the child she'd wanted for so long made her selfless, but it's the most selfish thing she's ever done. Julianne didn't want the boy, but she couldn't quite let him go either."
"You have no idea what I went through," his mother retorted. "Your recklessness killed two people, Deacon."
Recklessness? It was a fucking accident.
"The scandal that followed . . . You were a surly teen who didn't see it, and even if you had, you wouldn't have cared. It destroyed our lives. We had to move because the hatred for us in the community was so thick that I couldn't show my face anywhere. Everyone-and I mean everyone-assumed your father had bought off the authorities. It didn't matter that he hadn't. The mere suggestion of it made him just as guilty as you in their eyes." She took a breath. "So I lost one son, my other son vanished-and don't think for a second that your disappearance didn't cause new and ugly rumors. And then this young girl of fifteen showed up on my front doorstep claiming to be pregnant with my dead son's child. What kind of girl starts having sex at that age? She was a child, pregnant with a child."
"I'm surprised you believed the kid was Dante's."
"I'm not a fool," she snapped. "I'd seen this happen before in our circle; a rich man dies and a pregnant whore comes forward claiming the child is his. Before I offered her any financial compensation, I set up an in-utero DNA test. Those results validated her claim. I provided her with a safe, discreet place to live for the duration of her pregnancy, and I provided a loving future for the child she did not want."
"How much?"
"How much what?"
"How much money did her silence cost you?"
"It doesn't matter now if you know. I paid her a quarter of a million dollars. She signed every single legal stipulation without hesitation."
"Of course she did. She was fifteen fucking years old. That money probably sounded like a fortune to her." He laughed bitterly. "The joke was on her. She walked away from a real fortune by not holding on to a JFW heir."
"Her stupidity was no concern of mine-then or now."
"I'll tell you one thing, if I would've known? I wouldn't have let you give Dante's kid away."
"Oh, spare me your indignation." She sneered at him. "What kind of help would you have been, raising a baby? None. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, Deacon. You didn't have the skills to be anything to that boy except a fair-weather uncle. You would've disappointed him as much as you'd disappointed everyone else."
"Goddammit, Julianne, that's enough. You don't get to talk to him that way."
She whirled on her husband, her jaw nearly hanging on the floor. "You're taking his side?"
"There are no sides. He is our son."
"He is being an ass, as usual," she hissed. "I hate that he's standing there in judgment of me when he didn't have to deal with the consequences of his actions! We did. We had to start over. He shows up, looking like a thug, full of contempt for me, for you, for everything we ever provided him. For the future in the family business that he refused to be a part of. And now, because of a legal technicality, he can destroy it."