Big Easy Temptation (The Perfect Gentlemen #3)(38)

“Are you saying he cheated on you? And you knew it?” He could barely fathom that. His father had been a good man. Dax had built his whole life on the fact that his parents had been good people who loved each other and their children.

“Not at first. At least I don’t think so. But sometime after he hit forty, things changed. He had an eye for the younger ladies. He had several affairs, though they never lasted very long. I found out because one of the women contacted me. It was the only time I nearly divorced your father. He was careful, you see. He usually chose women who didn’t want more than a good time and some nice gifts. But this particular woman decided she wanted more. She wrote me and explained the situation. I sought a lawyer and threatened divorce. Your father talked me out of it. You were in college at the time. Gus had just started graduate studies at Harvard. A divorce could have derailed you both, so I stayed. I often wonder if that incident was what sent him to prostitutes.”

He felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You can’t know that or blame yourself.”

“If I’d ignored it or perhaps if I’d followed through, he might be alive today. He might not have walked into that seedy motel with that girl.”

He gripped his mother’s hand. “Momma, none of this is your fault. He was the one with the problem.”

Obviously more problems than Dax had imagined.

“I wish everything had been different,” she murmured, and sipped her coffee again.

Yeah, him, too.

They fell silent until a Benz pulled up, stopping in front of their house.

His mother patted his hand. “That’s my friend Gloria. We’re going to have a nice brunch and then go to afternoon bridge club. I’m so sorry I had to tell you that, Dax. I simply don’t want you to chase after some vindication only to get your heart broken. I love you very much.” She stood and he watched her school her face as she waved. “I’ll be back this evening. We’re having a lovely roast and the housekeeper made pecan pie. You bring Holland if you like. I know Gus would love to see her.”

Dax watched his mother stride down the walk to join her friend. He sat there, his whole world shaken.

The glow with which he’d started the day seemed a bit dimmer than before.

Had he really been so blind and naive? How had he never known his father had cheated? His father had lied, broken his vows, and left his own wife crushed.

Dax stood, feeling inexcusably weary. He needed a drink. God, it wasn’t even nine o’clock and he was going to have a Scotch.

He stepped inside. He could hear the housekeeper humming to herself in the kitchen. He avoided her. That wasn’t where they kept the good stuff anyway. The expensive Scotch was in his father’s office, that shrine to a man he now wondered if he’d ever really known.

Well, at least the booze had been stored there until his friends had shown up.

When he sauntered in, Gabe was sitting in the dining room, a cup of coffee beside him, tapping away on his laptop. He looked up, his tawny brows rising. “Welcome home, Captain. Did you visit a new port last night?”

He flipped his friend off and continued to the stairs.

“Wow, touchy. I wouldn’t go up there if I were you. Sorry, but Gus couldn’t be convinced it was a bad idea. Believe me, I tried.”

“Does Mad have the Scotch?” That was all he cared about at the moment.

“Yeah, but . . . Whoa. Scotch at this hour? What the hell happened?”

Dax didn’t know how to answer so he kept walking up the stairs and right to the room his mom had given Mad. The door was closed. It was almost too quiet at first but then he heard whispering. “I know you’re in there, Augustine. I don’t give a damn. I want the Scotch. Mad, you better not have drank it all or I’ll expect that replaced. This morning.”

After a bit of shuffling, the portal opened and Mad poked his head around the door, looking somewhere between wide eyed and worried as he passed over the crystal decanter and what looked like a clean glass. Not that it mattered at that point. “Uh, Dax, it’s early.”

“Like that matters.”

“It doesn’t to me. It does to my very staid and buttoned-up Naval captain friend. He doesn’t drink at inappropriate times anymore. He also very politely ignores the fact that I’m sleeping with his sister.”

“Hooking up.” Gus yelled from inside the room. “Sleeping with makes it sound important, Crawford.”

“She wounds me,” Mad said with a pout. “Give me a minute and I’ll get dressed.”

“Don’t bother.” He grabbed the Scotch and glass and strode off again. He knew exactly where he wanted to go and now he wished his friends hadn’t come. He needed to be alone, and there was no way they’d let that happen.

But they didn’t know about the balcony off the upstairs library. It was hidden by heavy curtains that no one opened because in the afternoon the sun heated everything up to a broil. At this time of the day, he could hide away and drink and think about the bombshell his mother had dropped.

He made his way to his hidey-hole and shut the curtains behind him before pouring himself that much-needed drink. He swallowed it down as he looked over the back gardens. He’d romped there as a child. He and Gus had played hide-and-seek and when their father had been home, he would chase them all over, calling them his little monkeys. He would catch Dax and his sister in huge hugs. He’d always felt safe in his father’s arms.