Page 80 of Laced With Secrets

“Mr. Fairfax,” Dominic said gently, “perhaps you should sit down.”

Richard nodded numbly, moving away from the windows to sink heavily into one of the leather chairs near the fireplace. I settled into the chair across from him, while Dominic moved to stand behind me, his hand resting on my shoulder.

The position brought me close enough to notice more details—the way Richard’s hands visibly shook, the smell of stale alcohol on his clothes, the deep shadows under his eyes that suggested weeks without proper sleep.

“I attended the memorial service,” Richard said before I could ask my first question. His gaze remained fixed on the window, unable or unwilling to meet my eyes. “Sat in the back where no one would notice me. Listened to you talk about Thomas.”

He expelled a breath that rattled through his chest. “I failed him. I failed him in every way that mattered.”

My hand instinctively moved to my belly, feeling the small swell there. Even wearing a thick, cable knit sweater, my condition was unmistakable to anyone who looked closely. Richard’s gaze followed the movement, and something in his expression crumpled further.

“Mr. Fairfax,” I started carefully. “Were you and Thomas involved? Romantically?”

Richard’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair, knuckles going white against the dark leather. For a long moment, he didn’t respond. The only sounds were the ticking of an antique clock on the mantle and the distant murmur of activity from the ballroom. Then, very quietly, barely audible: “Yes.”

The single word lingered in the space between us, its weight almost palpable in the stillness.

“We were in love,” Richard continued, his voice breaking on the words. “I loved him more than I’ve ever loved anyone before or since. And he loved me, at least for a while. Until I proved I didn’t deserve it.”

The confirmation settled over me. I’d suspected. But hearing him admit it out loud felt monumental.

“The baby,” I said gently, my hand still resting protectively on my own belly. “Was it yours?”

“Yes.” The word came out as barely more than a whisper, almost lost beneath the clock’s steady ticking. “Thomas and I were together from January through early June. The timing fits perfectly. The baby was mine.”

“Did Thomas tell you about the pregnancy?” Dominic asked quietly, his hand tightening slightly on my shoulder.

“No.” Richard finally looked at me, revealing a face ravaged by grief and something darker—regret that had curdled into self-loathing over five decades. “I found out fifty years too late. Fifty years too late to do anything that mattered, to be anything he needed.”

He was silent for a long moment, lips pressed into a thin line. When he spoke again, his voice was raw, almost violent in its intensity.

“Do you want to know the worst part?” His hands clenched into fists at his sides, trembling. “If I’d known—if Thomas had told me about the baby—I would have forced his hand. I would have created such a scandal that he’d have had no choice but to marry me. I would have told everyone, made it public, trapped him into accepting marriage with me whether he wanted it or not.”

His laugh was bitter, self-mocking, the sound of a man who’d examined his own character and found it wanting. “I was that selfish. That desperate. That pathetic. I would have taken away his choice entirely, turned our love into a cage. Because I couldn’t stand the thought of losing him.”

The admission hung in the air, ugly and honest.

“But I wanted him towantme,” Richard continued. The anguish on his face was terrible to witness—raw and consuming. “I wanted him to choose me, to fight for us, to love me enough to risk everything. So I waited. I thought we had time.” His voice dropped. “I thought I had time to prove myself, to show him I could be worthy of him, to demonstrate that I was worth the risk. I thought there would be years—decades—to build a life together. I thought…”

He couldn’t finish. The weight of countless “what ifs” crushed whatever words remained.

“Why wouldn’t he have told you about the baby?” I asked gently, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“Because I betrayed him,” Richard replied. “I betrayed his trust.”

“How?” Dominic asked, his voice carefully neutral.

“Thomas discovered the money laundering in late May,” Richard said, his voice hollow. “He’d been compiling evidence for weeks—following paper trails, matching construction budgets against actual work completed, documenting the shell companies Judge Whitmore and Vicente Antonelli were using to move money through the preservation project. He found contracts that didn’t make sense, invoices for work that was never completed, payments to companies that didn’t exist.”

Richard’s hands twisted together in his lap. “He came to me first, before going to anyone else. We were lovers. He trusted me. He thought I’d help him expose it, thought I’d be as horrified as he was by the corruption.”

“But you were involved,” I said, understanding dawning.

“Yes.” Richard’s face twisted with shame. “When Thomas showed me the evidence, laid out what he’d discovered, I admitted I was involved. My father too. I’d helped facilitate some of the transactions for him, signed documents I should have questioned, looked the other way when things didn’t add up.”

He shook his head. “I thought honesty would matter to him. That he’d appreciate my truthfulness. That our love would be enough for him to overlook it, to help me hide it, to protect me from the consequences. I thought he’d choose me over his principles.”

“Instead,” I said quietly, “he looked at you like he didn’t know you.”