Erica Orloff - The Golden Girl

At eight-fifteen, Madison checked her watch. “Okay,” she said aloud what was on her mind. “The suspense is killing me.”

Five minutes later, the three of them—they had all sat with a view of the entrance to the restaurant—saw Troy walking in with a tall gentleman.

Troy approached the table—and he was beaming.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “I’d like to…well, the hell with dragging this out. I’d like to present to you your uncle, Madison…your uncle William Pruitt.”

Madison’s father nearly choked on the water he was sipping. John dropped his bread knife. And Madison felt that if she stood, her legs would fail her.

“What?” Her voice was tremulous.

The tall man—who did look remarkably like her father—leaned down and pecked her on the cheek. Then he shook John’s hand, and walked to the other side of the table and stared at Madison’s father.

“Jack…” he said hoarsely. “It’s true.”

Jack stood and embraced him, fiercely, overcome with uncharacteristic emotion. The two of them stood there for several long minutes. Then everyone sat down and Madison said, “Troy, what’s going on?”

Troy and William smiled, while her father—perhaps for the first time in his life—looked understandably shaken.

“Well…while you were laid up, Madison, we went through Bing’s and Katherine’s apartments with fine-tooth combs. But even before that, something was…well, as the expression goes, ‘sticking in my craw.’ Remember how Katherine, when confronted, pretty much admitted everything?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well…one thing she wouldn’t admit, didn’t admit, was her father’s guilt in the murder. She said he had kidnapped the baby, but the child was supposed to go to his nursemaid who loved him like a son.”

“I assumed it was a woman who refused to believe her father was capable of the ultimate evil.”

Troy shook his head. “I don’t know. It seemed like more than that to me. So I started digging. And digging. Madison, Jack…I am telling you that I never worked so hard on anything in my life. Dead ends, false leads…but eventually, I found him. With my boss,” he looked at Madison meaningfully, “pulling some strings.”

Troy looked over at the man next to him.

“Are you…sure?” Jack asked hesitantly.

“Yes. Despite him being a dead ringer, we ran some DNA tests using Madison’s blood from the hospital. He’s your brother.”

Jack covered his mouth with his hand and started weeping. “I’m sorry…this isn’t like me. It’s just that…”

“I know,” Troy said calmly. “It’s a little overwhelming. I’ll let William tell you what he knows.”

William cleared his throat and fiddled with his linen napkin. “I was too young to remember anything, of course. I only knew that my mother loved me dearly—my adoptive mother. My nursemaid did take me in, but whether from fear or guilt, after just a month or two, she allowed me to be adopted by a wonderful family—a college professor and his wife in Vermont. Lovely people, who had no idea who I was or where I was from. The adoption was handled privately. The nursemaid had a fake birth certificate claiming I was hers. She said she was a single mother whose parents disowned her and she felt I would be better off with two parents.”

“And you had no idea?”

“None. I knew I was adopted. Mom told me when I was seven. They never had any more children, and to be honest, they doted on me so much that I didn’t feel like I was overly curious. When my father passed away—I idolized him, such a wonderful man, so revered at the University of Vermont, taught history—I started thinking about it some more. My mother and I tried to find my birth mother. But some things didn’t add up. The birth certificate, we discovered early on, was fake. So it seemed like we were at a dead end. I just…let it be. I assumed it was just the way it was.”

“Then, when I showed up,” Troy said, “it all fit together.”

Madison and Jack began peppering William with questions. Was he married? Did Madison have cousins? Was his childhood happy? What did he do for a living?

Madison was delighted to discover her uncle was a professor at New York University—in the history department like his father before him. He specialized in the history of Europe in the twentieth century. He had, he said, a very happy life, other than occasionally looking at the starry sky and asking those big questions, like who am I and where did I come from?

His wife was also a professor—she taught English, and specialized in medieval literature and Chaucer. He had a daughter Madison’s age who was a schoolteacher like John, and a daughter three years older than Madison who was a stay-at-home mother of a little boy.

“What do they think of all this?” Madison asked.

“They’re so grateful I’m at least getting the opportunity to meet…you all.”

Then he looked down, suddenly somber.

“What?” Jack asked. “We didn’t scare you off with all our questions, did we?”

“No…I just…well, it’s important to me that you know I’m not interested in the Pruitt fortune. Money’s not important to me. I just wanted the opportunity to know where I came from. Honestly.”

Madison’s father waved his hands. “Look, William, after all I’ve been through watching Madison in that hospital bed…I’m determined that we build a relationship. I’m still stunned. Still…overwhelmed, frankly. But I’m also telling you that your daughters will want for nothing in life. Your grandson will have a trust. They can do nothing with the money, or they can donate it, or they can enjoy the good life for a while. You and your wife can continue teaching…or she can go to England and spend the rest of her life haunting medieval monasteries researching old manuscripts. The money is yours. It’s your birthright. But we’ll let the lawyers figure all that out. For tonight—” he raised his glass “—we celebrate.”

Madison, John, Troy, William and Jack all lifted their water glasses or wineglasses and clinked.

Madison looked around the table. Pruitt-family secrets very nearly killed her.

But now…now she believed that Pruitt-family secrets just may have opened up a whole new world to her.

One she couldn’t wait to start exploring. She couldn’t believe the twists and turns her life had taken recently. As her father and William tried to catch up on lost years, Madison’s cell phone chimed. She kissed John on the cheek and excused herself to take the call in the hotel lobby.

“Madison?”

“Renee?”

“Do you like your surprise?”

“I don’t even know what to say. I can’t believe it.”

“The Governess pushed hard to find him. She—and I—are delighted with your hard work and this was one way to say thank you. You’re an asset to the organization and we’ll use your skills again, you can be sure. Until the Duke is locked away, the Roses aren’t safe.”

“Count me in. Only next time I could do without the gunshot wound,” Madison said wryly.

“Ah, that Type A personality. Somehow, Madison, I knew you’d want to work with us again.”

“Never challenge a Pruitt. We don’t like to lose.”

“And neither do the Roses. Take care, Madison. Go enjoy your dinner.”

Madison said goodbye and closed her cell phone. Renee was New York City’s keeper of secrets, and Madison was certain of one thing: the Duke—and anyone on the wrong side of the law—had better not underestimate the power of the Roses.

Turn the page for an exclusive excerpt from the next book

in the exciting THE IT GIRLS miniseries from Silhouette Bombshell.

FLAWLESS

by Michele Hauf