Tito stood rooted to the floor as the woman Miles had addressed as Eleanor escorted the lawyer to the door, overriding his protests.

His grandmother?  Tito had met his mother's parents only a few times briefly during his childhood. They had never forgiven their only daughter for the sin - in their eyes - of becoming an unwed mother. She'd felt it important that Tito and Maria meet them, and those brief encounters had been uncomfortable to say the least. When she'd married his stepfather, Tito's mom had abandoned all attempts at reconciling with her own parents. She'd given them the chance to forgive and move on, and that was all she was willing to do.

They had shown up at the funeral for his stepfather, still stiff and unforgiving, and when Tito heard a few years later that they had also passed away, he didn't waste any time grieving. At any rate, they were gone now. And they certainly had  never lived in a mansion like this.

Which could only mean . . .

His face hardened at Eleanor came back into the room.

"I apologize for the all the mystery in my arrangements to meet with you," she said as she approached him. "I was afraid if you knew who was behind the Trust, you might refuse to see me."

Tito nodded, and asked the only question that was on his mind.

"Why now?"

"As I assume you've guessed already, Bradford Thornton - your biological father - was my son. You're aware that he died recently in a plane crash?"

Tito nodded. "I'm sorry for your loss, Mrs. Thornton. But it's not relevant to me. He was never my father."

"I understand that."

She extended her hand and he found that although it looked frail with age, she had a surprisingly strong grip.

"It's time I formally introduced myself. My name is Eleanor Bancroft Thornton, and I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to finally meet you."

"Mrs. Thornton-" Tito began.

"Eleanor, please."

"Eleanor. Under the circumstances, Eleanor, I find that a little difficult to believe. It's not like I've been hard to locate over the past 27 years. Especially since I spent 8 of them in prison. So I ask you again, why now?" He released her hand and stared at her as a thought occurred to him. "Is it that now that your son has died you have no remaining family and I'm slightly better than nothing?"

"Of course not." Anger flashed in her eyes, and was as quickly quelled. She took a deep breath. "I can't blame you for thinking that, but I'm hoping the manners your mother raised you with will incline you to at least give me a chance to explain."

Tito felt a hot ball of anger forming in the pit of his stomach, but managed to keep his voice even. "You know nothing about my mother."

"On the contrary," Eleanor said, "your mother was a lovely young woman, and I thought very highly of her."

"That's a joke."

"I'm sorry you think so."

"How lovely do you think it was for my mother working two minimum wage jobs without even a high school education after her parents threw her out?" He was surprised how bitter it still made him feel, the things that happened so long ago. And the woman standing in front of him now who, despite her obviously extreme wealth, had done nothing to help.  How dare she stand here now and tell him what a lovely young woman his mother was?

"They sent her away to have the babies," Tito continued, his voice going cold, "but when she refused to sign adoption papers they were too ashamed of her to let her come home again. Heaven forbid someone in the parish find out their daughter had not one but two illegitimate babies. She was on her own. Where were you, Grandmother?"

Tito knew he was kissing goodbye to any further contributions from the Trust Eleanor Thornton controlled but he didn't give a damn. OFC would get along just fine without her guilt money.

"I didn't know she was dealing with all that," Eleanor said simply, then repeated. "I didn't know."

There were tears in her eyes now, but Tito ignored them.

"Then you didn't try very hard to find out, did you?" He shook his head in disgust and turned to leave the room.  "I'll see myself out."

Her voice stopped him before he reached the doorway.

"Don't be a coward." There'd been steel in her handshake, and now it was in her voice.

He turned. "A coward?"

"I loved my son, probably too much. But he was a coward. I expected you to be nothing like him."

"I am nothing like him."

"If that's true, then you'll have the courage to at least listen to what I have to say. Then if you never want to see me again, that's your choice."

* * *

Caylee cheeked the time again. It was only mid-morning, but she was anxious for Tito to call. This morning was the big meeting with the mysterious grantor of the Trust that had made such generous contributions getting OFC off the ground, and she knew he'd been nervous, as much as he tried to act like it was no big deal.

She was as perplexed as he was about why everything was being handled so secretively. They'd made plans for dinner that evening so she'd find out the details then, but would it kill him to send her a text?

Aleesha stuck her head in the doorway. "Hey, I just saw Jack in the break room. He said stop by his office when you have a chance today. There's a case he wants you to work on with him."

"Great." She was out of her chair and grabbed a legal pad.

Aleesha started laughing. "Are you that anxious for them to pile on more work?"

"I've just got a lot on my mind this morning. I need a distraction." She walked past Aleesha into the hallway, then turned. "If Tito Martinez happens to call, text me, ok? Although he'd probably use my cell phone anyway."

"Ooooh, he's a hot one," Aleesha said. "Something I should know?"

"No. I mean, I don't think so." Get a grip, Caylee, she told herself, before the whole office is talking about you. "I spent some time with him yesterday and he was telling me about this big meeting he has this morning, and I told him to call me and let me know how it went. That's all."

"Um hmm." Aleesha gave her a knowing look. "Like I said, he's hot. If I didn't already have a boyfriend . . . " She winked.

"Okay, enough," Caylee said, but she couldn't help grinning back at her enthusiastic assistant. "And yes," she said, lowering her voice, "he is hot."

She was still smiling as she walked down the hallway to Jack's office.

He was leaning back in his desk chair, turned with its back to the door, staring out at the panoramic view when she got to his office, so she tapped once on the doorframe.

"Hey. You wanted to see me?"

Jack spun around in his seat. Since he was wearing one of the office logo polo shirts and chinos, he obviously didn't have court today. Just one more thing she liked about the office culture Jack and his partners had created. If you didn't have client meetings or court, even a Monday could be business casual.

"I heard you went out with Tito yesterday."

"Oh my god. Does no one in this office have anything better to talk about than my dating life?"

Jack grinned. "Just wondering if you made any progress yet on Project Smooth the Rough Edges."

She put a hand on her hip and studied him. "Would it surprise you to know I like him exactly the way he is?"

"No. But you're not a potential contributor representing a stuffy funding source." He sat up straighter in his chair. "Work on him."

"Yes, sir. It will be my pleasure," she said sweetly, and watched him wince.

"I don't need to know the details," Jack said.

"Good. Because I don't kiss and tell."

"Ah. So I can assume we have kissing involved?"

"You can assume anything you want." She walked closer and rested her hand on the back of one of his visitor's chairs. "Did you actually want to talk to me about a case? Or was this just a ploy to pry into my . . . extracurricular activities?"

"It's a case. Sit down," Jack said, so she did. And spent the next hour learning about a new wrongful death suit the firm was considering bringing against the manufacturer of  faulty jet ski equipment that was responsible for the death of a teenager vacationing from Ohio with his family, and a serious head injury in another recent incident. The manufacturer, Jack explained, had been alerted by previous occurrences of equipment malfunctions that had not resulted in serious injury or death, but had failed to correct the problems or issue a recall.

"Had they done so," Jack said, "out clients would not have lost their son, and another victim wouldn't be struggling to recover from  a serious injury right now."

"So you're telling me the manufacturer actually knew about this issue and didn't do anything?"

Jack nodded. "I think we'll find, once we get a little deeper in the case, that someone made an economic decision to just ignore it. They were gambling that there wouldn't be any serious injuries.  They probably estimated that they could settle any small claims much cheaper than it would cost to actually fix the problem and recall and replace the faulty components." He paused. "And they'll likely be arguing that there wouldn't have been a serious injury or death absent operator error."

"Operator error." Caylee shook her head in disgust. "So they'll claim the victims were reckless. Or the rental company didn't provide adequate training." Her eyes narrowed. "They won't get away it."

"That's right," Jack said, nodding approvingly. "It's our job to see that they don't. And we'll make it cost them so much that they'll never ignore a safety issue like this again."

Caylee walked back to her office energized with Jack's plan for the case, and enough assignments to really dig in and keep her busy for some time, not to mention the other work that was already on her plate. The difference from her old job was that she really cared about the work she'd be doing. Jack had shown her a photo of the teen who died. And another of the young woman who was in the hospital right now with a serious head injury and no guarantee of a full recovery. She'd never felt this way about the securities cases she'd worked on at the firm in New York. Oh, they'd been intellectually challenging, sure, but she hadn't had the feeling of helping real people.

She was starting to think talking Jack into giving her a chance at his firm and moving to Miami was the best decision she'd ever made.

Aleesha looked up from her work area when Caylee came down the hallway.

"Oh, Caylee, do you have a second?"

"Sure. What's up?" Caylee asked as her assistant followed her into her office, and stood there in the doorway, looking nervous.

"Is something wrong, Aleesha?" Caylee set the legal pad of notes down on her desk and turned, leaning against it.

"It's probably nothing. It was just a strange phone call."

Caylee felt a trickle of apprehension run through her. "How do you mean, strange?"

"Well, this man called right after you went down to Jack's office, and he was pretty insistent about speaking with you. I told him you weren't available and offered to take a message, but he wouldn't leave a name or number. He said he'd call back later."

"Ok, well, it could have been anyone, I guess." But the uneasy feeling wasn't going away. Instead, Caylee could feel the little hairs on the back of her neck standing up.

"Yeah, I know," Aleesha said. "I'm probably overreacting, but something about him just felt off. So after he hung up I checked with the front desk because usually you have to at least give a name for a call to get put through. Evie said he acted like he was a friend of yours and said he was calling to see if you got the flowers he sent." Her eyes flitted over to the bouquet on the side table by the wall. "So she figured it was someone close to you and just put him through."

"I'm sure it's fine," Caylee said reassuringly, but she knew it wasn't. "Whoever it was will probably call back just like he said, and then we'll sort it out."

"I just wanted to let you know." Aleesha started back toward her own office then turned. "I never was able to find out anything from the florist. Apparently it was just an order that came in from one of the national companies - you know, where you call 1-800-FLOWERS or something like that, and the payment is just transferred from that account, so they didn't have a name or any other information. Just the arrangement that was ordered and what to put on the card. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," Caylee said, keeping the casually bland look on her face until Aleesha crossed the hallway, then going over to close the office door behind her. Caylee walked back to her office chair and sat down, then slowly lowered her head onto her hands, bracing her elbows on the desk, while she told herself to just breathe as a wave of nausea swept through her body.

It was happening all over again.

Author's Note: Will Tito stay and hear what Eleanor has to say?

Why is Caylee afraid? Who sent the flowers and called her office?