I believe I’m right in saying that. But he did it under a corporate umbrella.’
‘Which was what you told him the night you came round and threatened him!’ she reminded him. ‘And just for wanting recognition for what was rightfully his! He created that software long before he ever joined forces with Mitch. He just didn’t have the resources to launch it. He was honest and hardworking and never cheated or lied to anyone in his entire life. And you made him ill,’ she uttered, aggrieved, and with such painful emotion in her voice it was difficult to breathe. ‘You and Mitch! He might still have been alive today if you hadn’t!’
Though she was saying it, some small part of her acknowledged that it wasn’t strictly true. That there were other events that had contributed to the strain her father had been under. Like his bouts of drinking that had only made their family life harder. And the way he’d seemed to lose the will to do anything—even look for a job towards the end—which had only added to his increasing sense of worthlessness.
‘I admire your loyalty to your father,’ King surprised her by expressing. ‘But I didn’t see him as quite the paragon of virtue you obviously did. We’re all human, dearest, and Grant Hardwicke could be as opportunistic and self-motivated as the next man.’
‘That’s a lie!’
‘Is it?’ King’s mouth was a tight, inexorable line. Looking back, he still couldn’t believe the man’s crocodile tears when he’d told him about Mitch’s accident. But then he hadn’t been crying for Mitch—his closest friend and colleague. All he’d been concerned about was his own personal losses and all he might have stood to lose if his accusations of theft had ever been brought to the public’s notice. ‘Far be it from me to want to hurt you, but I can be every bit as ruthless as you’re accusing me of being if—’
He broke off abruptly as a flushed-faced Hélène suddenly came rushing down the stairs towards them, her features looking pinched within their frame of greying bobbed hair. ‘Oh, monsieur! You had better come quickly. It’s Monsieur Clayborne!’ Her hand went to her chest. ‘He has the pain …’
King was springing away from them without any further prompting, taking the open staircase two steps at a time.
He was already at his father’s bedside when Rayne raced up to Mitch’s room with the housekeeper close behind her. One look at the elderly man who was sitting on the edge of the bed, still only half-dressed, revealed that he was in extreme pain.
‘Call an ambulance!’ King directed urgently towards Hélène.
While the housekeeper was summoning help on the bedroom telephone, Rayne hurried over to the bed.
Oh, please! she prayed. Let him be all right! Don’t let it be my fault that this has happened!
‘He needs to lie back,’ she instructed, sensing that this was one occasion when King needed someone’s help and advice, with all her basic first aid training rushing to the fore. And when he looked at her questioningly, ‘It’s all right. I know what I’m doing,’ she assured him, suggesting how he could help, already plumping pillows and generally helping to make his father as comfortable as she could. Now wasn’t the time to tell him how she had taken a first aid course after her father had died, when she’d read how anyone could make a difference in a medical emergency.
Glad that at least she hadn’t contributed to this situation by actually telling Mitch who she really was, she watched King through eyes suddenly blurry with relief, gently easing his father back against the pillows, catching his deep, low murmurs of reassurance—despite his own concern—as he tried to put the older man’s mind at rest.
Oh, to have him speak to her with that depth of emotion! She felt a surge of longing that was quite out of place in the current situation, or within the bounds of anything approaching logic. Why did she want anything more from him other than—as he’d pointed out to her downstairs—the pleasure her body craved from him? Surely she wasn’t allowing herself to think of him in any capacity beyond that? Because if she were, she warned herself harshly, then she was being a total fool.
The ambulance didn’t take long to arrive.
‘Can I come with you?’ Rayne appealed to King, hot on his heels as he flew down the stairs while the medical team were bringing Mitch down in the lift.
‘You?’ he emphasised, his expression a contrary mix of surprise and blinding objection. She had been quick to help his father, King thought. And she looked concerned. Genuinely upset. But with a woman—particularly this woman—who could tell? ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he told her succinctly, leaving her staring after his dark retreating figure and feeling as though she had been slapped in the face.
‘What is it, King?’ Mitchell Clayborne was staring at his son’s broad back as King in turn stood staring out of the window of the private clinic. ‘God knows I haven’t been the best of fathers, but I would have thought the news that I’m not going to be consigned to the history books just yet would have made you a bit happier than you seem.’
Sighing heavily, King dragged himself away from an absent study of the clear evening sky, his mouth pulling down on one side at his father’s dry remark. Mitch certainly sounded better, and his breathing was easier than it had been a few hours ago, but he had no intention of causing the man any undue distress.
‘It’s nothing that can’t wait,’ he answered.
‘And it’s nothing that I’m not man enough to take—even wired up like a puppeteer’s blasted dummy! Tell me.’
It was clear to King that the man would be more likely to die of a heart attack from being kept in suspense rather than from being told the truth.
‘It’s about Rayne,’ he breathed, the air seeming to shiver through his nostrils.
‘What about her?’ Mitch brought his head off the mountain of pillows, suddenly looking alarmed. ‘She’s all right, isn’t she?’
King nodded. He couldn’t believe how fond of her his father had become.
‘What, then?’ Mitch demanded with considerably less than his usual strength.
King hesitated, but only briefly. ‘She’s Lorri Hardwicke,’ he stated, drawing another deep breath.
Mitch stared at him for a long worrying moment before closing his eyes.
‘Shouldn’t I have realised it!’ he exclaimed somewhat breathlessly at length, with an unusual tremor in his gravelly voice.
‘Do you know why she’s here?’
‘I think I can guess,’ Mitch returned. ‘But tell me anyway.’
‘She’s saying what Grant said all those years ago. That Claybornes took the credit for MiracleMed when it really belonged to him. In short, she’s accusing us—but you in particular—of, at best, gross professional misconduct and, at worst, outright theft.’
Had he gone too far? King wondered anxiously, wanting to kick himself for telling him when he saw the pain that darkened Mitch’s eyes and heard the way his breathing had suddenly became more laboured.
‘She’s right, King.’
‘What?’ Above the sound of footsteps hurrying along the corridor outside
