Honestly Love You (PASH: Russells/Chad)-Chap. 18
by caroline crane
 

"I can't believe it," Sheridan whispered. "Julian had an affair with Eve Russell?"

Luis shrugged and leaned closer to look at the pictures in her hands. "Maybe they were business associates? Or friends," he suggested helpfully, grasping at any straw to explain why they'd found pictures of Julian and Eve together in Julian's boat. Still, even he couldn't deny the way Julian was looking at Eve in the pictures. He'd seen that look before, and there was only one name for it: Love.

Sheridan gave him an exasperated look over her shoulder. "Please, Luis. This picture was clearly taken at the resort in Bermuda, Julian still goes there sometimes when he wants to hide from Ivy. Look at how they're looking at each other - it's written all over their faces." She lifted the picture of Julian and Eve smiling at one another across a table in the restaurant in Bermuda, their eyes reflecting all the answers Sheridan needed. The second picture was of the two of them silhouetted against the skyline of a city Sheridan didn't recognize. Julian had his arm around her and he was smiling a smile that Sheridan had never seen on her brother. Her heart broke as she realized that he actually had feelings for the woman in the picture.

She slowly began to look through the rest of the pictures, her heart sinking a little more at each shot. Most of them were pictures of Eve smiling into the camera, her face still fresh and devoid of the guardedness that Sheridan had always seen on the Eve she knew. When she got to the last few shots she gasped and turned away, her cheeks flushing.

Luis winced and took the pictures out of her hand, burying them at the bottom of the stack again. "I guess they were more than just friends," he murmured.

Sheridan pursed her lips and willed herself to forget the image she'd just seen. "Julian would have those kind of pictures just lying around," she snapped, but her disgust at her brother's sexual proclivities didn't detract from the pity she'd begun to feel for him. He'd loved Eve Russell, that much was obvious. What she didn't understand is what happened between them, and why he'd kept it a secret all these years. He'd never had a problem flaunting any of his other affairs in Ivy's face, but then again he'd probably never fallen in love with any of the maids.

Luis reached around her and carefully tucked the pictures back into the desk's hidden compartment. "I can't believe Eve was involved with your brother."

She turned back to the papers in front of her, leafing through them without really seeing them as she thought about Julian and Eve. It must be horrible for him to see her with her husband, knowing what they'd shared and never being able to say anything to anyone...a shiver ran down her spine and she suddenly felt cold.

Luis grabbed her hand as she turned another page in the file in front of her. "What's this?"

Sheridan looked up, startled out of her revelry by his touch. "What? It looks like a birth certificate."

Luis held it in front of him as he scanned the information on the paper. "It is a birth certificate," he whispered, his eyes getting wider as he read. "It's Chad Harris' birth certificate."

"No it's not." Sheridan shook her head as she grabbed the paper out of Luis' hand. "What would Julian be doing with Chad Harris' birth certificate?" But sure enough, there was Chad's name at the top of the paper, and below it were the signatures of the parents. Sheridan gasped again and her hand flew to her mouth as she saw the name Julian Crane. "Julian? Chad is Julian's son?"

"I don't know," Luis said, taking the birth certificate out of her hands and folding it carefully. "But I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Hank's looking into Chad's past, I'm going to find out what he knows."

~

Simone groaned as she heard her father calling her for dinner. "Yeah, like I need the calories," she muttered, taking another long, hard look at herself in the mirror before she went downstairs.

"Simone, I mean now," T.C. called as he stood at the bottom of the stairs.

"I'm coming, Daddy." She rolled her eyes as she passed him and he shook his head at her.

"What's the matter with you lately, baby? Usually you're the first one at the dinner table."

She made a disgusted face as she walked into the kitchen and slid into her seat at the table. Yeah, and it shows, she thought, looking around the table at the dinner her mother had laid out. She sighed inwardly and picked up a bowl, spooning a tiny helping of carrots onto her plate. She shook her head as her mother offered her the mashed potatoes, but when she passed up her favorite pork roast her mother reached over and touched her forehead.

"Simone, honey, are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, Mom, I'm just not hungry," she answered, her eyes fixed on her plate so she wouldn't have to see their worried expressions. Any little thing usually set her mother into Doctor Mode, and before Simone knew it she'd have the thermometer out and she'd be tucking blankets around her until she couldn't move.

"Maybe I should get the thermometer," Eve said as she watched her daughter staring at her empty plate.

T.C. laughed and reached for his wife's hand. "Honey, she said she feels fine. So she's not hungry, I'm sure she'll live. Don't worry so much." He smiled reassuringly and Eve let out a small sigh.

"Okay, I'll stop fussing. But if your appetite isn't back tomorrow I want to check you out."

Simone rolled her eyes and forced herself to smile. "Sure, Mom. Whatever you say."

T.C. caught Simone's eye and winked at her, causing her smile to brighten a little. He smiled back before turning to Whitney as she picked at her food. "So did you see Sheridan today?"

"No, Daddy, not today," she said, smiling a little too brightly. "I spent the day with Theresa looking at college brochures."

"I thought you were applying to the University of Maine so you could live at home," Eve said, fixing her daughter with a suspicious glare. "Have you changed your mind?"

"No, Mom, I was helping Theresa pick out schools," Whitney lied. She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as she met her mother's eyes and saw the relief there, and suddenly her appetite was gone along with Simone's. She pushed her plate away and took a sip of water. "She wants to study fashion so she's looking at schools in Boston."

"Well, I'm glad she's at least planning to go to school," T.C. muttered. "She's crazy if she thinks she's just going to marry Ethan and replace Ivy at the manor. She'll need something to fall back on when Alistair finds a way to finally break them up. No Crane defies Alistair's wishes, I don't care who he is."

"Ethan really loves Theresa, Daddy." Whitney defended her best friend's relationship out of habit, but she didn't have the energy to fight about whether or not he'd ever really marry her. The truth was that Theresa wasn't planning on going anywhere, it was Whitney that had been looking at schools away from home. She didn't want to disappoint her parents, but ever since her conversation with Sheridan she'd been thinking about what she really wanted for herself. It had been scary to think about herself for the first time, but at the same time it had been exhilarating. The more she thought about going away to college, somewhere where no one knew her, the more she knew that was what she wanted. She just wanted to start all over again somewhere where no one would expect anything of her.

"Love her or not, he's still a Crane and she's still from the wrong side of the tracks," T.C. said. He turned back to his dinner as his words sank in, pushing his food around on his plate as he thought about the lives Alistair had ruined. He knew Theresa would never be a Crane, no more than he and Meredith had a chance at happiness. He winced as her image floated into his mind and pushed it mercilessly away, promising himself that he wouldn't dwell on what might have been. Not tonight, not when he was sitting at his table with all three of his girls. He glanced over at Eve and felt his throat tighten a little as he imagined life without her. No, no one would ever know what happened between him and Meredith. He'd never let anyone or anything hurt Eve that way.

~

Ethan angrily slammed the phone down and turned just as the front door opened. He watched with his arms crossed over his chest as his father walked through the door and smirked at him.

"Ah, Ethan, my boy." He took in his son's venomous expression and his eyebrows shot up. "Not happy to see me?"

"It's not going to work, Father."

"What's that?" Julian asked as he crossed the foyer to the sitting room. He headed directly for the wet bar and poured himself a glass of brandy before turning back to his son.

"You and Grandfather can't dictate my love life. I won't stop seeing Theresa just because you tell me to." Ethan followed his father into the sitting room and stood staring at Julian's back while he swallowed the contents of his glass and poured another drink.

Julian finally turned around and Ethan saw something almost like sympathy flash in his father's eyes, but in a moment it was gone and he was staring into the same amused indifference he'd come to know and resent. "As you well know I'm not making the decisions for the family, Ethan. Your grandfather saw fit to pass me over in favor of you. I'm afraid that being the heir to the Empire comes with its responsibilities. You'll come to live with them. I have."

Ethan scowled at his father as he tried to understand how Julian had lived for so long with Alistair pulling his strings. He'd never thought of his father as a particularly strong man, but even Julian must have his breaking point. "You can't seriously expect me to give up the woman I love for the sake of the company."

"I don't expect you to do anything, son. Your grandfather, on the other hand, is not nearly as indulgent as your mother or I. You don't wish to upset him, Ethan. It's never a good idea to upset Father." He chuckled mirthlessly as he stared into his glass, wondering how long it would take him to get drunk enough not to feel the guilt washing over him or the regret at having become the man he'd grown into. There was a time when he'd been willing to cross his father for the same reasons Ethan was clinging to now, but over the years he'd come to realize he didn't care. He didn't care about himself or the shambles his life had become, because there was no reason to care anymore. His children were practically strangers to him, and his one chance at something like love had vanished with his first-born son. "Of course, you could always choose to defy Father and marry the little strumpet anyway. There's still Damian."

Ethan sighed at the mention of his younger brother and wondered if he'd be faced with the same choice as Ethan one day. Choosing between love and the family fortune - it seemed like such an easy choice, but Ethan had never known anything besides being a Crane. From birth he'd known what that meant, and what was expected of him when he came of age. But now that he was faced with making a choice between Theresa and his place in the family he wasn't so sure. Who would he be if he wasn't Ethan Crane, heir to Crane Enterprises? He was still a lawyer, but to be thrown out of the family...

"Grandfather wouldn't disinherit me over this," he said, looking to his father for confirmation. When none came he crossed the room and leaned against the bar. "Father, put down the brandy for a minute and look at me. Damn it, would he throw me out of the family for marrying Theresa?"

Julian put down his glass slowly and turned to face his son. He looked into Ethan's blue eyes, such a clear, curious blue. He'd often wondered where that recessive gene came from, no one on his side of the family had ever had blue eyes. In that moment Ethan looked young, almost boyish, and as he silently pleaded with Julian for reassurance of his place in the family he looked almost fragile. Regret tugged at the last warm corner of Julian's heart and he simply shrugged before turning back to the bar.

Ethan's jaw clenched and he straightened up, watching his father for another moment as he watched him dive back into his bottle of alcohol. Finally he shook his head disgustedly and walked away, leaving Julian alone to drown his private sorrows.

Julian listened to Ethan go with a heavy heart - part of him wanted to turn and call him back, but he couldn't bring himself to offer even a small word of comfort. He wanted to tell Ethan that there were worse things that being disinherited, that if he really loved the girl he should hold onto it with everything he had, that he should do whatever he could to avoid the same fate that Julian had suffered. But he couldn't bring himself to betray his father or worse yet, raise Ethan's suspicions that he'd once had his own dreams for himself. No, it was better if his son believed that he'd always been a good little soldier for the Crane family, obediently following Alistair's orders. It would be easier for Ethan to make the right decision if he didn't know there was a chance for him to find happiness outside the family.

Julian looked down at the glass in his hand and suddenly his stomach turned. He set it down carefully and backed away from the glass, still half-full of amber liquid. It was just jet lag, he told himself. Jet lag and two days of making boring small talk with a bunch of lifeless businessmen. All he needed was a few hours of sleep and he'd be back to himself in no time.