The only niggling doubt in her mind regarded the love potion. Had it worn off yet? Did Luc still harbor feelings for her now? Did he want her anymore?
She’d gone in to work at Terrebonne Pharmaceuticals several days this week, although her relations with Charles were strained, to say the least. He’d demanded all her data on JBX, which she’d declined to turn over, for now. Further he’d insisted that she continue working on the love-potion enterprise, which she’d also declined to do. Sylvie needed some time to mull over the new insights she’d gained about her project; so, she’d buried herself in old birth-control and hormone-replacement work, which was always ongoing.
When she pulled up at a red light near the courthouse on her way home, she noticed Tee-John pushing a red bicycle with a flat rear tire along the sidewalk. He wore huge, baggy shorts and an oversized T-shirt, and on his feet, the pricey athletic shoes, the kind that cost several hundred dollars thanks to some celeb sports person’s endorsement.
Rolling down her window, she called out, “Hey, Tee-John, need a lift?”
He looked over at her sedan skeptically, then nodded. They should be able to fit the bike in the trunk and secure the lid with some bungee ropes.
That done, and with Tee-John belted in the passenger seat, she asked, “So what happened?”
“Stupid bike keeps losin’ air. Guess I need a new tire.”
“Where were you going?” She turned off on a side street that would take her to the outskirts of town and Valcour LeDeux’s house.
“I went to Luc’s place, but he wasn’t there. His secretary said he went to lunch with Claudia.”
Sylvie’s heart lurched with that ol’ blasted jealousy, but she immediately quelled it. Luc and Claudia had a business relationship… nothing more. She remembered how Claudia and Remy had looked at each other. She’d never intercepted similar looks between Claudia and Luc.
“Is everything okay with your dad? I mean, about your running away?”
“He chased me around the backyard with a switch a few times, but he couldn’t catch me. Mom slapped me around a bit, though. Says I embarrassed her with her friends.” He shrugged. “I’m grounded for a month.”
“Grounded?” Sylvie inquired with a lifted brow. “You don’t look grounded to me.”
He grinned at her. “Dad’s busy with lawyers all this week. And my mother went to Dallas, shoppin’. Neither one of ’em really cares.”
“Oh, Tee-John, I’m sure that’s not true.” She was turning up the winding half-circle drive to the mansion belonging to Valcour LeDeux. “Your father and mother love you very much.”
“Hah! He’s not even my real father,” the boy blurted out, then ducked his head sheepishly.
“Tee-John! What a thing to say!”
“Well, it’s true. Every time my dad and mom have a fight, he brings it up. Says my mom’s a tramp, and there ain’t never gonna be any weddin’ till she proves he’s my father. And she says he’s a two-timin’ bastard, and she ain’t never agreein’ to any DNA tests till he marries up with her.”
“Tee-John, you must have misunderstood.”
“Nah, I understand lots more than folks think I do. Fer instance, my dad has lots of girlfriends, and I think Mom’s been sleepin’ with the pool guy.”
Sylvie was appalled… that parents would fight like that within hearing range of a child, that Tee-John had to live with those kinds of paternity questions, that Valcour and Jolie had such low morals that they slept around the way they did.
“But you look just like…” Sylvie started to say, then stopped herself when a most uncomfortable thought occurred to her. Tee-John looked just like the other LeDeux brothers, she had been about to remark.
Could it possibly be?
Oh, God! Please, no…
Even as Sylvie stopped the car and helped Tee-John remove the bike, even as she drove the car away, she couldn’t help wondering about one alarming suspicion.
Could Luc be Tee-John’s father?
Sylvie had been sitting in the waiting room of Luc’s law office for over an hour before he came strolling in, wearing a dark blue business suit, light blue dress shirt, and a Star-Spangled Banner flag tie in shades of red, white, and blue. This was a stranger to Sylvie… not the man she’d come to know and love.