Page 133 of Summers at the Saint
“Nobody knew. When I found out I was pregnant, I went to him, and I told him he had to help me out, or I would tell his wife.”
“Damn, Mom! You were, like, a blackmailer.”
“No. I was a terrified, pregnant nineteen-year-old.”
“You never thought of getting an abortion? I mean, it was legal then, right?”
“Yes, but I never even considered it. Anyway, the other reason I didn’t tell anyone was that the cash settlement he gave me was conditional on my signing an NDA.”
“It couldn’t have been that much money,” Livvy said bitterly. “It’s not like we lived it up, buying secondhand cars and shopping for clothes at thrift stores.”
“I didn’t ask for much.”
“How did the NDA happen?” Livvy asked.
“His lawyer was an old friend. He told the guy he’d had a one-time ‘fling’ with a girl who was now looking for a payday. I never saw the old man again. But when I met the lawyer, who actually seemed like a decent guy, I told him the real story, and I think he believed me.”
Olivia turned that over in her mind for a minute. Shannon knew her daughter so well, she could almost see the wheels turning in her head.
“The lawyer you met with this morning who told you about my alleged inheritance—is this the same guy who made you sign that NDA way back when? Why would you trust him?”
“Who else was I going to trust?”
Shannon repeated what Andy Plankenhorn had told her about Fred Eddings’s will, and how the new attorney Ric Eddings had hired to rewrite the original will had inadvertently used language that would divide the old man’s estate between his living heirs—which would include the daughter nobody knew he’d fathered.
“Mr. Plankenhorn didn’t have to reach out to me. The first thing he told me when he called today was how badly he’d always felt about the way the old man treated me. And I believe him. He’s a decent man.”
“Okay, I get that you trust him. But what exactly does any of this mean?” Livvy asked.
“He didn’t go into a lot of details, but it looks like you might inherit a portion of your father’s estate that would include—”
“Don’t call him that,” Livvy said sharply. “He was no father to me. He raped you, knocked you up, fired you, and abandoned both of us.”
“Yes,” Shannon said, her voice sounding calmer than she felt. It was hot out and her sweaty legs were sticking to the car’s vinyl upholstery. She rolled up the windows and turned on the air conditioner.
“Yes, he did all that. For years, I wouldn’t say his name out loud. And now you know why I was so panic-stricken when you took the job at the Saint. Ric Eddings is as bad as his old man. And this might sound crazy, but what if someone recognized a resemblance to Fred Eddings?”
“That’s nuts,” Livvy said. “There’s a huge portrait of him hanging in the hotel lobby. Lit up like some kind of shrine. I see his face every day, and I look nothing like him. You hear me? Nothing!” Livvy’s face was red and she was shouting again.
“You don’t. You’re right. You look like my people. Not his.” Shannon managed a weak smile. “We have the same weird-looking toes, right?”
“Monkey toes,” Livvy said with a nod. “That’s what Granny used to call them.”
“Same mole on your chin as me. Same annoying cowlick.”
“And I got Granny’s scary unibrow, which you didn’t. Thanks for nothing, by the way.”
“We won’t call him your father,” Shannon said, her voice low and soothing. “You don’t ever have to say his name. We can refer to him as the sperm donor.”
“Eeewww.”
“Olivia,” Shannon said, her tone serious. “You’re nearly the same age now that I was when you were conceived. I had to grow up fast after that happened, because I had someone I was responsible for. But you’re so much more mature and responsible than I was at that age.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“And you’re going to have alotthrown at you in the coming weeks and months. Ric Eddings is not going to hand over half of his inheritance to you without a fight.”
Livvy stared out the window at the boats coming and going in the marina, at sailboats and yachts and people unloading gear from dock boxes.
