Underneath It All Read online

  It was a shot to his faith and his belief in what it meant to be a family. And more importantly, it was his final assurance that his future was not here at Bradshaw Investment Group.

  “Well, you and Bryce can continue to work this out without me. I’m stepping down.”

  William sighed, not looking nearly as surprised as Devon expected, though he supposed lately he hadn’t been secretive about his intentions.

  “I wish you’d reconsider.”

  “Dad, you know this isn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. Face it, you aren’t ready to give up control of this company and I like to do things my way. I can stick around and let this ruin our relationship or I can make the move we both know I need to make.”

  He studied his father, saw the reluctant acceptance in the man’s eyes and a weight lifted from his shoulders. He hadn’t wanted to put more stress on the man, but now he knew the stress would come from staying. Truth be told, he and his father were too much alike, two men insistent on running the ship with widely different ideas on how it should be done and that right there was a recipe for disaster. It was time one of them cut loose.

  Devon added, “If you’d like to square this mess away with Todd before making an announcement, that’s fine with me. I don’t have any immediate plans.”

  Then he turned and walked out feeling as though every problem in his life had now evaporated into thin air.

  Every problem but one.

  NICOLE READ THE SAME paragraph over three times before throwing down the article and admitting defeat. She’d come into the office early wanting to catch up on work in the hope of taking a couple days off, but she simply couldn’t focus. Since seeing Devon three days ago she’d grown more and more dismayed, torn between feeling she needed some time to herself and the idea that maybe she didn’t have to work through her problems alone. Granted, back in California, so many people had known about her adoption it had gotten chaotic. Here in Atlanta, Eve and Devon were the only two who knew the truth, and while at first it had been refreshing to get away from the clamor, she now found herself missing having someone to talk to about it.

  She thought about Devon and the last time she’d seen him, and though she’d picked up the phone and nearly called a dozen times, she kept hanging up, deciding to take a few more days to think things through. She missed him more than she realized, her feelings for him stronger than she’d cared to admit, but fear kept her from acting on it, still uncertain whether she was ready for everything he wanted to give her.

  So she’d decided to catch up at the office then take some time off work, a few days, maybe a week. She’d considered making a trip back home to see her friends and family or simply spending some time alone making solid decisions on what to do with her future.

  And if she could just get through this article and leave this final portfolio for Penny, she could do exactly that. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to keep her thoughts straight since she’d shown up this morning, and a ruckus outside wasn’t helping.

  What was it this time? she wondered. This part of Atlanta wasn’t foreign to the occasional group of protestors or celebrity seekers. There were a number of television stations in Midtown, and on occasion, when word got out someone famous might be showing up for a guest appearance, crowds tended to gather.

  She was about to get up from her desk to take a look when Eve popped in her doorway. Instead of speaking, she simply opened her mouth and pointed toward the window.

  “Yes?” Nicole asked.

  “Uh…have you been down there?”

  “Down where?”

  “The reporters,” Eve started, and when she saw Nicole had no idea what she was talking about, she stepped into the office.

  “Your adoption, Nicole. I don’t know how—” she raised her hands to her sides. “I promise you it didn’t come from me. But somehow Stella Graves got wind of your adoption. She’s all but told everyone in Georgia you’re looking for your birth parents and that a lucky family out there is related to a multi-millionaire.”

  “What?”

  “All kinds of people are downstairs claiming to be related to you. I’ve already called Jenna. She’ll be here any minute. Meanwhile, reporters are already here interviewing people. It’s a mess, Nicky.”

  Needing to see for herself, she rushed over to the window that faced the front entrance of the building. Looking down from the second-story, she saw more than a dozen people standing in front of the station doors, some talking to press, others talking amongst themselves.

  “Oh great,” Nicole muttered, then moved to another window where she could get a better look at the crowd. The bulk of those talking to reporters couldn’t possibly be related to her. They looked nothing like her.

  She’d always expected her birth parents to be tall, fair and slender, like her, but these people spanned all different shapes, races and sizes. It was a wonder half of them could even think they were related.

  A short woman with olive skin and jet black hair was being interviewed by a reporter, holding up what might be a picture to the camera. Nicole fought the urge to run down and confront her right then and there, certain the woman was a fraud.

  But what if she wasn’t?

  What if she, or any of the other people in the crowd, really were her relations? This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? She’d wanted to find her birth parents, to uncover where she’d come from, what kind of family she’d been born from. She wanted answers, the missing pieces of the puzzle put together so she could move on with her life feeling complete again.

  What if this lottery could uncover the truth to her past? Why not turn this into a positive?

  She studied the crowd, her hands trembling at the thought that any of these people might be her birth parents or know who her birth parents were. She didn’t feel ready to find out, but at the same time, she couldn’t live in this perpetual uncertainty forever. Maybe this was Fate stepping in and forcing forward motion.

  Backing away from the window she returned to her desk, the image of the crowd adding a level of reality she hadn’t dealt with before. She’d conjured up all kinds of fantasies, how they’d react to her and what kind of story they’d have to tell.

  Her rational side knew anything was possible, including disappointment, but she’d always assumed even uncovering the worst was better than not knowing at all.

  But now she began to think twice. Maybe like many had said, she’d be better off not knowing than unearthing something ugly, and though she hadn’t thought of it before now, she did have the money to consider. Did she really want to meet a family only interested in her because of her wealth? She had to face that possibility. She had to face all possibilities.

  Like Devon had said, she could end up not liking what she found, and though she’d always known it, up until now, she hadn’t truly faced it.

  Eve took a seat at Nicole’s desk. “I’m sorry, Nicky. Are you going to be okay?”

  Nicole nodded. “I’m fine. It’s that I hadn’t expected this.”

  “Tell me about it. I just went through them all on my way in the door. You should see some of them. They’re holding up baby pictures all claiming some sort of relation to you. One woman brought a baby blanket she said was yours and it still had the price tag on it!” Eve looked at her and sighed. “I’m so sorry, hon. I know this is the last thing you need right now.”

  Nicole held up a hand. “No, I’ll be all right. In fact, in a way I’m glad this happened.” When Eve flashed her a wide-eyed stare, Nicole explained, “I needed to make some sort of move when it came to this adoption thing. Maybe this is it.”

  Eve nodded in understanding and the two women chatted until a pretty African-American woman poked her head in the doorway and Nicole realized it was Jenna.

  Nicole stood and accepted the handshake. “Thanks for coming.”

  Surrendering her seat to Jenna, Eve left the two women alone and Nicole explained the situation. Eve had already briefed Jenna when she’d called, but Nico
le went through the details while Jenna took notes on a yellow legal pad.

  After giving Jenna a chance to review her notes, Nicole asked, “So, what do we do about this?”

  “We can handle it a couple ways,” Jenna began. “It depends on how serious you are about finding your biological parents.”

  She looked up at Nicole as if waiting for an answer, but Nicole could only shrug. “I’ve been on the fence about it for a while now.”

  Jenna’s smile was warm. “That’s understandable.”

  “What are my options?”

  Jenna set her pen down and relaxed in her chair. “We can hope that in a day or two this all goes away. Or we can sort through all these claims and see if any have merit. If you tell me what you know about your birth, we can discount any claim that’s obviously false and send the impostors on their way. I would expect any valid relation would be able to answer some specific questions. Everyone else can be scared away by a few legal threats. But the point being, if we give people a place to go besides you, our office can handle this without the obvious emotional strings they’ll try and hit you with.”

  She studied Nicole then added, “A little information off the Internet can sometimes sound very convincing. There’s a lot of money involved here, money that people will try to bilk you out of claiming to be long-lost relatives. You need to be careful.”

  “So if I tell you what I do know, what happens if someone has a claim that appears valid? What do we do?”

  “That will be up to you. Obviously, you realize the odds are incredibly slim any of these people are actually related to you. The more you know about your birth the more people we can weed out, but if someone should say all the right things—” she shrugged “—maybe this will be the end of your search.”

  The end of her search, but the beginning of what?

  She stared at Jenna, wishing the woman could tell her what to do, but knowing this had to be her decision and only hers. She’d come to Atlanta seeking answers. This could be the way to get them. Had she been serious about finding her birth family or not? Taking a deep breath, she answered the question.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s set up a hotline and screen these people. If my birth parents are really in that crowd, let’s find them.”

  13

  DEVON STARED at three identical cherrywood boards, trying to figure out why the assembly instructions for his new office unit considered them unique. They were exact replicas of each other, but damned if the diagram didn’t clearly label them A, B and C as if one couldn’t be substituted for the other.

  For what seemed like forever, he stood alternately glancing from the pages to the boards, growing more and more convinced that someone at the factory had screwed up. If there was one solitary difference between these three slats of wood, he’d eat this instruction manual.

  “No matter how long you stare at that thing, it’s not going to assemble itself,” Bryce said, shoving the discarded plastic sheeting and Styrofoam separators into one of the empty boxes.

  “These boards are supposed to be different. How am I supposed to put the Number 3 pegs into Board A if I can’t figure out which board is Board A?”

  “Are you sure all the pegs aren’t the same?”

  “Yes, I am,” Devon said, setting the pages down on his old desk unit and holding up two plastic pegs. “One’s longer than the other.”

  Bryce picked up the diagram and stepped over to the wall where Devon had leaned the three identical boards, looking over them with intent before pointing to the one on the left. “That’s Board A.”

  Devon huffed. “How did you figure that out?”

  “The holes on the edges of this one are about an inch closer to the center than the other two.” He pointed to the diagram. “See this? That’s definitely Board A.”

  Devon still didn’t see it, but he wasn’t going to argue. He now understood why the store charged two hundred dollars to assemble this thing. This was officially the last time he’d consider an assembly fee a rip-off. Standing there staring at a room littered with pegs, screws, boards and plastic things that could only be described as diddly-bobs, that two hundred dollars was beginning to look like a bargain, especially considering neither he nor Bryce were good at this sort of thing. Unless one of them had developed a keen sense of mechanical reasoning in the last few years, Devon was screwed.

  “This is going to take all night,” he complained.

  “Tomorrow’s another day.”

  “I’ve got plans tomorrow and Tuesday I’d wanted to get over to Computer Universe to order a new PC. I need this done today.”

  Bryce tossed a plastic bag full of scary-looking metal do-dads on the desk. “For a guy without a job, you sound awfully busy. What’s with the tight schedule? You got a season of X Files reruns to get to?”

  “For your information, I’m meeting Doug Petersen tomorrow on the very subject of jobs.”

  “Petersen Contracting?”

  “Yup,” Devon said, writing the letter A on a piece of masking tape and sticking it to the board Bryce had pointed to. He labeled the others as well, then stacked them in the corner to make room for the next pile of wood panels.

  “What are you going to do, become a carpenter?” Bryce asked, completely tongue-in cheek.

  “Would that bother you?”

  “Given how skillfully you’re putting this desk unit together, I’d suggest you reconsider. The kid at the store would have had this and three like it done by now.”

  Devon half laughed. “Well, I’m not thinking carpenter, but I do want to talk to Doug about the contracting business in general.”

  Picking up what looked like a stack of matching shelves, he uncovered yet another plastic bag of hardware. “How can we have so much stuff and only four pages of instructions?”

  Bryce flipped through the manual. “I don’t know, but it’s all here. The last page shows a fully assembled corner desk unit.”

  The two men worked, sorting through the pieces, making sure everything was there and organized, ready for assembly.

  “So what are you going to do?” Bryce asked as he counted out screws and separated them into piles.

  “I haven’t decided yet, but whatever it is, it will be on my terms the way I want it.”

  Bryce glanced over, his tone sober. “You and Dad okay?”

  Devon chuckled. “Honestly, I don’t remember getting along with him better. I think he finally admitted to himself that I’ve been right all along.” He paused, then added, “There’s an ease between us that hasn’t been there since I was a kid.”

  Bryce nodded. “Things have calmed down around the office now that the audit was squared away. Did Dad tell you about Todd?”

  Devon was about to tack a numbered label on one board but stopped. “What about Todd?”

  “He attended his first Gamblers Anonymous meeting night before last.”

  Devon’s jaw went slack. “No way,” he said, certain Bryce was pulling his leg. Todd had been so far from even acknowledging he had a problem, getting help should have been ages off.

  Bryce raised a brow and smiled knowingly. “He didn’t have a choice. Dad threatened to press charges for embezzlement if he didn’t admit he was out of control.”

  “Well, good for the old man.”

  “You know he never would have turned him in.”

  “Probably, but I’d doubt that enough to give in if it had been me.”

  “As did Todd.”

  Ripping open a plastic bag of small screws and dumping them on the table, Bryce continued sorting. “I’d wanted to tell you what was going on, you know. It wasn’t that we didn’t trust you. It’s that we all could have been indicted if this audit had turned out badly. Dad was trying to protect us, that’s all.”

  Bryce didn’t have to explain. After Devon had simmered down, he’d figured it out on his own, admitting he would have done the same thing if he’d been in their shoes. There hadn’t been much he could have done to help, and knowing tha
t Todd had been siphoning money off the books would have only put Devon on the hot seat with the rest of them.

  “We’re cool,” he said. “It’s all cool.” Stepping out of the room to grab a couple beers, he returned and handed one to his brother. “This business of working with family was never for me, anyway. I’ve spent the last three years hanging around waiting for Dad to step down when really he’s too young for retirement. It’s time I took control of my life.”

  “Well, I’ve got to hand it to you. It would have been easy to just go along and take the job that was handed to you.”

  Devon shook his head. “I can’t take a paycheck I’m not earning. This whole experience showed me very clearly who’s really needed at the firm and who isn’t. That’s your job, Bryce. It’s what you were meant to do, and I can’t help but feel even Dad knew that, but feared saying so to spare my feelings.” He twisted off the cap of his beer and took a swig. “And now that everyone’s been honest with each other, I can finally move on with my life and figure out what I was meant to do.”

  “And will that new life include Nicole?”

  Devon shrugged. “I wish I knew. Gracie had told me to give Nicole some space, and I’ve finally come around to agreeing.” He slipped into a chair and stared at nothing in particular. “Unfortunately, I found the right girl at the wrong time, but maybe this is all for the best. I’ve got my own career to figure out then get off the ground. Maybe this is the wrong time for me, too.” Though saying the words out loud didn’t convince him. Part of him still felt he and Nicole could work through all this together, but until she agreed, it wasn’t going to happen.

  “Mom would say things happen for a reason.”

  “Yeah,” Devon said absently. He hadn’t missed the irony that all these weeks, Nicole had been trying to express her sense of betrayal over her parents’ lies, how deep those wounds ran and how it wasn’t something she could just shut off like a switch. As much as he tried, he hadn’t truly understood, but this incident with Todd changed all that. Though things had turned out in the end, a side of him still reeled over the fact that his own brother had stolen from him and their family business. Trying to remember it was the illness of addiction and not the man helped some, but he had to admit the sour feeling wasn’t something that could be simply turned off.