“I understand enough.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “You understand nothing. You never have when it comes to that woman.”
“That woman gave birth to my children.”
“That woman nearly destroyed everything your father built.”
Rowan glanced up at his father’s portrait. Henry Bellamy’s painted eyes looked toward a window, as if he had always been trying to see beyond the room.
“You said it was time I learned why Dad really died,” Rowan said.
Evelyn went motionless.
Claire looked confused. That was interesting. Whatever Evelyn had meant, Claire did not know the whole of it.
Rowan turned back to his mother. “So tell me.”
Evelyn walked to the bar cart and poured water into a crystal glass. Her hand did not tremble.
“Your father was weak where family was concerned,” she said. “Sentimental. Easily manipulated by tears. By stories. By women who understood how to appear wounded.”
“Careful,” Rowan said.
