Page 9 of Forbidden Vow

3

Darius

Utter disbelief. Darius felt like he’d suffered a second burial.There’s someone else in my life, Raven had said. As sure as he struggled to suck in his next breath, with absolute certainty, the man on the other end of that cell phone call had everything to do with his final demise. The thief had stolen her away. Commanded her time. And Darius could hear the desire in her voice to return to him. Another hour, tops, and she would vanish from his life forever. Right then, he vowed to make it his mission to discover the identity of the man who’d claimed her heart.

Clarence Drake, ever refined and professional, greeted them at the door to his office. “Kimber, that will be all. Come in, you two," the founding partner said, stepping aside.

He placed a kiss on Raven's cheek. “I am sorry for your loss, my dear. I know how close you and your—”

“Ah,” she stammered, interrupting Clarence’s sentence, “Thank you and…Lexington will be missed by so many people who loved him.”

Darius paused at the stilted conversation. “Her what?”

Clarence cleared his throat. “Darius. My condolences.” His lips thinned in…what? Concern? Displeasure?

He had missed something left unsaid in the conversation. Rather, they were omitting something neither of them wanted him to be privy to.

Gesturing to the two large wing-backed chairs, he said, “Please, have a seat.”

Darius gave the attorney a puzzled expression. Wondering at circumstances in which Raven, one, seemed so familiar, and two, why she would’ve been invited to the reading of his father’s will.

He stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. "Raven, why did my father arrange for you to attend the reading of his will?"

Inside the lush corner office, the firm’s senior legal secretary, Sylvia, arranged two stacks of papers neatly on the desk. She looked straight ahead as Clarence gracefully lowered himself into an elegant old-style courtroom chair and began to peruse the documents.

“Darius. Raven. Please accept my deepest sympathies. Your father was one of our oldest clients.”

Why were these two addressing him and Raven as if they held the same position in the Kent family? He just lost his father. And why weren’t Gregor and Galvin here? Darius just assumed the family would be present for the reading.

“Thank you, Sylvia.”

She nodded. “You’re welcome. If you’ll excuse me, I have to attend to a bit of housekeeping.”

“Of course,” Raven chimed in. “Thank you. I’m leaving on a redeye tonight.”

“Oh, you’re returning to—”

“To where?” Darius demanded, sick of the subterfuge. “Where the hell have you been living?”

“Under a rock, remember?”

On the way out the door, Sylvia turned. “Mr. Kent, in the future do remember that the closets are for office supplies, not open thighs.”

“I…ah…”

Beside him, he heard Raven snicker. So, she thought him being called to task was funny. The stately matriarch slipped out before more laughter could ensue, and Darius hadn’t even tried to stop the crimson spreading up his collar. He knew he made a mistake, and Sylvia hadn’t allowed his state of grief to be waved as an excuse. Okay, time to change the subject. He turned on the attorney.

“What the hell is going on here, Clarence? It’s apparent you’ve had personal contact with Raven in recent years, and somehow she’s supposed to be at the reading of my father’s last will and testament and not my brothers?”

“I met with Gregor and Galvin before your eleven o’clock arrival. Lexington specifically requested that the next portion of his last will and testament be read in the presence of you and Raven.” Clarence grabbed a sealed envelope from his desk and offered it to Darius. “From your father.”

“What is it?”

“A letter, silly,” Raven smiled. “You know how he loved to write letters.”

“He did,” Darius reminisced. Most of his correction came as a sealed missive from one of the staff. Would his father chastise him for refusing to return to Shell Cove? The guilt continued to eat at Darius. He should have done more than relegate his own father to teleconferences and business communications. At the end, Lexington had stopped joining the conference calls. Now Darius knew it was because he was dying.

When Darius didn’t immediately reach for it, Clarence asked in a gentle voice, “shall I?”