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RYDER LOOKED UP as he heard the rumble of tires rolling over the driveway. He hoped it was Violet. He wanted her to trust him and find her way back to him so they could address the current situation together.
Instead, Eliza stepped out of the car with grace and sophistication, just like her daughter would.
Ryder didn’t need Eliza to tell him what he’d already discovered: Joel had committed fraud.
His phone call to Eliza that morning had confirmed it. Joel had been pulling an investment scam involving Ryder and Donald. Eliza confirmed the money Joel received to help him pay off the millions he’d stolen was from Robert Caliendo.
Caught. Busted.
Ryder was prepared to race over to Violet’s and give her the leverage they needed to put an end to Joel.
But Ryder had demanded an answer to the question he was still in the dark about: Joel’s blackmailing information. Eliza insisted they meet in person. So here they were and Ryder had never felt so impatient in his entire life.
“Eliza,” he greeted, taking her elbow in his hand and kissing her cheek.
“Ryder.”
He didn’t continue the formalities. Envisioning Violet’s pain and sadness equaling his own was killing him. “What does Joel have over Violet?”
Eliza smiled and chuckled at him.
Ryder wasn’t sure what was humorous. Her daughter was being blackmailed by Joel and every second that ticked by was another second of pain she had to endure.
“You are Donald Carlex’s son, through and through. That man was no pushover, nor was he a fool. I suspected with the tip I gave you, that you would be able to find what we needed to confront Joel.”
“Eliza, with all due respect, I don’t want to waste any more valuable time. I want the information that puts Joel away for life.”
Her smile fell. “Foolish boy.”
Ryder squared his shoulders and crossed his hands over his chest. He was no fool.
Eliza shook her head and her kind and concerned smile returned. “Oh boy, put away the big guns, I’m not here for a show.”
Ryder almost laughed at the woman. Almost.
“You cannot turn Joel into the authorities, Ryder. He’s Parker and Sophia’s father and although his choices were bad−”
Ryder cut her off. “Illegal,” he corrected.
Eliza drew in a deep breath before continuing. “Yes, illegal but irregardless, this choice isn’t yours to make.”
“Then tell me what is going on between Violet and Joel, so I can go talk to Violet and we can figure this out together.”
“Can we go inside?”
His patience was wearing thin, but he invited the calm and collected woman into the house.
They sat on the wicker sofas in the back sun room. A gorgeous glass edition Donald had built for Kathleen to frequent during the winter months and gaze at her gardens, even if they had been completely covered in snow. Ryder poured them some ice water, and downed his in one gulp to quench his dry throat. The suspense was going to be the end of him.
“I’m going to start from the beginning.”
As Eliza began the story of Violet and Robert’s relationship, Ryder wanted to tell her that Violet had already shared this difficult part in her life with him and that their time was running short sitting here doing it all over again. Within hours, Joel would be married and their window of opportunity to talk with him privately would be gone. But Ryder remained quiet, seeing Eliza’s need to tell her side. She was a beautiful older lady, but her past brought out the fine lines across her face and bore sorrow into her usually brilliant eyes.
Hearing Violet’s version of her life had been heart breaking, but listening to Eliza open up her perspective of her daughters hard trials, was worse. Ryder found himself lost in her words. Violet had kept so much of her life from him. Ryder found each new fact squeezing his heart more. Robert was a mean son of a bitch, more than people knew, unless you were one of the poor bastards on his bad side.
“Violet is my third oldest child and of all my children, she was the most independent. Since her first steps, she turned away help, determined to take them on her own. But she was there for all her siblings. Her heart is big and when she was young, it was free. She strived for perfection, but she laughed her way there. Her independence is partially responsible for her stubbornness. I had hoped that she wouldn’t need proof from a file to stand up to Joel. I had hoped that she could find it in herself to trust you after so many have made it almost impossible for her to do so.”
So had he.
“However, this morning I was greeted with a tear-stained daughter who didn’t want to talk about it.”
Tear-stained? Damn it. Why was he still here?
“That brings us to her wedding and the two of you in the silver ballroom.”
Ryder had heard enough. “Violet told me about that night. I’m sorry I was drunk and strayed her away from her wedding. It wasn’t my intention.”
Eliza’s patience evaporated and she rushed the next words out. “Violet wasn’t honest with you about her wedding. I wish it was her that would have told you, but it’s not. It’s me. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to, but here I am, sitting with you, about to shock the shit out of you and if you could just remain quiet until I’m finished that would be helpful.”
Her frustrated tone and fierce words quieted Ryder and she continued.
“I found you and Violet that night, like naive teenagers. You completely drunk out of your wits and her looking at you like you just saved her.” What a low part of his life. “I found you both on the window bench.” If only she knew what they had done on that window bench only a week ago. “You were wrapped under a tablecloth which I assumed you pulled from a table.”
Ryder was pretty sure red rose to his face, as he was envisioning Violet naked and wrapped in the tablecloth.
“You were both naked.” Ryder’s attention snapped back to the now.
Huh? Both of them naked? Ten years ago? Had he misheard her?
“What?”
“Joel has the two of you on video.” On video? What was this lady talking about? “You and my daughter have a sex tape that Joel is holding over her head.”
A sex tape? Of Violet and Ryder?
Eliza carried on. “Joel is blackmailing Violet. If she continues to see you, he will release the tape, which in turn will result in Parker and Sophia suffering.”
A sex tape? If Eliza hadn’t sat there confident with her words, Ryder would have been convinced he’d misheard the entire conversation. Only, Eliza’s stare told him he’d heard it correctly
A sex tape. Ryder recalled the night he spent with Violet in the silver ballroom, only a week ago, and she’d told him she was trying to refresh his memory. Violet had been trying to jog their sexual encounter in that silver ballroom ten years ago. It hadn’t worked and they’d ended up creating a new memory. He didn’t remember a single detail of the first time.
Ryder flushed with embarrassment. First embarrassed that she knew of a past that Ryder didn’t even know and second, that he’d taken advantage of her distressed daughter in one of her darkest times. “Eliza, I am so sorry.”
Eliza touched his hand. “Don’t apologize to me. That night, through Violet’s fears and pain, you gave her a light of hope. She didn’t see it, but I did. So I want to thank you. When her life was at her lowest point, and broken beyond what I thought could be repaired, when no one was there to stand up for her, not even me...” Guilt formed tears in Eliza’s sapphire blue eyes. “...that night, you pushed her back onto her feet. She might have lost her trust in people, but she gained trust in herself and she fought Robert and Joel every inch of their choice to deceive her. And from the hasty, disarranged departure of the two of you, from the lobby bathroom before the Bensen meeting, I believe that was the moment you gave her another push in the right direction of trust.”
The lobby washroom? “How do you know about that?”
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“A mother’s eyes are everywhere.” Eliza winked at him. It was no doubt security tapes or maybe she’d even seen them leaving.
“That is kind of creepy, stalkerish behavior,” he teased.
Eliza shrugged it off. “I’m a Caliendo. Would you expect any less?” He supposed not. “Do you see what you have to do?”
He had to blackmail Joel.
Ryder nodded.
“Go get that sex tape and leave Joel with the threat of jail time.”