Taming McGruff(68)

Priscilla watched Griffin’s face; it was stony and remote. But emotions, raw and churning, chased across his gray eyes. “Mother,” she gulped hard, “did destroy him because of this. Because she would be kicked out while he had all the control. Over the store. Over the money.” Griffin had been right all along. Her mother had ruined his father and his reputation. If she were Griff, Priscilla knew she’d carry hatred in her heart, too.

She ached for him, but he turned away, shutting her out again.

How could she help him when everything in her world, everything she’d been led to believe, had just been turned upside down?





Chapter 24





Griffin did what he thought once was impossible. Getting out of the Vette, he trailed her to the neighborhood park. The dog sensed him before she did. The white, fluffy mutt strained against the leash, trying to come to him.

“Stop that,” Mrs. King scolded the dog, and then she reared back at the sight of Griffin. “You! Haven’t you caused enough trouble already?”

He faced his longtime enemy. “Apparently so,” he agreed, knowing Charlie had called her from his house that night. She’d denied everything, but the girls knew different. To their credit, they agreed not to press charges or reverse what had already been done. Also, they wanted to find a way to honor his father for all he’d done for Charles King. Griff should have been satisfied with the contents of the will, his vindication, but, for his own sake, he had to play this out until the bitter end.

Mrs. King tried to force the dog to walk. He refused.

Drawing nearer, Griffin saw her in the cold light of day. The perfect updo, sprayed and held perfectly in place, didn’t change. He noted the lines feathering out of the corners of her eyes and above her upper lip, the brackets along her mouth, and her skin seemed pale. Her dark eyes, once shooting venom at him, now held a trace of fear. “What do you want? To gloat? I will never admit anything, do you understand? I should have known who you were. You look like him—big and broad, gray eyes. Who could have those same eyes but his son? What a fool I’ve been.”

“Yes, you have.”

“You are gloating.”

“No. I came here to let you know I’m done.”

“What did you say? Done? With what?”

“You. With your hold over me all these years.” He smiled, the irony of it not lost on him. “You wanted control over everything. You had it, over me. I worked, ate, and slept revenge against you. I was filled with rage over how you treated my father. I wanted to get back at you, hit you where it hurt you the most, because you had hit me where it hurt the most.”

“You have his tenacity and audacity, too.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

“Insufferable,” she muttered. “Just like him.”

“He found you out. I remember the things he’d tell me. All because you couldn’t have control over Charles King’s heart. He loved his first wife, adored her. He never got over her. But for Charlie’s sake, he wanted her to have a mother to raise her, to care for her again. You came back to King’s, stormed into his life, and used your own daughters to your advantage, because that was his weakness. Family. He assumed, if you two married, you would be the mother to his motherless child and he would be the father to your fatherless daughters.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes.

“It could have been just like that, too,” he said softly. “But your fear got the best of you. You pushed and prodded, forced yourself into every part of his life, taking control where you had no business being. Until you pushed him away.”

“How dare you,” she bit out, her lip trembling.

“Do you know the strangest thing of all, Mrs. King?” he asked. “I was just like you. All these years I pushed, more like steam-rolled, my way to the top of the retail industry, refusing to settle for anything less than success. I craved control, too, control of my destiny, because once, long ago, it was snatched from me. I swore I would never suffer at the hands of you again. But I have. It was my own doing, too. You, and my revenge against you, controlled my every waking moment.”

She seemed taken aback by his brutal honesty.

“Until your daughter came into my life.”

“Priscilla? Why, she’s just a slip of a girl.”

“She showed me that there was something more to life than living with hate in my heart. In fact, she showed me I still had a heart worth saving.”

“Apparently she doesn’t feel the same way since she’s left you.”

“Touché, Mrs. King,” he said, knowing whatever she said didn’t affect him any longer. Only what Priscilla felt and said did. He bowed slightly, saying, “I hope you will find it in your heart to love her and her sisters like they deserve, like Charles King longed for—for all his daughters.”