Page 45 of Sweet Wicked Vows
I sat in the back of the car, scrolling through the non-stop notifications and emails that refused to relent.
‘PICTURE OF THE JEWELRY TYCOON REVEALS TRUTH BEHIND HIS ABSENCE.’
‘TERMINALLY ILL REYNOLDS STILL HASN’T ANNOUNCED SUCCESSOR. DAUGHTER OR SON: WHO COULD IT BE?’
The breaking news was everywhere.
OnceCapitol Pressreleased the picture of Lexington lying in bed, a breathing tube under his nose, there was no questioning the reliability of the information. That, including certainconfidential doctor notes, confirmed that it was more than a severe case of the flu Reynolds suffered from. It was only a matter of minutes before other publications—tabloids and news outlets—jumped on the chance to share the damning photo.
Getting the information out into the world was child’s play.
A couple of unmarked envelopes dropped into the right hands, no questions or names asked.
It was too easy.
How quickly the news was spreading made it impossible to pinpoint exactly where the source came from or how such sensitive information made it out from Reynolds’ grasp. The proof was printed in black and white, being showcased across the United States and further. The family had no way of denying the hard cold facts.
That’ll teach Frederic to question me again.
Contrary to what Evelyn thought, I was only in Ontario for less than twenty-four hours before I was called to fly to Monaco.
Back home.
Frederic had flown out a week prior, stating that he needed me to come to Canada and take over the meetings he couldn’t reschedule. I was halfway through one meeting when Isaac, Frederic’s personal assistant, interrupted and passed on an urgent message from my older brother.
I was on the next flight out.
As grim as it sounded, I thought that either my father had died after choking on his own alcohol-infused vomit, or he snapped out of his self-loathing depressive state and finally wanted to make amends with his sons.
It was neither.
Frederic called me out to assist him with the one and only mess he ever made in his life. His soon-to-be ex-wife—if he ever managed to convince her to sign the divorce papers.
While there, even though I was there to fucking help him, hestarted to question why I hadn’t made any moves on taking down Reynolds. My brother never stops, and by fuck, is it annoying. He got himself right back under my skin with his ceaseless questioning about whether I still wanted revenge for ourmaman.
It was easy to tune him out, despite the way my blood boiled and skin crawled. I’d been doing it for years, putting up with his same old bullshit.
That was until he began to talk about Evelyn. His tone, the snide remarks about her, his jokes about her getting caught in the crossfire and being left a broken woman—it stirred a strange storm of hot uncontrollable rage within me.
I tried to rationalize that I was merely jetlagged and tired from being pulled into his shitshow of a failing marriage.
But when he brought her name up again and again, no amount of trying to mentally count down from one hundred was able to stop me from ramming my fist into his jaw.
“Want me to run in and get the cake?” Benny asked from the driver’s seat. “The rain is starting to come down heavily out there.”
A message from Olivia popped onto my phone, assuring me that she could handle everything without my assistance and not to bother her.
She clearly still wasn’t my biggest fan.
“I’ll handle it.” I exited the car, being hit instantly in the face with a gush of wet wind. Running intoLa petite boulangerie,the smell of the place was heavenly. Freshly baked breads, macarons the color of the rainbow, and buttery croissants.
It smelled like home.
Sandrine, the owner and head baker, was there to hand over the order without having to wait. Her excitement was palpable when she realized I spoke French. Once the older woman started talking, it was hard to get her to stop. She reminded me ofmyGrand-mère, who had the patience of an absolute saint for looking after her dead-beat son all these years.
Nearly an hour later, Benny dropped me across the city to Evelyn’s family home while he took the boxed cake toNirvana Gallery.
Deathly silence had fallen upon the house. My footsteps echoed throughout the foyer, yet no one appeared. The kitchen, the living, and the drawing room were all empty. Up on the first floor, faint muffles of a voice—not just a voice, someone singing, came from the room at the bottom of the corridor.