Sutton pulled back the chair for the woman to take the seat beside him, and he sat at the head of the table. Carson noted a slight tremble in the old man’s hand as he moved. He did look thinner than the last time he’d seen him. Sutton looked like hell, frankly. Georgia had been right: this wasn’t just a stomach bug.
“I’m sure that all of you are curious about why I called you here today,” Sutton began. “If I had time to waste, I’d prolong the suspense, but I don’t, so I’ll get right to the point. I’m dying.”
Carson didn’t react. Instead he turned to watch his three newfound sisters gasp in shock and horror. Nora’s hand flew to cover her mouth, and Grace’s eyes started to well up with tears.
“What?” Eve asked. “Dying? Are you sure?”
“Yes. This is Dr. Wilde,” he said, gesturing to the prim woman beside him. “She’ll be treating me at the Midwest Regional Medical Center for my stage IV lung cancer—not that there’s much that can be done. We’ll try a few things because I hate just lying down and letting cancer win, but I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I won’t see the new year.”
Stage IV. Cancer. Dead before the new year. The words flew around in Carson’s brain as he tried to process it all. Finally he turned to Brooks, and they exchanged a meaningful glance. They’d gone into this thinking they had plenty of time to achieve their goals. Even if Sutton was stubborn, they knew they would eventually convince him to change his will and include them. But now…the clock was ticking. The father they’d just gained would be gone before they knew it.
“I’m getting things in order, and then I’ll be going to the hospital. I’m not sure when I’ll be discharged, if ever,” he continued.
“We’re going to be trying some experimental treatments,” Dr. Wilde said. “At this point, we don’t have anything to lose, and we have everything to gain. But really, all we’re buying your father is time. Eventually he will succumb.”
“Oh, Daddy!” Grace leaped up from her seat and rushed to give her father a hug.
Carson watched with a twinge of jealousy as Sutton gently stroked his daughter’s hair and held her close. He doubted his father would ever hug him like that. They wouldn’t get to that point even if Sutton had decades to live instead of months.
“Don’t you worry about me, Gracie. I’ve lived three lifetimes while I’ve been on this earth.”
“How am I going to handle all of this without you?” Eve said with a startled look in her eye. The pressure of taking over Elite Industries seemed to be weighing as heavily on her shoulders as the loss of her father.
“Oh, please, Eve,” Sutton said with a dismissive tone. “You’re smart and capable. You practically run the company now. You’ll be fine. You will all be just fine without me. I think some of you might even be better off,” Sutton said, pointedly looking at Carson.
It was the first time they’d made eye contact since the truth came out about Carson’s paternity. The first hint of acknowledgment.
“All that said, we have some other business to tend to today.” Sutton held up a package with a logo that Carson recognized from the lab. “It seems we’ve received the test results for Graham and Brooks. Would one of you care to do the honors?”
Brooks took the folder and quickly opened it. Carson just watched Sutton. There was a smugness on his face that convinced him that Sutton had been telling the truth all along. He didn’t need the test results to know the twins weren’t his children. But how could he know for certain?
“Sutton Winchester is not our father,” Brooks said after scanning the document for what seemed like a lifetime.
Sutton sat back in his chair and folded his hands casually over his stomach. There was a small curl of amusement on his lips as he watched Graham and Brooks reel from the news.
Carson wasn’t taking it well, either. He’d spent his whole life feeling different, feeling separated from his brothers. He’d convinced himself that it was just because they were twins and had an extraordinarily close relationship. He’d ignored the fact that he looked different. But now the variations were glaringly obvious.
It just left one question. If Sutton wasn’t their father, then who the hell was? They were back at the drawing board with his brothers’ paternity.
“Well,” Graham said as he turned to Sutton, “now that this is settled, I believe we can move forward with the requested changes to the will.”
“You don’t still expect to be included, do you?” Eve asked.
“No,” Graham said. “Since I am not your half brother, Brooks and I have no claim. But Carson still does. The only difference is that the estate should be divided by four instead of six.”
“This is ridiculous!” one of the sisters shouted.
Carson didn’t bother to look up and see which one it was. Everyone at the table started yelling all at once. He didn’t bother to open his mouth. He let them carry on.
In that moment, none of it really mattered to him. Yes, he was still angry with his father, but it sounded like cancer would get his revenge faster and more thoroughly than Carson ever would. If he got any money out of the estate, he would put it toward the hospital along with the twenty million Sutton had already donated. The children’s hospital built in his mother’s name would be amazing.
And on the day it opened, there would be a different PR director by his side. It seemed wrong that any of it could happen without Georgia. She had been with him since—
The thought was interrupted as a sudden realization hit Carson like a punch to the gut.
She knew.
Georgia knew that Sutton was dying. He didn’t know why Sutton had decided to tell her before he even told his own children, but it had to be the secret she couldn’t share. In an instant, all the pieces of that horrible evening started to fit together. That’s why she was encouraging him to get to know his father, damn near pushing him into it. She knew that he wouldn’t have much time with Sutton.