Page 53 of One Dangerous Desire
“Didn’t know what?”
“That she had you in her belly when she sailed for America. If she knew, she never told me.”
“Would it have made a difference?” Rex hated the tightness in his chest, the bile in his throat, and that he cared what George Cross’s answer would be.
Cross actually took a moment to consider it, scuffing his foot against the floor and picking at a stray thread on his garish plaid waistcoat. “You want the truth?”
“If you can manage it.”
“Casting me mind back, I have to say it probably wouldn’t have done. In fact, it would have kept me away just the same.”
“So you’re a coward.” Rex heard himself speak the words, and he was shocked at the lack of malice in his tone and the lack of judgment. Declaring George Cross a coward wasn’t a revelation, just a confirmation. Still, accusing the man chilled him to the bone. Less of that had to do with Cross than what Rex had always feared about himself. Was he a coward? Hadn’t he proved it every time he’d cowered or failed to come to the aid of another child at the orphanage? Hadn’t he confirmed it when he’d given up on May, the only chance at happiness he’d ever been presented with in his life?
“Perhaps I am, boy.” Cross spread his arms and skimmed his gaze from one corner of the room to the opposite. “But maybe it was a blessing. Look what you’ve made of yourself, and all on your own. You were better off without me. Made you stronger. Knowing your mother, she would have coddled you a bit. She always was tenderhearted.”
“There was nothing weak about my mother.” Except her lungs, and that had been the fault of tuberculosis and its insidious ways.
“No, indeed. You won’t hear me say she was. ’Specially seeing past her illness and wanting to run off with the likes of me. The lady definitely had some brass.”
“You knew she was sick?”
“All the ladies in the Leighton family were. Your mum, her sister, her mother. Consumptives, each and every one of ’em.”
“And you still sent her off to America by herself?” That made it worse. Rex never dreamed he could loathe the man more, but now he did.
“Can’t have it both ways, boy. Either your mother was an adventuress, or she was a poor little thing I sent off on her own.” He smiled with long snake-like teeth on either edge of his mouth. His accent changed, sharpening with a crisp, almost refined enunciation. “Which way will you have it?”
Rex’s skin chilled and heated at the same time, and the reaction was sickeningly familiar. As a boy, when he’d frozen in fear or panic, uncertain how to react, his body would turn to fire and ice. He’d be left to shiver and sweat in a corner of the orphanage, alone.
When he didn’t answer, Cross started prowling the confines of the room. “My, my, don’t you have a fine life here. Maids at your beck and call. Food when you ring for it. Not to mention that pretty black-haired creature you sent away. She had the kind of face a man would die for, or maybe kill for.”
With a single burst of movement, Rex was across the room. He pushed George Cross into the wall, an arm shoved into the man’s chest. He thrust his hand inside Cross’s coat and yanked his letter opener out, pressing the blunt metal blade to the man’s throat. “Speak and make it quick. What the hell do you want from me?”
His father’s clothes smelled of smoke and oil. His breath reeked of beer. Grunting, gasping for air, Cross’s eyes darkened with anger and defiance. Rex pressed harder. Finally, when his father’s eyes widened with fear, Rex released him.
Cross immediately rushed to the other side of the room. As far away as he could get without departing. He coughed and reached up to straighten his checked waistcoat and black necktie. “I’d hoped to do this nice. You’ve made that impossible, boy.” He transformed again, shedding his menacing skin and straightening up, lifting his chin, smiling so convincingly that an observer might think he was a proper gentleman without guile. “Money, Mr.Leighton. Where I come from, families share what’s theirs—food, money, lodgings. It’s long past time you shared with your father.”
Rex rumbled out a low chuckle. The man possessed “brass,” as he’d said of Rex’s mother, but Cross was mad if he thought siring a child he never bothered parenting entitled him to a farthing of the wealth that long days, hungry nights, and unimaginable risks had earned. As for sharing, Rex already did that—with charities and worthy causes in London and back in America. He’d even worked to have his corrupt New York orphanage shut down and a hygienic, well-managed new facility constructed in its place.
“I don’t have a father, Mr. Cross. If I’d had one, they wouldn’t have packed me off to an orphanage when my mother died. I never would’ve slept a single night on the streets, stolen bread to eat, or fought for my dirty little corner and a place to sleep.”
“We all have our sad tales to tell, me boy.” His father sneered again, that ugly fish-on-a-hook expression. “Don’t change none of the facts. You’ve made a nice life for yourself, and I mean to have me share of it.”
“Why?” Rex was no stranger to how extortion worked or blackmail, but Cross had missed a crucial piece. He had nothing with which to bargain.
“What?” When he crinkled his face in confusion, little bits of grime lined up in gray streaks under his eyes.
“Why would I give you a penny? Out of a sense of obligation? Mine is precisely equivalent to what you felt for me and my mother twenty-eight years ago.”
“Let me paint you a picture, boy.” Cross repositioned himself near the door, mashing his hands together eagerly. “What if I was to tell the newspapers that the great Mr. Leighton is named Cross and comes from the likes o’ me? A thief. A criminal sort. Who would trust you then?”
Ashworth might pull his funding. Business associates might turn him away. But he suspected curiosity would bring even more custom to the Pinnacle. The public lapped up rags-to-riches tales as gleefully as a royal wedding.
“My business and achievements matter more than my name. No would care in a week or a month.”
His father pursed his lips and hooked a finger into each of his waistcoat pockets. “Might well be. But what of your pretty lady? Would she love you just the same? What if I brought her ’round to my little patch of Spitalfields?”
Rex moved toward him, eager to introduce the man’s face to his fist. He saw a glint of metal and the flash of yellowed teeth as the man smiled.
