Taken By Storm. Cat Schield

was too territorial for my taste, calling him at all hours with some excuse or another. I’m pretty sure she was in love with him. He was obviously flattered by all her attention. How much did he leave her?”

      His mother’s rapid-fire questions battered Liam, taking his irritation to new heights. He opened his mouth, determined to shut her down, only to realize that as weary as he’d grown of her suspicious and jaded view of the world, she’d been right to suspect something was going on between Linus and Teresa. This revelation took the edge off his temper toward his mother. Obviously she was right to assume the worst of people.

      Yet even as he accepted this, a familiar darkness settled over his mood.

      The time he’d spent with Teresa, making love to her, helping her when she freaked out about her brother. That had all been real. Hadn’t it? Liam blew out a breath. In the span of a few short minutes, his entire world had gone topsy-turvy. Or maybe it was more the case that his ship had righted itself. Maybe his growing feelings for Teresa had been the anomaly. There was no question he’d felt less like himself over the last few weeks than ever before.

      “Liam,” his mother said impatiently. “Are you still there? Did you hear what I asked? Did your father leave money to his secretary?”

      She never referred to Esther Smithers by her name.

      “I’m not sure,” he replied, barely remembering anything after the bombshell news that Teresa had received shares that should’ve been his.

      “What do you mean you’re not sure?” Her outrage came through loud and clear. “How can you not be sure? Didn’t you read the will?”

      “I didn’t get a chance to read through the entire thing,” he lied. He’d examined every word.

      “Why not?”

      “He left twenty-five percent of his shares in Christopher Corporation to Teresa St. Claire,” Liam blurted out. He gave his mother a heartbeat to absorb the information before continuing, “Any idea why he might’ve done that?”

      “To punish me, obviously.”

      Her answer was so ridiculous that Liam almost laughed. The only person damaged by Linus’s last-minute decision to change his will was Liam. Not to mention his parents had been divorced for a decade. Yet he wasn’t surprised that his mother continued to blame Teresa for some nonexistent affair. Catherine Dupont was incapable of letting go of any slight she’d ever received, real or imaginary.

      Yet in this instance, his mother could be right about Teresa. Not that she’d had an affair with Linus. Weeks earlier Liam had accepted that she’d spoken the truth about that. But with his passion for her no longer muting his doubts about her, the voice at the back of his mind questioned if he’d missed something equally sinister about their connection.

      Obviously more had gone on between them than just a simple mentor/mentee relationship. Had Linus given her the shares because she’d been blackmailing him? Maybe they hadn’t slept together, but could he have stepped across the line in the early days of the relationship? Given the enormity of what she’d inherited from his father, it seemed realistic that she’d manipulated Linus somehow.

      He made a note to call his private investigator and get the man to focus on his father and what skeletons might have been in his closet that Teresa could’ve exploited. But first, he needed to disengage himself from the woman railing in his ear.

      “Mother,” he interrupted when she paused for a rare breath. Honestly, the woman had the lungs of an opera singer. “I need to make some calls. I will check in with you later.”

      And then, before she could launch into more of her vitriolic spin, he disconnected the call. He had plans to make regarding Teresa St. Claire. Once his strategies were set in motion, it wouldn’t matter what she said or did in an effort to sway him. No amount of sexual chemistry or manipulation of his emotions to elicit his sympathy would stop him from recovering what was rightfully his.