Spooning Leads to Forking (Hot in the Kitchen #2) - Kilby Blades Page 0,88
a minute, he felt like a little boy.
“It was a different time, Dev. And this place was a different place. All you remember is how things were with Eric. But before him, she didn’t have any support. Not from her father or from anybody else. If she found herself having to go up against your father, she would’ve been alone. A nineteen-year-old girl, going up against the most powerful man in town.”
Dev pulled away a little, all while narrowing his eyes, disbelieving of Trudy’s insinuation. There was only one person she could mean. To this day, the livelihood of Sapling remained controlled by a single family. The mastermind behind it all was none other than Donovan Packard.
But Dev didn’t have it in him to fight anymore. He didn’t have it in him to feel enraged. He didn’t even have it in him to question the sanity of what Trudy was telling him. His brain felt slow in its gradual piecing-together of small facts that filled in missing chunks of the puzzle.
Dev didn’t know how long he sat like that, just piecing things together—not even asking Trudy questions, but just thinking. He thought about all the times he’d watched in wonder as the Packard helicopter had arrived and departed from the mountain when he was a child. He thought of all the times he’d pointed in excitement and knew now what it really meant when his mother had frowned and gone out of her way to pull them off of the street and duck them into a store.
He thought about his prodigious talent—about his uncanny ability to simply make all things business-related work. He thought about how he had the Midas touch for business and how in articles he’d read about Packard, they said the same thing. He remembered with clarity the cover of an old magazine in which Packard had been photographed with a scepter and a crown. Dev had always been too preoccupied with the success stories themselves—with the methods and approaches of the prodigious mogul who had touched their hometown—that he’d never taken notice of the structure of Packard’s bones or the hue of his eyes. Maybe he should’ve. Maybe if he had, he’d have had an inkling of this. Maybe others already did and Dev was the last person to know.
“Donovan Packard didn’t abandon the town.” It came out hoarse and scratchy. Abruptly and inelegantly, Dev finally found his voice.
Trudy shook her head. “No. He left because your mother told him to stay away. And I’ve come to believe him loving her is why he kept that promise to never come back.”
Dev scoffed, laughing humorlessly. “Yeah...either that, or he took off the second she gave him an out and never looked back because he never really loved her at all.”
“There was a final promise, Dev…a second piece that factors in. That’s why I’m telling you all of this. She told him that, if he had ever really loved her, even if he never set foot back in here, to promise that he would find a way to protect the town.”
34
The Sleepover
Shea
I have an apartment in Paris, too, came another text from Kendrick, around an hour after they’d hung up. It was followed in short succession by a link to a photo gallery that showed what looked to be a gorgeous place with a view of the Eiffel Tower.
Of course you do, Shea texted back rolling her eyes at the paradox of Kendrick—the computer geek who lived like a baller. She appreciated the offer all the same, and it got her thinking again about her next move. Just because she wouldn’t skip town tonight to avoid confrontation with Keenan didn’t mean she had a plan for where to go.
What happens after the divorce goes through? the voice inside her asked. Things with Keenan would soon be resolved. And if she didn’t end up in jail, she wouldn’t have bags of cash to lug around anymore. She’d be free to move about the country after she went back to banking like a normal person. And she’d be free to travel on her passport.
Logistically, it would be easy enough to do. Whatever she didn’t want to take in her suitcase, she could have Tasha put in storage. She already had a unit back in New York. She would be footloose and fancy-free and be every bit as liberated as she’d dreamed of being for more than ten years.