Page 90 of The Heartbreaker (Chandler Brothers 3)
Hours later, after Chase had secured the information from Madeline and the senator himself, the revealing details that would provide an exposé and journalistic opportunity of a lifetime, he sat down to write the story.
It was a story of love and loss—Samson’s, Michael’s, Jacqueline’s, Madeline’s, and now Sloane’s. It was a story that would either sway voters to side with Senator Michael Carlisle, a good, decent man who’d done right by a young woman in need, or convince them he’d used that same woman for political gain. In the end, Chase believed that whatever Michael’s political reasons for marrying Jacqueline, he’d loved her too. And in the end, he’d saved her from her father, who would have emotionally destroyed her.
Chase’s slant was unbiased, but even in the unbiased version, Chase felt Michael’s side was not just well represented, but understandable. Samson had contacted Chase too, backing up the senator’s story and supplying his own painful tale for the world to read. But he no longer resembled the sad, misunderstood man the people of Yorkshire Falls had come to know.
Just as Chase no longer resembled the heartbreaker his brothers jokingly called him. And they both had Sloane to thank. The difference was, Samson had Sloane in his life, while Chase was still alone, ironically finding no satisfaction in the story of a lifetime or the career he’d insisted was so important.
Sloane was his future, but how to convince her of his sincerity? Irony came to play once more, as he decided that his mother’s matchmaking talents might be useful, after all.
* * *
Sloane awoke with a start. Considering she was still in the hospital, she’d slept well, or at least in between being woken up for temperature and IV checks. If she was anyone other than Senator Carlisle’s daughter, she was sure she would have been sent home but she knew her father had pulled strings. Besides where would she have gone?
She wasn’t sure what had roused her from sleep, but something had. She opened one eye and realized she was facing the window and the aluminum blinds let a hint of sun slip through the horizontal slats. Morning already. She tried to move and winced, realizing how much of a beating her body had taken and how much pain she was actually in.
She buzzed for the nurse, determined to take only half the amount of painkillers they’d administered yesterday. She wanted a clear head for her last hours in Yorkshire Falls. Her parents were taking her home today.
A muffled sound caught her attention and she turned her head gingerly toward the door, expecting a nurse with a hypodermic needle. Instead, she saw an unfamiliar man wearing a dark suit, sitting in the chair beside her bed, watching her in silence.
“You’d better be more careful next time you pass by open windows, young lady,” he admonished in a gruff but familiar voice.
“Samson!” His rough outer exterior might have changed, but she’d know that gravelly tone anywhere.
“What’s the matter? You don’t recognize your old man?” he asked in that Samson-type language she’d come to know. But his expression softened as he continued. “I’m guessing this look is what you’d have preferred to find when you came looking for the man who sired you?” He gestured up and down, taking in the fitted suit, shirt, and tie. A deep crimson stained his clean-shaven cheeks, but to his credit, he didn’t glance away.
Sloane immediately noticed the gleam in his eyes, more apparent now that his face was visible and his hair freshly washed, cut, and styled. He accepted who he was—then and now. He was about to find out, so did she.
A lump settled in her throat, but she forced herself to speak over it. “I didn’t care what you looked like,” she said truthfully. “I just wanted to meet my father.”
He treated her to a warm smile and she was struck for the first time just how handsome and distinguished-looking he actually was.
Reaching over the blanket that covered her, he extended a shaking hand. “Your father’s right here.”
Sloane met him halfway, and using her uninjured arm, she placed her palm inside his larger, callused one. When she looked at him now, she saw a different man from the gruff one she’d met; she saw the one Jacqueline, her mother, must have fallen in love with, the one who’d sacrificed his entire life for his gambler father and sick mother. And though he had his share of regrets, he never admitted them to the outside world.
Sloane was scared to ask the question that hovered in her mind, because now that she’d found this man, she didn’t want to say good-bye. “Where do we go from here?”
“That’s up to you.”
She smiled, realizing that like Chase, he might be a man of few words, but also like Chase, Samson would, in fact, be okay. He wasn’t going to push her away anymore, which meant she now had this gruff, enigmatic man in her life. Relief and happiness washed over her, making her almost giddy.
