Rejection Runs Deep (The Canleigh Series, book 1: A chilling psychological family drama) by Carole Williams (uplifting novels TXT) 📕

and literally scrutinized him.  Then she had intriguingly turned up at the bar where they always adjourned to have a few beers to wind down afterwards.

She was a real stunner and he hadn’t been able to resist her.  As tall as him, a fabulous figure with a good set of boobs, hair that was thick and luxurious, a face that was just beautiful with fiery dark eyes and a luscious wide, full mouth.  She was dressed in designer jeans, a dark blue top with a plunging neckline and a black leather jacket. She wore a gold chain around her neck but there were no rings on her fingers.

The only thing she had ever really told him about herself was her name … Delia Marshall.  He knew she was English of course by her cut-glass British accent and she obviously had money, and plenty of it, as she never looked for work and spent lavishly and generously on him and the boys.  She had moved in with him only days after he had met her and never left.  He felt a tremor of fear.  He hoped to God that she wasn’t going to tell him that she was leaving.  What the hell would he do?  For a ghastly second, he felt his world really falling apart.  He couldn’t exist without her and her money.  Surely she wouldn’t go … but what if someone had upset her last night?  He would kill them if they had.  That’s if he could raise a finger to do so.  He rubbed his aching brow and groaned.  God, he felt rough.

“My name isn’t Marshall,” Delia stated suddenly.

“Oh?” He sighed.  What was in a name anyway?  He had changed his from Peter to Rocky when the band started up.  Who cared what she was called? It didn’t matter a jot to him.

“It’s Canleigh.  Lady Delia Canleigh actually and my mother was Margaret Percival before she became the Duchess of Canleigh … so … we have the same mother.”

Rocky looked vaguely puzzled, screwed up his eyes and peered at her.  “What the hell are you talking about?  Have you been on the dope?”

But she didn’t appear stoned.  In fact, it would be most unusual if she was.  She did a cracking deal with their supplier and produced a plentiful supply of whatever he and the boys required but oddly enough never touched the cocaine, or even the weed.   She drank, having a particular liking for brandy and champagne and smoked cigarettes incessantly but drugs never entered her system.

Delia looked at him intently.  “Don’t you know why I didn’t tell you before?  Don’t you want to know what I’m doing here?”

“Oh God, woman.  I don’t know and quite frankly I don’t really care,” he mumbled.  His stomach was churning, his throat was dry, he was terribly hot one minute and cold the next and his hands were shaking uncontrollably. He felt like he was about to die.  It was unbearable and the panic he knew so well was rising fast.

“Well, you should care.  Don’t you realise what I am trying to tell you?” asked Delia crossly.  Her half-brother might be a decent looking man but brains were sadly lacking but then their mother hadn’t turned out too bright in the end and goodness knows how intelligent his unknown father was.

“Please, Delia.  Please … I need something … now!”

“No.  You can wait and just listen to what I have to say first.”

Rocky shifted uneasily in his seat, realising from her attitude that he would have to do as she said.  Desperate to keep her on his side he tried to smile.  “I don’t understand what you’re saying.  How can we have the same mother?  My mother was called Elizabeth.  I know she was British, as was my father, George, but they moved to America when I was a baby.  There was never any mention of a Margaret, let alone a Duchess … of … of ….”

“Canleigh,” said Delia helpfully.

“Ring Mother.  She’ll tell you.  Her number is in the telephone book in the hall.”

“I don’t need to.  I have a copy of your birth certificate and a letter from Elizabeth to our mother.”

“How did you get my birth certificate?” he asked, sitting upright and staring at her with surprise.  “I’ve never seen it.  Mother told me she had lost it and I’ve never bothered to get a copy.”

“You are joking.  Never seen it?  Weren’t you called up for Vietnam?  You would have needed it then.”  Delia was also puzzled as to why none of the band seemed to have been involved in such a ghastly war.

“I was at college when it started and then, by the time I left, three years ago, I was hooked on drugs … we all were.  They didn’t want the likes of us,” he said, remembering how they all had done their best to dodge the draft.  None of them wanted to get involved with what was going on so brutally far away from America.  They had seen pictures and heard the news for years.  So many injured American soldiers returning to the States, their lives destroyed forever, either physically or mentally.  They had no intentions of getting mixed up in it.

“So, you’ve truly never seen your birth certificate,” Delia stated, bending down to open her black leather handbag at her feet.  She took out a large leather purse and opened the wallet section, drawing out two pieces of paper and handed them to him.

Rocky winced and screwed up his eyes to try and decipher Elizabeth’s scrawl and then examined the British certificate.

“Christ!  You’re right.  So … so if we both have the same mother … that makes you my … my sister,” he uttered, finding it difficult to take it in.  This gorgeous, sexy, insatiable, crazy woman, with whom he had enjoyed incredible sex, was his bloody sister.  It was madness.

With disbelief