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By Root 673 0

the image of him as a six-year-old boy approaching his mother for the first time, the harsh words she had spoken to him that day, and how they had hurt. He’d felt devastated, betrayed, rejected. But then another memory stood out. It was the recent memory of Colby and the words she had spoken that night on the beach. She didn’t know how much he had truly needed to hear them. She had read him the riot act and had made him realize that regardless of the fact his mother had not been a part of his life while he’d been growing up, Chandler Hamilton had more than made up for it. Colby had been right, he had been blessed to have had at least one loving parent.

“Sir?”

He suddenly remembered Simon’s presence. He didn’t know why Angeline Chenault had made a trip from Florida to see him, but he was going to find out. “Tell security it’s okay to let her through.”

She hadn’t heard from Sterling in seven days. Not that she was counting, Colby told herself as she slipped into a pair of black leggings and a colorful T-shirt that promoted Wingate Cosmetics. It was Saturday, and she was getting dressed to go spend her weekly hour at the gym. Mac would be picking her up any minute. She smiled when she thought about Mac.

Earl MacFadden hadn’t been what she expected. She had expected someone a lot younger than the fifty-five-year-old man who had shown up the day Sterling left. But she soon discovered what Mac lacked in the way of youthfulness, he more than made up for in the way of competence. He was good at what he did. Thanks to him she was no longer unnecessarily hounded by reporters.

Mac took her to school each morning and picked her up in the afternoons. At first she had resented him being her personal chauffeur and watchdog. But after that first day, when she returned to school, she had been very appreciative of him and his ability to protect her from the media’s unnecessary hassles. She knew he had been instrumental in having the police ban the reporters from hanging around the school. Sterling had been right, some of the reporters had been outright jerks. Their questions had been relentless. Most of them wanted to know how she felt about Sterling’s past involvement with movie actress Diamond Swain. Her “no comment” had not appeased their curiosity. The more she refused to be baited by their questions, the more they tried making Sterling’s past involvement with Diamond Swain an issue.

Colby wished she could say this week had been pretty much uneventful, but she couldn’t. It started out with the arrival of the sleek red Jaguar that Sterling had shipped to her. She hadn’t been too happy about that.

Then she smiled. But at least two things had occurred to make her happy. And both incidents had been the result of Sterling’s thoughtfulness.

The first happened the second day after she had returned. Otis Marshall’s grandmother was standing outside her classroom door waiting for her. She wanted to thank Mr. Hamilton for being so kind and paying off all her medical bills. The hospital had informed her that Sterling Hamilton had taken care of all her unpaid bills. With tears in her eyes, the older woman could not thank Colby enough for Sterling’s act of kindness. Colby had downplayed her shock and accepted the woman’s thanks.

The next incident happened when she was called out of her classroom to the principal’s office on the fourth day of her return. Again she had been taken aback by what she had discovered. Sterling had accomplished what the authorities hadn’t been able to do, and that was to locate Maria Martin’s natural father by using his clout and friendship with Jay Leno, David Letterman and Oprah. All three of the popular talk show personalities had agreed to periodically flash a message across the television screen asking if anyone knew the whereabouts of Frank Martin, and to have him call the toll-free number given. The plan worked. Within less than twenty-four hours, Maria’s father had phoned in. The sad thing about it was that he, too, for the past two years, had been working with the authorities in Connecticut, to help him