Page 66 of Lorna's Savior
Marvin looked at her, then at the others in the room. After drawing in a huge breath, he let it out slowly. “My name is Marvin Hepplewaite, and I am your father.”
You could hear a pin drop after Marvin’s statement. The two people from Larson’s stared in wide-eyed shock at the two men across the table from them. No one said a word, until Finn barked out.
“Proof?” At the same time, Lorna cried out.
“My father’s dead.”
Martin sighed and held his hand out to the man who had accompanied him. After taking the folder from him, he started. “This is Phillip Stanley, my personal attorney. Back in May, I hired a man to investigate my ex-wife, Kristen Hepplewaite.”
“Why?” Lorna frowned at her alleged father.
“Thirty years ago we married. I was rich back then, but I was making money hand over fist, and wasn’t home a lot. I’m not blaming anyone, because I was just as much to blame for the marriage going south as anyone. Kristen had an affair. She wasn’t pregnant yet, but it made me wake up. We put our marriage back on track, and six months later, she became pregnant. I knew it was mine, because she didn’t have another affair. I know this, because I had hired someone to tail her.”
“Trust issues?” Lorna asked snidely.
“Yes. Anyway, the more pregnant she became, the more unruly she was. To get away from her, I worked more and more. During that time, instead of passing the buck to one of my subordinates to open offices in other parts of the world. I went myself. Two months before you were born, I walked away from Kristen and the marriage. Something I’m not proud of now, but at the time, it saved my sanity.” He paused, and when Lorna didn’t say anything, he continued. “I was extremely generous for the divorce.” Marvin opened the folder before him and actually passed a copied document to her. “The highlighted areas are what I was willing to pay her.”
Lorna frowned as she took the paper and read. At one point she looked at him in shock. “Really?”
“Yeah, I loved your mother, and couldn’t see her suffering because I’d left her, but I couldn’t stand to live with her anymore. I didn’t want to have one of those off again, on again relationships. I don’t do half measures. When I decided to leave, I also decided to cut all ties. It was Kristen who refused to allow me to see you. Hell, when you were born, she only told me I had a daughter, and her name was Lori.” When Lorna didn’t say anything, he continued, “When you would have been five or six, she contacted me and said you had been in an accident at school, and it was bad. Again, not allowing me to come see you.”
“How bad?” Finn frowned as he’d read the divorce papers over Lorna’s shoulder.
“Bad enough that she had to have extensive rehabilitative therapy. That you had received facial scaring, and needed plastic surgery. I don’t mean to speak ill of anyone, but she flat-out said that you had to wear a helmet permanently, and that you had to be taken out of regular school and put in classes for special-needs children.”
“Holy shit, she made me a short-bus student?”
“Yes.” Marvin waited for that to sink in. “But again, she wouldn’t allow me to come see you. She said it would upset you to have a strange man in her life.” He paused when Lorna snorted a laugh. When she had herself under control, he nodded. “So, I agreed to deposit fifty thousand dollars a month into a special fund for only your needs.”
“Christ,” Lorna sighed. “I don’t know if I should slap you or yell at you for being so stupid.” She studied the man before her intently. “You do realize that she played you, right?”
“I do now. If you’ll flip to the fourth page of the divorce, please read that highlighted segment.” They did and Lorna sucked in her breath as she read. “Yeah, during the course of the investigation, I realized she’d married several men over the years. I also found out that there was nothing wrong with you. I paid that woman eighty-five thousand dollars a month for twenty-six years.”
“Which averages to a little over a million a year, for twenty-six years. That’s over twenty-six million.” Lorna bit out in shock.
“Correct.”
“So, why are you telling me this now? Why come forward now?”
“Because, it was time to check on my investment. I’ll be honest here, Kristen scares the hell out of me. I figured as long as I threw money her way, I wouldn’t have to deal with her. But, I’m reaching retirement age, and I want to keep her hands off my money when I retire, and if I decide I want to sell my company. I don’t want her to get her hands on it.”
“She’ll try.”
“I figured. Then I had the investigator look into you. He reassured me that you had nothing to do with any of the money I’ve paid to Kristen.” Phillip had pulled a tape recorder and turned it on. They all heard Lorna’s voice describe her small bicycle accident when she was six. Hearing her own words come back to her, Lorna froze. When the tape played out, she glared at Marvin. Her whole body had gone cold.
“Who?”
“Who, what?”
“Who was the investigator? Do you have his card?”
Mavin frowned, but took the card from Phillip to pass over. Lorna took it with shaking hands, and as she read it, the bottom dropped out of her world. She felt tears rush to her eyes, as she pushed her chair back, and stood so quickly, she tripped over the chair. Backing up, she held out her hands, and shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t do this.” She looked at Finn, and something in his expression told her what she didn’t want to hear.
“You knew? You knew Andy was investigating my mother?”
“Yes,” Lorna liked that Finn didn’t lie, but she only shook her head.
“I can’t.” She turned on her heel and quickly left the room, then gathered her things and left the building. As she came out of the building, she didn’t see her mother standing there until someone jerked her arm.
