Born Out of Wedlock

by Lyn Gardner

Copyright 2016 by Lyn Gardner - Smashwords Edition

Cover by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.

This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Dedication

To Boni –

Thank you for shining a light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. Through your smiles and your laughter, your encouragement, and your support, I found my way back to something I love to do. So, I dedicate this story to a woman who will always be a dear, trusted, and loved friend.

L.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Acknowledgements

Other Titles by Author

Prologue

The sound of her screams urged him onward. Pressing the accelerator to the floor, he sped down the winding road, mindless of the torrent of rain drowning the countryside and obscuring his vision. The windshield wipers seemed out of control, moving so fast across the glass that his vision cleared for a blink of an eye before it was again obliterated by streams of water trying to get in.

The sky was black and then it wasn’t. Ripped at the seams by arcs of lightning, cobwebs of brilliance snaked and danced their way across the heavens. False hope was given as the road became flooded with light, but then it disappeared, and headlights not nearly bright enough, fought their way through the onslaught.

Halfway between somewhere and nowhere, his only choice was to continue north, for the town behind them was farther than the one in front. He swore under his breath as a pothole steered the car toward an embankment, and gripping the wheel, he straightened the tires and drove on. She screamed again. He was scared.

Suddenly, he took a deep breath. Up ahead he could see lights. Faint images amidst the deluge, the tiny shimmering glare of incandescence signaling that safe harbor was within reach. He placed his hand on her knee to offer comfort and silent assurance that everything would be all right, but she didn’t say a word. He dared not look away from the road, but he paled at the dampness he felt under his palm. Sticky and warm, he knew what it was and when he clutched the wheel again, his hand was dark with her blood.

Earlier that morning they had driven through the little town. She had called it quaint, but not their style, and he had laughed because it was true. He was born into a family where chauffeurs were the norm, and when she had become his, she had slipped into the role of an untitled princess without blinking an eye. He didn’t mind. He loved her, and they both preferred silver spoons over plastic cutlery. There was something to be said for never having to do without…and normally, they didn’t.

The day had started like most weekend mornings, enjoying their tea and scones in their upscale condo in the middle of London, but then she announced she was bored and wanted to get away. When he called for the chauffeur, she balked and suggested they go on their own, and while he usually preferred not to drive, he couldn’t say no. He could never say no to her. He loved her too much for that. She was his life.

So they meandered that day. Heading south down back country roads, while he kept his eyes focused on his driving, feeling slightly awkward behind the wheel of a car, she amused him by acting as his tour guide. As they drove past billboards spouting sustenance ahead, she joked about the faded colors of the placards and the fact that she didn’t find yellow and green food that appealing. She pointed out little pubs with crooked signs and petrol stations missing numbers in their pricing. Misspelled signage on store windows had brought tears of laughter to her eyes, and the fact that a tiny village barely a few miles long would feel the need to have a walk-in clinic had caused her to raise her eyebrows in surprise. It seemed so stupid at the time. Now it didn’t.

He remembered every word she had ever spoken, so upon entering the little town, he knew exactly where he was going. Just a bit farther up the road on the left was a small building with a glass front, and as he approached, his hand pressed on the horn and stayed there.

Inside the clinic, it was quiet. Two nurses and a doctor watched the clock, waiting for it to strike nine. It had been another long and tedious day. One cold, two fevers from the flu, a broken finger, a rash from eating too many strawberries, and the village hypochondriac with his latest tale of woe had filled their day, but only just barely. With the storm wreaking havoc, the television in the waiting area had been turned off, so under lights flickering in time with the lightning, the staff sat silent. One sipped coffee, one scribbled aimlessly, and one read a magazine. Ten minutes and they could go home.

Their heads popped up in unison when the sound of the thunderstorm was broken by the blare of a car horn. The room filled with the brightness of headlights, and for a moment, they all felt dread. Believing the car wasn’t going to stop, they scrambled to their feet, but just as quickly the thought left their minds as they heard the screech of brakes...and all was well again. A loud crash of thunder suddenly rocked the building. Cringing at the sound, for a split-second they forgot about the car, but then they heard the horn still honking for help.

The doctor, serving out his last days before retirement, flew past the two nurses, decades younger than himself, and pushing open the doors, he ran out into the storm. His light-blue surgical scrubs turned dark almost instantly, and mindless of the wind and blinding rain, he hurried to the driver’s door and yanked it open.

“My wife! My wife! Please help my wife!” the man inside cried out.

Leaning into the car, the doctor saw the woman sitting in the passenger seat, and when the lightning flashed again, he paled. She was covered in blood.

“Get a trolley!” he yelled over his shoulder as he ran to the passenger side. “Get a trolley, now!”

Pulling open the door, he knelt in a puddle and took the woman’s pulse. It was faint, but it was there. Hearing the rickety sound of the gurney being pushed across the rutted parking lot, he rose to his feet, and as the storm raged around them, the three trained in saving lives tried to do just that.

As the doctor barked orders at his staff, the husband tried to explain what had happened. Eight months pregnant with twins, his wife had gone into sudden labor only an hour earlier. At first, they believed they had time to get home. Back to the world they knew with modern hospitals, doctors smelling of cologne, and where everything money could buy could be bought, but they had been wrong. Within a few minutes after her labor began, she screamed she was bleeding, and her screaming didn’t stop until the village had come into view.

Swinging doors with small panes of glass flew open as the trolley smashed into them, and rubber-soled shoes squeaked across the floor as the team of three rushed her to the largest examination room they had. They weren’t prepared for this. They were a clinic not a hospital, and scrambling, the nurses filled cloth-covered surgical trays with everything the doctor shouted he needed. Behind them, standing in a puddle of water mixed with blood, the husband stood in shock. This wasn’t happening. Tomorrow was her birthday, and he had a surprise. This wasn’t happening. This was not happening.

Thirty minutes later, he sat alone in a room smelling of disinfectant and blood. The stainless steel rail of the stretcher was cold on his arm, but her skin was still warm. Sheets of green and white were draped over her lower half, trying to hide the hemorrhage that had taken her life, and every few seconds a drop of blood could be heard as it hit the floor.

They had left him alone so they could attend to the living, but as far as he was concerned, she should have died, too. She was the reason he no longer had a wife. She was the reason he no longer had a son. She was a murderer, and he would never, ever forgive her...and he would make her pay.

Chapter One

Accustomed to the sounds of the city, the pigeons lining the iron fence surrounding the park cooed and burbled amongst themselves oblivious to the late morning drizzle that had two-legged beings hastening down the street for protection. A car horn in the distance caused a few to ruffle their wings, but it wasn’t until the doors to the courthouse across the street flew open with a bang, when the flock rose to the heavens en masse, the beat of their wings reaching a quick crescendo before they scattered in the sky.

More than one passerby glanced at the woman dressed in black as she stormed from the building, but she couldn’t have cared less. Rushing down the stairs, she took four long strides toward the 1984 Daimler limousine parked on the street, before she suddenly came to a stop and whipped around. Mindless of the misty rain and the fact that even more people were now milling about, she glared at the two women standing frozen on the steps behind her.

For a moment, no one moved and then the two women tentatively walked out into the rain. Shielding their hair with their handbags, they both swallowed hard at the sheer fury they saw in the other woman’s eyes.

“They’ve ruined my fucking life!” she roared, pointing to the upper floors of the building. “This is bullshit, Fran, and you know it!”

“You need to calm—”

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down! Don’t you dare! Those bastards just sentenced me to Hell, and there’s not one fucking thing I can do about it!”

“There are still ways—”

“I’ve run out of time!” the brunette bellowed. “You told me two years ago we could win this. You said there was no fucking way the mediators wouldn’t agree, but you were wrong. Those fucking bastards sided with him.”

“But we did win,” Francesca Neary said as she moved one step closer to her client.

Incensed, the woman marched over, stopping just short of plowing into her lawyer. Pointing her finger in Francesca’s face, she leaned in until their noses almost touched. “You call this winning? Really? Winning is me walking away with everything I rightfully own and him not getting what he wanted, but that’s not the case, is it Fran? Unless I do what those bastards insist I must, I lose every fucking thing I hold important. Everything I’ve worked for, everything that is my birthright to have, I lose, and you have the audacity to stand there and say that we’ve won? Tell me something, Fran. Just how many people did you have to shag to get that law degree of yours?”

A crowd had not yet gathered, but Francesca Neary could see that a few people had stopped to gawk, and more than one was whispering to the person standing next to them, pointing at the woman they no doubt now recognized. Although livid her abilities as a lawyer were being challenged, Fran knew better than to start an argument in the middle of the street. Lowering her voice, she spoke as calmly as her anger would allow. “I think that our best plan of attack is to go back to the office and discuss this. Talk about our options—”

“What options! You said it yourself...every bloody loophole has been sewn shut. Every particle of speech has been examined under a microscope, and there are no mistakes. It’s airtight, and you know it.”

“I’ll keep looking. I won’t give up.”

“Oh, that’s just bloody great, Francesca!” the woman said, waving her arms in the air. “You keep looking while I watch my entire life go down the toilet, but I have a question for you. Will you keep looking even after I cease paying you?”

“It’s not going to come to that.”

Disgusted with the conversation and the woman standing in front of her, Addison Kane cast an evil eye toward her personal assistant who was standing a few steps behind Fran. Repulsed by association, she curled her lip at Millie Barnswell, turned on her heel and strode to her awaiting car. As she approached the silver and black limo, Addison’s agitation erupted again, and before her chauffeur could open the door, she kicked it as hard as she could.

David Turner didn’t blink an eye at the indentation left by Addison Kane’s boot in the polished panel of the vintage automobile. Opening the door, he waited for his employer to enter, and then quickly closed it and trotted to the driver’s side. A minute later, two women were left standing in the rain.

Opening the umbrella she had been holding the entire time, Francesca offered protection from the drizzle to the older woman standing to her right.

Stepping under the wide black brolly, Millie watched as the limousine drove down the street. “Oh my,” she said looking up at Fran. “Seems like we’ve been forgotten.”

Letting out a long breath, Fran said, “Well, I don’t know about you, but the last place I want to be right now is in the back of that limo.”

“Yes, she did seem a bit upset, didn’t she?”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Fran said, waving for a taxi. “How about you and I go get a drink? Give her some time to cool down before we go back to work.”

Checking her watch, Millie said, “It’s a bit early, don’t you think?”

“It’s either that or we go back to the office. Your choice.”

Millie pursed her lips and thought for a second. “I believe there’s a lovely little bistro right around the corner.”

***

An hour later, Millie politely smiled as the waitress placed two more glasses of wine on the table. Waiting until the woman walked away, Millie said, “I really think we should go back soon. Addison will be wondering where we are.”

“And what if she is?”

“Sorry?”

“Millie, she’s out of control right now,” Fran said, keeping her voice low. “We go back to the office, and all she’s going to do is ruin something else, and I prefer it not to be us.”

With a snort, Millie said, “She was extremely angry, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah, but she was also right. We are running out of time.”

“Surely there is some…some precedent somewhere.”

“The problem is we’re fighting a three-hundred-year-old tradition,” Fran said as she picked up her glass of Chardonnay. After taking a healthy swallow, she said, “The courts don’t like getting involved when it comes to changing a company’s policies, no matter how antiquated they may be, and that’s exactly what the mediators told her today.”

“So, what are the options?”

“What?”

“You told Addison that you wanted to go back to the office and talk about the options. I was just wondering what they were.”

“There aren’t any, but people were beginning to stare, and I was trying to get her off the street. The way she is with publicity, if she wakes up tomorrow morning and sees her picture on the front of the tabloids, today’s little tantrum will seem like a walk in the park.”

“Oh,” Millie murmured. “Will she truly lose everything?”

“No, of course not,” Fran said through a grin. “This has nothing to do with her personal wealth. She’ll still be one of the richest women in this country. Addison's private investments alone guarantee that, but you and I both know that’s not what this is about. The only thing she cares about is Kane Holdings, and in a month, the board will have no recourse but to take it all away from her.”

“Just like that?”

Fran emptied what remained in her glass, and placing it back on the table, she sighed. “Just like that.”

***

Shortly after two o’clock, Millie rode the lift to the top floor of the Kane Holdings building. Taking a deep breath as the chime signaled she had reached her destination, she stepped out into the carpeted hallway, smiling at a few of the office staff as they strolled by. Walking to the end of the corridor, Millie pulled open one of the etched glass doors leading into the president’s office, but as she entered, the sound of someone’s sobs stopped her momentum. Bewildered, she looked at the two secretaries stationed to the right and left of the entry and saw the youngest, hired only a few months before, bawling her eyes out as she filled an empty box with picture frames and plants.

“What’s this?” Millie asked, taking off her raincoat.

“I’ve been sacked,” Phoebe McPherson said, sniffling back a tear.

“What? Why?”

“When Miss Kane came back, she told me to cancel all her appointments for the day. I didn’t think that would include the Milborrow meeting since it’s taken us so long to get it scheduled, so I reminded her about it, and she went into a rage. She called me incompetent and then tossed my day planner to Lydia, and told me to pack my things and go.”

“Oh, I see,” Millie said. Taking the time to hang up her coat in the small cloakroom behind the woman’s desk, when Millie reappeared, she looked over at the other secretary, Lydia Patel. “So, did you cancel everything?”

“Yes, but the Milborrow people were not happy,” Lydia said.

“No, I suspect they wouldn’t be,” Millie said with a frown. Turning her attention back to Phoebe, Millie reached over and placed her hand on the box filled with odds and ends. “There’s no need for this. You’re not sacked.”

“But Miss Kane said—”

“Don’t worry about what Miss Kane said. I’ll talk to her and get this sorted.”

“But—”

“Phoebe, trust me,” Millie said softly. “I’ve known Addison for a lot longer than you, and she’s had a rough morning. Now, I think the best thing for all of us to do is to forget about what’s happened here today. You two take the rest of the day off, with pay of course, and I’ll handle whatever incidentals come along. How’s that?”

Phoebe exchanged a quick look with Lydia before responding. “Oh, I don’t think we should—”

“I insist.”

“Millie, are you sure?” Lydia asked as she looked at the stack of work piled on her desk.

“Yes, now get out of here,” Millie said with a nod. “That’s an order.”

***

As Fran walked toward the president’s office, she stopped mid-stride as Addison’s two junior secretaries came out carrying their coats and handbags. Checking her watch, she shrugged off her confusion and went inside.

“Admin holiday?” she asked, seeing Millie sitting behind her desk at the far end of the room.

“More like getting them out of the line of fire.”

“Oh?”

“It seems Addison’s ill temper came back to the office with her, and she proceeded to sack Phoebe when the poor thing questioned one of her directives.”

“What?”

Rolling her eyes, Millie said, “And I don’t know what she’s doing in her office right now, but I’ve heard at least three things hit the floor and another two bounce off the wall.”

Fran’s shoulders fell. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“I wish I was.”

Chewing on her bottom lip, Fran looked in the direction of the double eight-foot-tall cherry doors, behind which she knew lurked a very annoyed woman. “You know, maybe I should come back later. I wouldn’t want to be the next head on the block.”

“Throwing me to the wolves, are you?” Millie asked, the slightest of a twinkle appearing in her eyes.

“Hardly,” Fran said with a laugh. “If there’s one person around here with job security, it’s you. I’m just her lawyer, but you’re her right and left hand. She couldn’t get through a day without you.”

“You’re also her friend.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Is it?”

“At times,” Fran said as she sat on the corner of Millie’s enormous desk. “Don’t get me wrong, I still like Addison, but she doesn’t make it easy. I can’t tell you the last time we had a conversation that wasn’t about work.”

A loud crash coming from the next room caused both women to jump, and with a snicker, Fran hopped off the desk. “Well, I’d best go in and see what I can salvage.”

“I’m sure whatever she just broke can be replaced.”

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