“There’s nothing much to tell. You know I never met him. All I know is what my mother told me.”
“Did she hate him?” From what little Cole had said, Amber guessed his mother, Lauren, had gotten a very raw deal.
“She hated his weakness, that he caved to his family.” Cole stretched an arm along the back of the sofa. “They fell quickly and deeply in love. But she didn’t come from the right family, hadn’t been to the right schools, didn’t have the refined tastes and manners he knew his parents would look for in a daughter-in-law. So he married her without telling them, thinking once it was a done deal, his parents would be forced to accept her.”
“They didn’t,” Amber guessed.
“They went ballistic. They ordered him to divorce her right away, and to never admit to anyone that she’d existed. If he didn’t, they said they’d disinherit him. No surprise that he loved the family money more than he loved my mother.”
“He didn’t deserve her,” Amber said softly.
“I must have said that to her ten thousand times.”
Cole fell silent, looking sad, and Amber found her heart going out to him. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“He was nothing to me. I mean, nothing. I was angry off and on, especially as a teenager. But then I realized he didn’t even deserve my anger. As far as I was concerned, he might as well have not existed. When he died...”
Cole lifted the crystal flute and took a drink of his champagne. “This sounds terrible, but when he died, I didn’t care. I knew I should. But I didn’t. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t glad. I didn’t expect his death or anything about the Henderson family to be even a blip on my life. Things were going to carry on as normal.”
“It didn’t occur to you there might be an inheritance?”
“Not even for a second.”
She set down her half-eaten slice of pizza, exchanging it for the glass of champagne. “So why did you come to Atlanta?”
“Luca kept after me. Then one day, I gave in. I looked at a picture of Zachary. I don’t know. There was something about him, something in his eyes. I knew I had to at least make sure he was safe and secure.”
Amber’s chest tingled and went tight. “You came here to take care of your brother.”
“And then I met you.” The look in his eyes was tender. “And I knew Zachary was safe. It was just a matter of getting through the hearing without anyone figuring out who I was.”
“But then I lost.”
He nodded. “I didn’t know what to do. I’d learned enough about Roth by then that I couldn’t let him win.”
“Thank you.”
“There’s no need to thank me. And I haven’t defeated him yet.”
“But you’re trying. You really don’t want Coast Eagle, do you?”
“I want what’s best for Zachary. It’s ironic, really. When I first heard about him, I resented him. All I could think was that he was going to have the easy life while Mom and I had struggled so hard to get by.”