Page 15 of Father Knows Best (A Family Affair #1)

“If I wasn’t there when she needed attention, she simply sought it elsewhere. And I know that I’m going to sound whipped and pathetic but… she really didn’t mean to hurt me. It was like, she just… couldn’t handle being alone, couldn’t handle being without physical company or touch.”

Emotion lumps up my throat, making me swallow uncomfortably. I wait a moment for my eyes to stop burning, and say, “So why then did the papers say it was the other way around? Sutton said the articles he found pinned you as the philandering womanizer.”

I study Geo’s face as I hurl those accusations at him.

He doesn’t even flinch. “I became that, I felt that I had to become that in order for everyone to forget what happened.” He sighs.

“She loved me very much, and she was my everything. And Sutton, my god,” he breathes, the ends of his eyes lifting as he smiles, likely replaying a beautiful memory from the past. “She adored him. He was her whole world, and that was the truth of it.”

My mind is stuck on his words earlier, the words that imply he sacrificed himself for the sake of Margot’s memory. “I still don’t understand,” I start, but reroute my statement to a question, fearful that this revealing conversation will end if I let it. “What happened?”

I don’t specify if I’m asking what happened to Margot that night or what happened between the two of them over time… I don’t know what I’m asking, but Geo seems to understand the broadness of my curiosity.

“She had many affairs during the course of our relationship. They were not emotional in nature but still, they were devastating.” He smooths his fingers down the silk tie he’s wearing today, a classic Robert Talbot, the kind Geo prefers.

“I couldn’t leave her. I loved her too much.

Ford thought I should; he thought that if I left her, maybe she’d change but I knew she couldn’t.

And I’d rather live with her, pleasure infused with exquisite pain, than alone, nothing but pain without her. ”

What a horrible situation to be in, and not just to be in but to raise a child in. “Did Sutton ever know?” I ask, but as soon as I do, I answer the question myself. “No, of course not.”

Geo nods. “I had a friend at the Chronicle back then. I paid him to write the story from a different angle. The police had an open and shut case with a man who was not denying his guilty charge so they had no problem with me shaping the public narrative. Of course, money urged all of these things along, as it always does.”

I think about Geo losing the love of his life and then taking on the public role of cheating asshole who became the demise of his innocent and adoring wife.

I wasn’t around, and I’ve never asked, but I’m sure that he took media scrutiny for a long time until the next big story in the Financial District broke.

Blinking, Geo’s form changes behind my eyes in an instant.

The constant company he keeps, his charming smile, the way he is always there for Sutton from a distance—now all I see is a very broken man trying to climb his way out of a life he never signed up for.

“I’m… so sorry,” I breathe, my words shaky and quiet.

Everything he’s told me today is shocking, and more than that, it will utterly change Sutton.

My beautiful, hard working man has lived most of his life believing that his father—the great businessman adored by all—is secretly a selfish monster who caused, indirectly, his mother’s death.

Knowing the truth means setting Sutton free from the prison of anger and resentment he’s built up around him where Geo is concerned.

Geo opens his desk drawer, fishing around for a moment before sliding me a photo over the desk. It’s a Kodak photo, it says as much on the back, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen a photograph printed from film that I hold it gently, careful not to smudge it with my thumbs.

In orange digital numbers, 7 4 98 are tucked into the corner.

“That was the night it happened. She'd gone out to a bar to celebrate the 4th after fireworks with Sutton at the water. I didn’t want to go downtown, or get drinks, but there was no convincing her otherwise. So I initially stayed with Sutton and she went out.”

The photo is of Margot, her dark hair piled high on her head, shiny, effortless bangs styled perfectly for the beach.

Her arms are around a very young Sutton, who is beaming, holding a sand bucket in his hands.

Geo is behind them, a hand on Sutton’s shoulder and one on Margot’s–he isn’t smiling, but his eyes are full of pride.

Sutt’s feet are hidden by sand, and Geo is shirtless, Margot in nothing but a black bikini.

Her smile makes me smile. “She looks happy.”

“She was happy. She was just… lost,” Geo says, staring at the photo in my hands across the space. “She’d been seeing Barry for a while. I knew about it. Hell, I knew Barry. I’d met him ironically in Los Angeles, and he and his wife Josie moved to the bay around the time Margot met him.”

I don’t know what’s appropriate to ask, but I figure Geo will tell me if I reach or cross a line. “How did she meet him?”

“At a department store. She was buying her favorite perfume and he was buying it, too.” He shrugs, smiling, wisdom lining the corners of his eyes. “Like I said, I knew it was never deep. She never connected emotionally to them.”

“What happened that night?” I ask, recalling what Sutton said.

That Geo had slept with a married woman and, in a fit of rage, her husband had killed Margot in an act of anger and hurt driven vengeance.

As I stare down at the photo in my hands, envisioning Margot staring down the barrel of a gun, my heart shatters for everyone involved.

So tragic. “If what Sutton read isn’t true, what happened? ”

Geo doesn’t tell me I’ve pushed too much or gone too far, and as I study his features, the worry and regret, I wonder if he’s sharing with me now because he needs to unload the burden of truth or if he’s hoping that I can mend the damage between he and Sutton, and that I can better deliver the truth to Sutton.

I don’t know.

But I stay rooted to that seat, ignoring my laptop, ignoring the tiny window of time I even have right now, ignoring the pull order I need to put through to Brandon—ignoring everything but Geo Mercer and his broken heart.

It is imperative that I do.

“I told her to be home before sunrise, that I didn’t want to lie to Sutton about why she wasn’t home for breakfast again.

And when one in the morning rolled around I just…

I got so goddamn angry, you know? So I called the nanny I didn’t want to call and I stormed down there.

” He reaches out, taking the picture back from me as if having Margot’s image out while he recounts this portion of the story is too painful.

Geo places the photo in the drawer, and closes it, resting his hands on his desk.

“I tried to convince her to come home with me, but she and Barry were several drinks in. He was committed. He wanted what he came for, and he was not pleased with my cameo that night.”

“Where was his wife? What did you say her name was?”

“Josie. His wife knew, like me, that her husband had a wandering eye and sticky palms.” He strokes his hand over his forehead, the veins over his metacarpals bulging as he does. “That night, like me, she was home. With their kids.”

I nod my head, unsure how to react to this awful story and the way it defined both his and Sutton’s lives forever. “She didn’t want to leave with you?”

He shakes his head. “No. And Barry didn’t want her to go either. And the longer I tried to convince her, the more commotion it made, which led to me getting kicked out.”

I straighten against the seat, grabbing my laptop before it slides off my legs and crashes onto the floor. “You got kicked out?” I balk, shocked by this news.

He shrugs. “They were there together first. To the bartender, I looked like the troublemaker.” Another shrug. “I’ve never faulted that man for what he did. He did his best not knowing the unbelievably tangled web going on behind the scenes.”

A young version of Geo, distraught and stressed, appears in my mind, motionless, waiting for direction. “What did you do next?”

He blinks at me a moment, and I’m sure he’s replaying that night in his mind. Maybe even for the first time in a long time. I wish I could hug him, but I know that’s not appropriate. Not at work.

“I waited out front and when the staff came out at close, I asked where they were. The man who kicked me out said Barry and Margot had slipped out the back door shortly after I was removed.” His eyes grow glassy, and my stomach knots itself over and over as I wait for the rest of the tragic story.

“Police believed that Margot may have wanted to go home, even though she refused to leave when I was there. She asked the bartender to call her a cab but Barry had convinced her to let him drive her, and they slipped out the back before the cab came.”

Immediately my mind goes to a car accident, fueled by alcohol and rising emotions, but Sutton’s words drift back. She was shot. There was no drunk car ride. “Why did he shoot her?”

He sighs. “It was casual to Margot. But Barry loved her. And he wanted her to leave me. And she wouldn’t.

” Geo clears his throat, and begins shuffling papers on his desk until he finds what he’s looking for.

He passes me the packet of documents related to the property that brought me into his office in the first place.

“He killed her because she refused to leave me. And then he confessed, and was arrested.”

I shake my head. “If he confessed, if he admitted to having an affair with Margot and killing her, why did you change the narrative at all? Why didn’t you let the news run the real story?”

He reaches over the desk, his sleeve cuff raising as he points at the address on the packet.

“Our first listing in this neighborhood.” Shifting back into the story, he adds, “I couldn’t do that to…

her… or Sutton. I controlled the media around him at the time, so he wouldn’t see anything about it.

I always figured, by the time he could access that stuff, he’d be old enough to hear the truth, or maybe I thought he’d be at the age where he’d know his father well enough to know that was just a story for the papers. ”

I lick my lips. “That doesn’t really answer the question.”

Geo’s soulful eyes turn stormy as he drops his volume, surprising me by what he says next. “You know, you’re the first person I’ve told this to. My brother knows, but you’re really the first.”

My throat goes dry. “I wish you’d share this with Sutton. It would change everything.”

He sits up straight, and the sunlight illuminates him from behind, making Geo look almost godlike as he barters– “Would it, though?”

I nod fervently. “Of course it would, Geo. The truth is the exact opposite of what Sutton believes. It changes his entire narrative about you.” I finally accept that we are going to transition away from this topic, and open my laptop, keying in my password to the Mercer Properties portal.

“And you still haven’t told me why. Why you went above and beyond to make sure everyone thought that you were the one stepping out, and that Margot was an innocent victim of your poor choices, not her own.

Why, Geo? You had to know that one day, Sutton would read that stuff.

That he’d form an opinion. And you did nothing to persuade him otherwise. Why?”

“I loved her too much to let her bad choices define her memory.” His eyes grow misty again, and his voice drops an octave, to something smoky and pained, quiet and tender. “And I never thought that my own son would assume me to be the villain in his story.”

I’m torn between feeling bad for Geo and feeling angry with him.

Had he simply communicated with Sutton when he was growing up, had he explained things to him—Sutton would not be so hardened to Geo.

But likewise, I understand Geo’s surprise that Sutton equally did not ask.

He was the child, he should not have had to ask, but now?

They’ve worked side by side for years, in cold climates—why didn’t Sutton ever ask for clarification?

Both of them are at fault in their own ways.

I see that, but it’s on Geo to clear the air.

“Why don’t you tell him all this now?” I ask. “I think Sutton can compartmentalize. He can accept that he loved his mother very much, but that she was troubled.”

Geo doesn’t say another word about it, but instead says, “We have four days for this property. Take a look at everything, and let me know. Brandon has access to the warehouse in Galt, right? If he needs to pull pieces from there to get this done, I’m okay with that.”

I blink at Geo, my chest going concave at how easily he volleys the most serious and impactful story in his life to work, staging and selling multi-million dollar properties. I nod. “Okay.”

We sit together in his office as I go through the floor plan, appraisal report, consent and release forms for photos and everything else.

An hour later, things are figured out, Geo has told me that I have proverbially saved his day, and on my way out of his office, heading back to the photos Brandon brought out for me, Geo stops me.

“I won’t ask you to keep secrets from my son because he is your other half, and I respect that but?—”

“You have to tell him,” I say definitively, accepting zero excuses. “Tonight. Come over. I’ll make dinner and you two are going to iron this out.” I step into his space, drawing close. “I’m bringing you Mercer men together. No more of this.”

He doesn’t smile, but the corner of his lips lift the tiniest amount. “I’ll see you tonight.”