The Kingmaker (All the King's Men, #1)(59)

“No need to thank me, son.” My father takes a bite of his steak and points to me with his fork. “Coming home where you belong is thanks enough.”

I stiffen, knowing where this is going and how it will end. This détente will be short-lived because, as much as I appreciate my father’s assistance, I can’t give him what he wants.

“Yes,” Mom rushes to say, her look bouncing between my father and me. “So good to have you home. We’ve missed you, haven’t we, Warren?”

My father sips his red wine and nods. “I hope this last incident got all this Greenpeace shit out of your system. Cade Energy needs you.”

His words fall into a vat of tension-laced silence. I finish chewing and carefully place my fork on my plate. “I’m not working for Cade Energy, Dad. You know that.”

His jaw ticks, the muscle flexing along his strong jawline. My jawline. My cheekbones. My eyes. My face.

My stubborn will, 1.0.

I’ve never admired and resented one person so simultaneously as I do my father. When he looks down the table at me, I know he feels the same way.

“You ungrateful fool,” he says through clenched teeth. His fist slams the table, clanging the glasses and silverware. My mother jumps and closes her eyes, resignation in every line of her body and on her face. “I rescue you and your conservationist friends. I fixed your stupid boat. I fly you home, and what do you give me in return? Defiance and rebellion.”

“No one asked you to,” I fire at him, my voice tight with anger.

“And what should I have done? Let you die?”

“If you saved me only to control me, then yeah.”

“Maxim,” my mother protests. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, we’d save you.”

“Maybe if he’d known I wasn’t going to toe the line, he wouldn’t have bothered,” I say.

“That’s a fucking lie and you know it, Maxim,” my father says, his eyes narrowed and his body tense. “All I’m asking is for a little bit of gratitude.”

“Which you have, but I’m not changing the course of my life to make you feel I’m sufficiently grateful.”

“What course? Another useless degree? More wandering the world collecting mud samples? You call that a career?”

“I have a career. I have a plan that has nothing to do with you. You’ll see, Dad. You have no idea who I am.”

“No, you have no idea who you are,” he bellows, leaning forward over the table. “You’re a fucking Cade, and you’re running around like you’re a nobody. Well, be a nobody, Maxim. Meanwhile I’ll keep running one of the most successful businesses in the world and your brother will become president of this country. You go save whales.” He tosses a linen napkin over his unfinished meal. “See if I give a shit.”

Long, powerful strides take him out of the dining room and into his office. The heavy door slams behind him, locking me out of the inner sanctum that used to be like a second home.

“He doesn’t mean it,” my mother says, her eyes filled with tears. “Please don’t go again. I worry about you. I miss you.”

“He meant it, Mom.” I stand and cross around the table to pull her up and into a tight hug, knowing this may be our last one for a while. Her petite frame shakes against me while she sobs into my shirt. I swallow the emotion burning my throat and bury my nose in her hair. “He meant it, Mom, but so did I.”





33





Lennix





“There’s someone here to see you, Lenn.” Portia pokes her head into the conference room. Her smile is megawatt. I’ve known her just a few weeks, but she’s usually only this excited about donations.

“To see me?” I touch the Nighthorse Now graphic emblazoned on my chest. “You sure? Besides the team, I don’t know anybody in Oklahoma.”

“Well he knows you.” Portia purses the corners of her lips with suppressed satisfaction. “Why didn’t you tell us you knew Maxim Cade? He’s been all over the news.”

I’m in the process of packing up a box of campaign buttons. Her words stop me mid-reach. I send her a sharp glance and then shake my head. “I don’t know him and I don’t want to see him. Could you say I’m not here?”

The jubilation proclaimed all over Portia’s face fades. She folds her arms across her chest and aims a look at me over the bottle-green rims of her glasses. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on,” Portia says. “But he just made a donation to the campaign, and if he wants to speak to one of our staff, our staff will be available.”

Donation. Money.

Of course. He is a Cade after all.

Without speaking, I tuck my T-shirt into the waistband of my skirt and walk past her out into the campaign headquarters lobby. Maxim sits on the shabby thrift-store couch. He makes it look like a throne, even wearing a simple white T-shirt and jeans. How did I not know this man was a Cade, or some equivalent? It’s so obvious now. Men like Maxim don’t happen overnight. It takes generations to breed them.

He glances up and stands. I force myself to stay where I am. His eyes gleam bright between a dark fan of lashes. There’s concern there and probably the closest thing to an apology he can manage. And desire. Oh, yes. I recognize that quick flare of want in his expression because it’s igniting in me, too, at just the sight of him. My heart calls him the liar he is, but my body clenches, seeking a satisfaction it’s only ever found when he was inside me.