was dying down. That meant the police would get to the castle soon. They just had to hold on for the police.
She glanced back down at the paper in her hands and her mouth fell open. “Timothy might not be the most likely suspect.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s more fine print,” she explained. “It says that if nobody is designated next of kin, then a blood relative who is either illegitimate or has a criminal record could inherit.”
“Okay, but there are no other candidates that fit that criteria.”
“There is another candidate.” She folded the paper and gave it back to him. This was the last topic she ever wanted to discuss. Least of all with her rival. It would only give Gabriel more ammunition to use against her. But he had told her about his own pain, and that had to mean something. “My father.”
9
Gabriel had never liked surprises. Above all else, he required control. He was never more out of control than when he was with Jane. Especially now. He could never predict what she was going to say or do. Which made her irresistible to him. Irresistible and dangerous.
“Your father?” He looked her directly in the eye, trying to figure out if she was playing him. During this entire legal battle he had followed Otto’s lead and narrowed the inheritors down to Jane and his own client. There had been no mention of another von Westen relative. He’d assumed that her father had passed away or something. “Your father has a criminal record?”
“Yes. That’s probably why Otto overlooked him.”
“So, he’s in prison.”
She averted her gaze, the corners of her lips tugging downward. “No. Not in prison.”
“He’s an ex-con?”
“Yes. Sort of.” She wrapped her arms around herself, in what looked like an attempt to calm down before continuing. “He was in prison before I was born for a couple of years. But he’s in a mental hospital for the criminally insane now.”
He stared at her, stunned into silence for several moments. “Why? What did he do?”
“You’ve heard of him,” she breathed out, her thin voice barely audible. “My dad is Harold Westen.”
The name didn’t ring a bell at first, and then a memory from his childhood struck him. News bulletins and a city in panic. “Holy shit. The guy who hacked all those people to death on the Fourth of July?”
“Yes. That’s my father.” She lowered her arms and stared down at the floor. “So you know the worst thing about me now. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted nothing to do with me.”
He didn’t say anything. With her eyes on the floor, it was clear she didn’t realize that he was looking at her.
Jane appeared smaller. More fragile. Almost resigned to what was coming. Her curtain of copper hair fell around her shoulders and hid part of her face from view. Long, dark lashes brushed against the curve of her cheek, preventing him from seeing her brown eyes. But he didn’t need to see her eyes to know that she was distressed. A single tear rolling down her cheek told him all he needed to know.
“It’s a lot to take in,” he said finally.
Her shoulders heaved. “I-I figured it would be.”
Gabriel walked up to her, reaching out to curl his fingers around her shoulders. “It’s a lot, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn my back on you.”
She lifted her gaze, her lower lip trembling as another tear slid down her cheek. “You’re not?”
It killed him to see her in so much pain. No wonder she had been able to handle being stuck in the castle so well. She had gone through trauma already. “Of course not. Your father committed a crime because he’s insane, so he isn’t responsible. If he can’t be held responsible, why should you be?”
“I’ve kept it a secret for so long,” she admitted. “Never told anyone he was my dad. It was bad enough that I shared the same last name as a mass killer. I even thought about changing my last name when kids at school started bullying me, but by the time my dad faded from the news it wasn’t a problem anymore.”
“I’m sorry you went through that,” he said. “Damn, you were suffering in silence all this time.”
“The only people who knew were my mom and a handful of relatives,” she said. “It was the secret we couldn’t let anybody know. I was so freaked out I got all kinds of psych evaluations to make sure that I wasn’t