A Silken Thread - Brenda Jackson [103]
“Oh, but it is true and I have everything I need to prove it. You are just another of his bastards, trust me. He’s got them spread all over town. Imagine what the people of Hattersville will think when they find out you and Griffin have been engaging in incestuous activities. It will destroy any chances he has for ever becoming mayor. As for you, well, the tabloids will have a field day with it.”
April fought back the bile coming up in her throat. She needed to make it to the bathroom. She needed to get the woman out of her home.
She stood on wobbly legs. “Get out, Mrs. Sanders.”
Karen stood. “Oh, I’ll leave as long as we understand each other. I want you out of Griffin’s life. I also want you out of my daughter’s life. You are not and never were fit to be her friend. I don’t care how you do it, but do it. Because if you don’t, I will make good on my threat.”
“You are crazy. You are a demon. You are—”
“A woman who intends to get what she wants, which is a marriage between Griffin and Erica.”
April was at that moment convinced the woman was crazy. “But Griffin and Erica don’t love each other. Why can’t you see and accept that? Erica loves Brian.”
Karen waved off April’s words like they meant nothing. “Love doesn’t do anything but cause heartbreak. Erica will soon find that out. And as far as Griffin is concerned, I can see how he could be infatuated with you since you are a pretty girl, but beneath that covering you are still the slut your mother was. You know what they say—the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“My mother was not a slut!”
“Oh, but she was. Everyone figured she was hopelessly and foolishly in love with Ivan Witherspoon, when she was really sleeping around with old man Hayes, so he would buy her the little pretty things that your grandmother could not,” Karen said snidely.
April knew about her mother’s love for Ivan Witherspoon only because of the one or two love letters she’d found while going through her belongings after she died. That’s why, although she’d never known the identity of her father, she’d always assumed he had been Witherspoon.
According to what she had been able to find out, Ivan and his family had packed up and moved away from Hattersville a short time after her mother got pregnant. April had heard some town people figured he was trying to escape his responsibility after having knocked up a girl from the Fifth Ward.
“I hope we understand each other, April. I want you to end things with Griffin and stay away from Erica or everyone will know the truth. And it will behoove you to keep my visit and our secret to yourself. If you tell anyone I’ve been here, I will have to tell them why and, trust me, that’s something I’d think you would want no one else to know, especially Griffin.”
Without saying anything else, Karen gathered her purse and strutted out the door with the same air of confidence and determination she’d had when she’d strutted in.
Brian stood at the window and watched Erica drive away, not believing what had happened here in this very house between them just moments ago. He closed his eyes wanting to believe it had been an out-of-body experience, a nightmare, and that all he needed was a stiff drink to come back to reality.
But when he reopened his eyes his gaze lit on the pair or red panties lying on his living room floor. If they weren’t Erica’s then where the hell had they come from? He crossed the room to pick them up and sure enough, they were monogrammed with the initial D.
He then moved quickly, taking the stairs two at a time, to take a look at his bedroom. Just like she’d claimed, perfume blasted his nostrils the moment he walked into the room. He glanced around, not believing what he was seeing. It looked like two people had had a sexual marathon in his bed. He saw his white shirt on the floor—a shirt he knew for certain he’d put in the laundry hamper yesterday.
Brian picked up the shirt and saw the red lipstick stain, not believing his eyes.