To the Highest Bidder Go the Spoils

Chapter 18

"And where the hell were you?" She rounded on him, brown eyes furious. "Why was he alone?"

Gavin squeaked a bit as he tried to stop them from fighting. He saw Zeke puff up as he was getting ready to destroy the woman. "Wait a minute. He was asleep next to me when I got up. He's a heavy sleeper so I'm not surprised he didn't hear me."

Olivia's face took on a pained expression. "Do you sleep with him?" Gavin closed his mouth, his bottom lip puffing out as he tucked it between his teeth. He nodded slightly. She let out a heavy sigh. "It was a mistake to come."

"Mom?" Gavin waited until she acknowledged him. "Why is it so wrong? He's been good to me. I haven't wanted anything, my grades have been good until now, and he's done everything he can for me. Why is it so wrong to be with him?"

"Because he bought you like you were a car, son. He had no respect for humankind when he told my father he wanted to buy you along with his stocks."

"Is that what the old bastard told you?" Zeke demanded.

"Watch how you talk about my father-in-law. He's a good man who would have raised Gavin right had you not come into his life. I know all about you seducing him when you came to the house."

"He did what?" Gavin asked. He was just as confused as Zeke. The two looked at each other like his mother had grown a second head.

Olivia didn't back down. She produced several envelopes from her purse and handed them over to them. Each one was addressed to the other. "He said you'd been corresponding for weeks before you agreed to buy stocks."

Zeke looked over the letter that had been written to him. He read it, trying not to laugh at the flowery language. They traded letters, reading the ones they supposedly had written. Gavin's frown deepened before he looked at his mother.

"Mom, I didn't write this. And that's not even Zeke's handwriting much less his signature," he said.

Confusion rippled over Olivia's face. Zeke handed Gavin a pen, and the younger man scribbled on the back of the envelope. Zeke did the same on his, and they handed them back. Olivia looked them over, face paling as she flipped between the handwriting in the letters and the ones they had just written.

"Grandpa lied to you," Gavin said. She crumpled the papers in her hands. "Grandpa reached out to Zeke for help, not me. He's the one who wrote into the contract that I was to be part of the deal. I didn't have a choice but to move here, or Zeke would have been in breach of the contract and his reputation would have been ruined."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.

"I didn't know until several weeks ago. But you wouldn't answer my calls anyway so I wouldn't have been able to. When I last saw you, I didn't even know."

Olivia looked at Zeke. "Did you know?"

Zeke nodded solemnly. "We figured it out several days after the contract had been signed. There wasn't anything I could do. I was considered the 'highest bidder' so I had no choice. If I had walked away, I would have lost everything."

Knowing that Raoul Duquesne had backed both of them into a corner then lied about it still upset Gavin. He didn't want to think his grandfather was capable of it, but he couldn't deny the facts. He'd seen the contract. His name had been in one of the last clauses that had been tucked minutely. It was easily skipped over, and that made things worse. Any court could throw it out, but they could have also had the contract nullified due to the sale of a human being. It would considered as human trafficking.

Zeke hadn't offered to nullify the contract. He had taken Gavin into his home and tried to hide it. But after he had started a sexual relationship with him, he knew he couldn't hide it forever. Gavin would find out and things would have gotten out of hand. Had he not been diagnosed with leukemia, he was sure he would have had a little more time before he'd have to tell his darkest secret. But he was glad he had told the younger man. Honesty had always been his personal philosophy, and it didn't weigh on him anymore like it had.