Eternally Yours - Brenda Jackson [98]
“No. I have to be in court by eight-thirty. How about lunch?”
“Lunch is fine, and I prefer somewhere private.”
Clayton frowned. “Sounds serious.”
After a moment of hesitation, Alex said, “Depends on how you look at it. I’ll let you decide.”
“All right. We’ll have lunch in my office. I’ll order sandwiches.”
“Okay, and remember I don’t do mayo, and I do just a tad of mustard.”
“Okay.”
“And Clayton.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m tired of turkey.”
Clayton shook his head, laughing. “Got it.”
Chapter 23
“I understand congratulations are in order.”
Syneda lifted her gaze from the paper she was reading and saw Thomas Rackley standing in the doorway of her office.
An easy smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Thanks. I guess I don’t have to ask how you found out, do I?”
He grinned, shaking his head. “Office gossip is at its best today.”
She leaned back in her chair. “I assumed that it would be.”
Thomas stepped inside her office and saw the radiance of her smile. He cocked his head to the side and studied her for a moment. “You’re happy, aren’t you?”
The smile on Syneda’s face widened. “I think I’m happier than anyone has a right to be.”
He weighed her answer with a critical squint before his eyes grew openly sincere. “I’m glad. You deserve to be happy. I’m glad you met someone and fell in love.”
“It wasn’t easy.”
Thomas chuckled. “And no doubt you gave the poor guy pure hell.”
Syneda tried suppressing the grin that crossed her face. “No doubt.”
His smile deepened into laughter. “I’m glad he hung in there.”
The amused look left Syneda’s eyes when she thought about what Thomas had just said. Clayton had hung in there when most men would not have. “I’m glad he did, too.”
Clayton gave Alexander Maxwell a long, penetrating stare. He was absolutely speechless and had been since Alex had provided him with the information he’d wanted, especially the identity of Syneda’s father.
He stood and walked over to the window and looked out. His mind felt bruised by the bitter truths Alex had just hit him with. Of all the men who could have fathered Syneda, it was hard to believe the one man he would never have suspected in a million years was the one.
“So what are you planning to do with this information?”
Alex’s question abruptly invaded his thoughts. Clayton shrugged heavy shoulders. He felt like the weight of the world was sitting on them. He turned to Alex. “I don’t know.”
“You’re surprised, aren’t you?”
Keeping Alex’s gaze, he nodded, his breath feeling heavy in his chest. “Weren’t you?”
“Sure, I was. When I decided to do a little further investigating, surprise isn’t quite the word I would use with what I found out. Hell-shocked is more like it. This was one of the most challenging puzzles I’ve pieced together in a long time.”
“I believe you,” Clayton said, returning to his seat behind the desk. “Is there any way you could be mistaken about any of this?”
“No. That’s why I went the extra mile on this one and located Syneda’s mother’s friend, that nurse, Clara Boyd, who conveniently disappeared after Jan Walters died. I knew there had to be a missing link someplace. And now when you really think about it, you’ll agree that Syneda is the spittin’ image of her father.”
Clayton nodded as he absently traced the pattern of the wood grain across his desk. “Just for sanity purposes, let’s go over all of this again.”
Alex nodded, understanding completely. “All right,” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him, trying to get comfortable in the chair. That wasn’t too easy for his six-foot-four frame. “Those other two private investigators are based in Washington, D.C. That immediately told me something. Whatever was going on was somehow linked to the political scene. I just didn’t make Syneda’s connection until Senator Lansing’s name popped up. Then I figured out that one of the investigators was trying to get the lowdown on the senator.”
He stood when the chair became too uncomfortable. “Since it seems Senator Lansing was dating Syneda’s mother during her senior year of college,