Loe raamatut: «The Kincaids: Southern Seduction»
The
Kincaids Southern Seduction
Sex, Lies and the Southern Belle
Kathie DeNosky
What Happens in Charleston …
Rachel Bailey
MILLS & BOON
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Sex, Lies and the Southern Belle
About the Author
KATHIE DENOSKY lives in her native southern Illinois with her big, loveable Bernese mountain dog, Nemo. Writing highly sensual stories with a generous amount of humour, Kathie’s books have appeared on the Waldenbooks bestseller list and received a Write Touch Readers Award and a National Readers’ Choice Award. Kathie enjoys going to rodeos, travelling to research settings for her books and listening to country music. Readers may contact Kathie at PO Box 2064, Herrin, Illinois 62948-5264, USA or email her at kathie@kathiedenosky.com. They can also visit her website, www.kathiedenosky.com.
Dear Reader,
When I was invited to write the first book in the new Dynasties mini-series, I was absolutely thrilled. I love working with other authors on these special projects and this one was no different. I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy collaborating with such talented ladies?
And, as impossible as it might seem, as I wrote Sex, Lies and the Southern Belle, my enthusiasm grew even more. Researching Charleston, South Carolina, and specifically the historic homes in the Battery, I fell in love with the antebellum architecture and the beauty of a city so rich with history.
That’s one of the reasons the antebellum mansion Lily inherits on Battery Street plays a major role in the telling of their story. As grand as any castle, the gorgeous historic home is where Lily and Daniel work to overcome the secrets of the past and together find a love that will stand the test of time.
As you read about the modern South and get acquainted with all of the Kincaid siblings, it is my fervent hope that you enjoy these stories as much as we, the authors, enjoyed writing them.
All the best,
Kathie DeNosky
This book is dedicated to the wonderful authors I worked
with on this series. It was a real pleasure, ladies!
And to Charles Griemsman. I look forward to
working with you on many more in the future.
One
A knot began to form in Lily Kincaid’s stomach as she looked around the conference table at her family and the three strangers who had attended her father’s funeral the day before. They were gathered for the reading of Reginald Kincaid’s will and as difficult as it was to believe her beloved father was gone, the fact that he had led a secret double life for the past three decades was almost impossible for her to grasp. It was just beyond comprehension to think that he’d had a second family up in Greenville all these years.
When Harold Parsons, her father’s attorney, walked into the room with a thick file and sat down at the head of the table, then removed several envelopes and papers from the folder, her apprehension grew. She hated that her father had been taken from her, hated that his life’s work was about to be divided up into shares. More than that, she hated that the perception she had of him had been nothing more than an illusion—an illusion that had been shattered with seemingly no way for it to ever be repaired.
“Before we begin, I would like to express my sincere condolences for your loss,” Mr. Parsons said, his normally gruff voice softened with sincerity. “I knew Reginald for many years and will sorely miss his sense of humor and quick wit. I can remember the time—”
Lily bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling when the man claiming to be her half brother, Jack Sinclair, rudely cleared his throat and glanced at his watch as if he wanted to hurry things along. How could a man as warm and loving as her father had been have spawned such a cold, unfeeling son?
Her oldest brother RJ’s scowl was formidable. “In a hurry to be somewhere, Sinclair?”
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Jack stated flatly. “How long is this going to take, Parsons?”
Mr. Parsons’s bushy white eyebrows met in a disapproving frown above his reading glasses. “It will take as long as it takes, young man.”
“Please don’t, Jack,” Angela Sinclair begged, her voice trembling as she placed her hand on her son’s arm. Her chin-length blond hair swayed slightly as she shook her head. “Please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”
If circumstances had been different, Lily would have probably felt sorry for the woman. It had been apparent yesterday at the funeral and today as they sat awaiting the reading of the will that she was taking the death of Reginald Kincaid extremely hard. But considering the nurse had been her father’s mistress for the past thirty years and had shown up to mourn his death as if she and her sons were a legitimate part of the family, it was almost more than Lily could bear. Angela Sinclair either didn’t realize or didn’t care about what a shock and devastation it would be for the Kincaid family.
“You’ll have to excuse my brother’s impatience,” Alan Sinclair spoke up, giving Lily and her family a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid Jack is still trying to come to grips with Reginald’s death.”
Angela’s youngest son, Alan, seemed to be the exact opposite of his older half-brother in every way. While Jack was tall, with dark hair, blue eyes and a cold, ruthless demeanor, Alan was shorter, had dark blond hair and hazel eyes like his mother, and appeared to be sympathetic to the shock and disbelief the Kincaids were going through. Not only were they having to cope with the death of their father, possibly by his own hand, they had been blindsided by the ugly truth of his clandestine life.
“Don’t apologize for me,” Jack growled, turning his hard stare on the younger man. There was such animosity in his expression, it was obvious there was no love lost between the two. “I have nothing to be sorry about.”
“Enough!” RJ said, his voice deadly. Turning to the lawyer, he nodded. “Please continue, Mr. Parsons.”
“If Sinclair doesn’t want to stick around for the details, I’m sure you can send him a letter outlining what our father wished to leave him,” Matt said, backing up RJ.
Only a few years older than herself, her brother Matt had already seen his share of heartache. It had been only a year since he had buried his wife, Grace, and been left to raise their young son, Flynn, on his own. Losing their father so soon after her passing had to bring up some very painful memories for him.
Lily glanced at her mother to see how she was holding up through this latest upheaval. The epitome of a true Southern lady, Elizabeth Kincaid had maintained an elegant calm about her throughout this whole ordeal that Lily couldn’t help but envy. It appeared her mother was faring much better than Lily and her two sisters. Laurel, Lily’s oldest sister, kept dabbing at her tears with a lace-edged hankie, while Kara looked as if she was in a state of total shock.
“Please continue, Harold,” her mother said, smoothing a strand of short, dark auburn hair into place.
“Very well, Miss Elizabeth,” Mr. Parsons said, using “miss” the way most older Southern gentlemen did with any lady, single or married. He read aloud the preliminary legalese, then clearing his throat, began to go through the list of her father’s assets. “‘Regarding my personal properties, I would like for them to be divided as such. To my son RJ, I leave the Great Oak Lodge in the Smoky Mountains. To my daughter Laurel, I leave my beach house on the Outer Banks. To my daughter Kara, I leave my vacation home on Hilton Head Island. To my son Matthew, I leave the Kincaid family farmhouse where we used to spend holidays. And to my daughter Lily, I leave the Colonel Samuel Beauchamp House in the Battery.’”
Tears filled Lily’s eyes. Her father had known how much she loved the historic homes in the Battery. It was one of the prettiest sections in Charleston and quite possibly the entire state of South Carolina. But she had been completely unaware that he owned one of the stately mansions in that area.
After outlining the money and properties her father wished to bequeath to Elizabeth and Angela, Mr. Parsons added, “When Reginald updated his will, he wrote these letters and asked me to give them to you at this time.” He passed each person in the room, except Elizabeth, a sealed envelope with their name on the front before he continued, “As for Reginald’s business holdings, they are to be divided up as follows. ‘RJ, Laurel, Kara, Matthew and Lily are each to receive nine percent interest in The Kincaid Group. My oldest son, Jack Sinclair, will receive forty-five percent interest.’”
Silence reigned for several long, uncomfortable moments as the gravity of her father’s last wishes sank in.
“What the hell!” RJ’s expression was a mixture of barely suppressed fury and total disbelief.
Lily gasped and the knot in her stomach turned to a sickening ache. How could their father do that to his children and especially to RJ, his oldest legitimate son? RJ had worked tirelessly for years as the executive vice president of The Kincaid Group and had been led to believe he would one day take over as president of the vast enterprise when their father decided it was time for him to retire. The news that their father had given the majority of the shares in the family business to Jack Sinclair was hard for all the Kincaid children to take, but it had to be completely devastating for RJ.
“That’s only ninety percent,” RJ said, his frown formidable. “Where’s the other ten?”
Mr. Parsons shook his head. “Due to attorney/client confidentiality, I’m not at liberty to say.”
The room erupted with heated allegations and threats of legal retaliation from both sides of the table and Lily felt as if the walls were closing in on her. She knew if she didn’t leave, she was going to be physically ill.
“I need … some air,” she said to no one in particular.
Rising to her feet, she stuffed the unopened letter from her father into her purse and blindly ran from the room. She wasn’t certain whether it was the news of her father’s complete betrayal of his legitimate family or the new life growing inside her that caused her to feel sick, but she had to escape the law office.
As she hurried down the hall to the reception area, she wasn’t paying attention and suddenly ran into someone standing as if rooted to the spot. Strong hands immediately came down on her shoulders to keep her from falling and when she looked up, her heart skipped several beats.
Of all the people she could have met up with in the law office, why did she have to run headlong into the owner and CEO of Addison Industries?
Daniel Addison was not only The Kincaid Group’s fiercest business competitor, he was the father of her unborn child. A baby he knew absolutely nothing about.
“Where’s the fire, sweetheart?” Daniel asked as he steadied the woman who, in the past couple of weeks, had treated him as if he had the plague.
“I need … air,” Lily said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Her unnatural pallor and the desperate look haunting her vibrant blue eyes caused his heart to stall. Yesterday afternoon when he attended Reginald Kincaid’s funeral, he had seen her upset. But this went beyond the grief of losing a loved one. Lily looked as if her whole world was crashing down around her.
“Come on,” he said, placing his arm around her shoulders and leading her toward the office exit.
“My family … I can’t leave,” she gasped.
Stopping at the receptionist’s desk, he quickly told the woman he would call and reschedule his appointment, then instructed her to get word to the Kincaid family that he was taking Lily home. As he led her out the double glass doors and onto the sidewalk, he watched her gulp in the cool January air and knew that she was seconds away from losing her breakfast. Guiding her over to a trash can, he held her long, red hair back while she was sick.
“Please, go away and let me die in peace,” she said when she finally raised her head.
“You’re not going to die, Lily,” he said, gently cupping her chin with one hand while he wiped the tears from her eyes with his handkerchief.
“I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.” She took a deep breath. “Right now I feel like death … would be a blessing.”
“Did you drive your car?” he asked.
“No, I rode … with Momma,” she said, her voice sounding a bit more steady.
He put his arm around her and tucked her to his side as he ushered her toward the parking garage across the street. “Good. I won’t have to send someone back to get it.”
“I can’t leave,” she said, starting to turn back toward the law offices of Parsons, Gilbert and Humbolt.
He held her firmly to his side. “This isn’t negotiable, Lily. You’re upset to the point of making yourself sick.” Opening the passenger door of his diamond-white Mercedes for her, Daniel nodded toward the inside of the car. “Get in. I’m taking you home.”
“You’re being a bully about this,” she said stubbornly.
Daniel shook his head. “No, I’m making an executive decision. Now, will you please get into the car or am I going to have to pick you up and put you there?”
She glared at him. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me, sweetheart.”
They stared at each other for several seconds in a test of wills before she finally moved to sit down in the leather bucket seat. “Fine. Take me home and then you can be on your way.”
He closed the door and walked around the car to slide into the driver’s seat. “We’ll see about that.”
Considering her emotions at the moment, Daniel wasn’t about to upset her further by telling her that he wasn’t leaving her alone until he was certain she was going to be okay. He might be many things—ruthless in business, arrogant and fierce when he was in competition for a new client and jaded about most things in life—but he wasn’t an uncaring bastard who left an obviously distraught female to fend for herself. Especially when that female was Lily Kincaid.
For reasons he couldn’t explain, he had been drawn to her from the moment he laid eyes on her last fall at the Children’s Hospital Autumn Charity Ball that his mother had helped organize. Young, vivacious and with a zest for life that he found utterly charming, he had introduced himself and asked her to dance, then asked her out to dinner. He hadn’t really expected her to say yes, considering the thirteen-year difference in their ages, but to his delight she had accepted. That had been over three months ago and until the past couple of weeks, they had seen each other almost every night.
When he realized that Lily had fallen asleep, Daniel reached over to cover her delicate hand with his. He hadn’t intended for things to progress between them so quickly, but he couldn’t really say he was sorry they had. She was the most exciting woman he had ever met and the time they spent together had made him feel more alive and less cynical than he had in years. What he couldn’t understand was why out of the clear blue sky, she stopped taking his calls and started making excuses not to go out with him.
As he turned the car into the driveway and drove around the Kincaid family home to the carriage house where Lily had an apartment, Daniel shook his head. He didn’t know what had happened or why she suddenly wanted nothing to do with him, but he had every intention of finding out.
Parking the car, he reached over to trail his fingers along her smooth cheek. “You’re home, sweetheart.”
Her eyes fluttered open and she slowly sat up straight to look around. “Thank you for bringing me home, Daniel. I’m sure you have somewhere else you would rather be.”
Before she had the chance to reach for the handle, he was out of the car and opening the door for her. “Give me your key,” he said as he helped her from the vehicle.
“Really, I’ll be fine.” She shook her head. “You don’t have to see me in.”
“What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t see you safely inside?” he asked, smiling.
For the first time since running into her in the law office, she looked him directly in the eye. “Give me a break, Mr. Addison. It’s midmorning and I seriously doubt that there’s a safety issue for you to be concerned with.”
He reached up to trail his index finger along her creamy cheek. “So now it’s Mr. Addison? I thought we were a lot closer than that, sweetheart.”
“I … uh, at one time … I suppose we were,” she said, clearly uncomfortable with his observation.
Daniel had heard about someone looking as if they were a deer caught in headlights, but until that moment he hadn’t seen it for himself. But that was the only way to describe the expression on Lily’s pretty face. She looked trapped and desperate.
The question was, why? What had made her so clearly uncomfortable about being in his presence?
Unfortunately, he was going to have to bide his time until she was feeling a little more in control before he got to the bottom of what was going on with her and why she had ended their affair. The past few days had been a nightmare for her and her family and he wasn’t going to add more stress by interrogating her as to what had changed between them.
Placing his hand at the small of her back, he felt a slight tremor course through her and instinctively knew it had nothing to do with the mild winter weather Charleston was experiencing. Good. At least she hadn’t developed a complete immunity to him.
“I know that all this has been extremely hard on you, Lily,” he said, meaning it. “For my own peace of mind, I want to see that you’re all right before I leave.”
“There’s nothing I can say that’s going to dissuade you, is there?” she asked, sighing heavily.
“No.”
She looked more tired and world-weary than he had ever seen her and he hated that the events of the past several days had suppressed her fun-loving, free spirit. Whether she realized it or not, Lily needed someone to help her get through one of the toughest times in her life and he had every intention of being the one she turned to.
“Why don’t you sit down and put your feet up while I make coffee?” he said when they walked into the living room and he helped her out of her coat.
“No caffeine for me.” Her long wavy hair swayed as she shook her head. “I, um, haven’t been sleeping well.”
“I can understand that.” He nodded as he removed his overcoat, then guided her to the couch. “You’ve been through a lot in the past few days, sweetheart.”
“You have no idea,” she said as she sank onto the cushions. Tears filled her pretty blue eyes as she looked up at him. “Why did he do it?”
If the account of Reginald’s death in the newspaper had been correct, the man had used one of the antique guns in his collection to take his own life. Daniel knew for a fact that Lily and her father had been very close and his apparent suicide had to have been extremely difficult for her to cope with.
“I can’t tell you why things happened the way they did, Lily,” he said, sitting down beside her to take her into his arms. “It might never be clear why your dad felt compelled to end things in such a drastic way. But once the shock has worn off, I’m sure you’ll be able to put this behind you and look back at the good times you shared together.”
She stubbornly shook her head. “I’m not so sure. Not when everything I thought I knew about my father has turned out to be a total lie.”
He had meant to console her, not upset her further. “Give yourself some time. Right now your emotions are still too raw to see things clearly.”
“You don’t understand, Daniel.” She pulled away from him to meet his gaze head-on. “I mean literally—everything about Daddy was a lie.”
Something about her impassioned statement told him there was a lot more to the story than what the media had reported and she needed to get it out or risk going into emotional meltdown. “What leads you to believe that, Lily?”
She hesitated for a moment as first one tear, then another, spilled down her cheeks. “I might as well tell you. It’s going to be the talk of Charleston by the end of the week.”
“I’m listening.”
“Did you notice that older blonde woman and the two men with her that sat just behind my family at the funeral?” she asked.
He nodded. “Are they relatives from out of town?”
“No. Yes.” She swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what I should call them.”
“Slow down, Lily.” He didn’t like that she was becoming more agitated. “Who are they?”
“That was my father’s second family,” she said as if the words tasted bitter. “For the past thirty years, all of his out-of-town business trips were nothing more than excuses to travel up to Greenville to spend time with that woman and her two sons.”
Of all the things Lily could have told him about Reginald Kincaid, that was the last thing Daniel expected. “Let me get this straight,” he said slowly, trying to digest the revelation. “Your father had another wife and two kids up in Greenville that you’re just finding out about?”
Lily nodded. “Actually, Angela Sinclair was my father’s first love and her oldest son, Jack, is my half brother. Her youngest son, Alan, belonged to her late husband.”
“Jack Sinclair is your half brother?” He had heard of the man and the resounding success Sinclair had made of his start-up company, Carolina Shipping, but Daniel hadn’t had the opportunity to meet the man or do business with him. “But didn’t you just say he was the oldest? How could his younger brother belong to another man?”
“My dad and Angela were involved when they were very young, but my grandparents didn’t think she was the right type of girl for him,” Lily explained, rising to pace the floor. “The way I understand it, my grandfather was building his shipping business into what The Kincaid Group is today. He and my grandmother wanted my father to marry someone who could further their standing with the social set of Charleston.”
Daniel knew all too well how the bastions of Southern high society worked. His mother came from old money and was well-entrenched in the ranks of the social elite. She and her so-called friends looked down on anyone whose fortune didn’t go back at least four generations, or whose family tree didn’t include at least one or two officers from the Civil War.
“As an act of rebellion, Daddy joined the army to escape their matchmaking and since he was in a Special Ops unit, there were months at a time that no one could communicate with him,” Lily went on. “From what was said yesterday at the funeral, Angela tried to get word to him that she was expecting his child, but by the time Daddy was wounded and sent back here, Angela had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. He thought she got tired of waiting for him and moved on.”
“So when he couldn’t find her, he gave in to his parents and married your mother?” Daniel guessed.
Lily nodded. “The Winthrops were an old, well-established family in Charleston, but by the mid-seventies their fortune had dwindled to almost nothing and they were desperate to maintain their lifestyle and place within their social circle.”
Although Daniel hated the snobbery and pretentiousness of it all, it was the social order he had been born into and knew exactly how it worked. He had seen many of the old Southern families swallow their pride and encourage their sons or daughters to marry one of the nouveau riche. If they didn’t, their lack of means effectively ostracized them from the wealthy social community.
“So it was advantageous for both families when your mother and father got married,” he said, nodding. “Your dad’s parents went up several notches on the social register and your mother’s family gained someone to help them financially, as well as prop up their position in high society.”
“I think that sums it up perfectly,” Lily agreed.
“How did your dad and Angela get back together?” Daniel asked, wondering how Reginald had managed to find the woman after all those years when he hadn’t been able to before. “And what about her husband? Where does he figure into the equation?”
“Apparently, her parents gave her a choice of marrying Richard Sinclair or giving up her child.” Lily shook her head. “Given no other choice, I would have done the same thing and married a man I didn’t love to keep my baby.”
Daniel frowned. “What about Sinclair? What happened to him?”
“After they married and moved out of state, Angela gave birth to Jack and then several years later, she and Richard Sinclair had a son they named Alan.” She shrugged one slender shoulder. “I’m not sure if it was an accident or if he became ill, but Richard died not long after that.”
“So he’s out of the picture and your dad finds Angela again,” Daniel thought aloud.
Lily sighed heavily. “I don’t know how he did it, but when he found her and discovered that she had given birth to his son, Daddy set up her and the two boys in a house in Greenville. Apparently she had been struggling to make ends meet on her nurse’s salary and life got a lot easier for them when Daddy came on the scene. After that, he starting going on frequent business trips, which were actually visits to spend time with her and her sons.”
Daniel shook his head as he tried to digest the story. “And you found this out yesterday at the funeral?”
A tear slid down her cheek and she bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling a moment before she answered. “Y-yes. But what we learned this morning at the reading of the will just compounded the hurt and betrayal we were feeling about his second family.”
“What’s that, sweetheart?” He couldn’t imagine how the situation could get more complicated.
“Daddy left the majority of The Kincaid Group to Jack Sinclair, while my siblings and I were each given nine percent interest,” she said swiping another tear from her cheek. “My father led RJ and Matthew to believe they would be running TKG one day. How could he betray Momma this way? And, for that matter, how could he betray all of us?”
Daniel didn’t hesitate to stand up, walk over to her and take Lily into his arms. He knew how crushing the loss of her father had to have been for her, but finding out that he had led a secret life for so many years, then handed control of his business to someone the family hadn’t even been aware existed had to increase the emotional pain ten times over. Pulling her against him, he held her as he tried to lend her his strength and support.
His compassion seemed to open the floodgates and he tightened his embrace as she sobbed against his chest. He didn’t like seeing a woman cry. It always made him uncomfortable and at a loss as to what he should do. Lily’s tears made him feel more useless than ever. He wanted to help, wanted to make the hurt she was suffering go away.
Unfortunately, only the passage of time could heal the pain and anguish of losing a loved one. He knew that firsthand from losing his own father to a heart attack fifteen years ago. But the disillusionment she was feeling over her father’s indisputable betrayal might never go away.
“I’m okay now,” she finally said, pulling from his arms.
“Are you sure?” he asked, reluctant to let her go. Although he hated what she was going through, he liked having Lily in his arms.
Nodding, she walked over to the couch, then curled up in the corner of it. “Thank you for bringing me home, Daniel. But I’m really tired. Could you please lock the door as you let yourself out?”
He had been dismissed and it didn’t sit any better this time than it had for the past couple of weeks. But he knew she was completely exhausted from lack of sleep and the emotional turmoil she had been going through. Now wasn’t the time to get into why she suddenly had no time for him.
“I’ll be back this evening to check on you,” he said, reaching for his overcoat.
“I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be okay,” she said, hiding a yawn behind her delicate hand. She snuggled down to lay her head on a plush pillow. “There’s no need for you to go to the trouble of stopping by later. Really, I’ll be fine.”
Shrugging into his coat, he shook his head as he started toward the door. “It’s not a problem. I’ll pick something up for dinner and see you around six.”
He expected her to protest, but when he turned around, Daniel discovered that Lily’s eyes were closed and she was sound asleep. Good, he thought as he walked over to the couch to remove a colorful crocheted afghan from the back, then covered her with it. At least she couldn’t tell him not to bother.
“Get some rest, sweetheart,” he said quietly as he leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
She murmured what sounded like his name, but she didn’t wake up to protest his returning and, as far as he was concerned, that was as good as her consent.
As he let himself out the front door and walked to his car, Daniel knew he was taking advantage of the situation. Lily had made it perfectly clear that she wanted nothing more to do with him and up until this morning, he had respected her wishes and backed off. But for some reason, he couldn’t let it go, couldn’t walk away without an explanation of why she’d had a change of heart about their affair.
