Total, clinical sobriety came over Edward sure as if someone had ice bucketed his head. “But of course.”
Holding the phone between his ear and shoulder, he snapped open the bag’s flap, a black glossy lipstick tube jumping out and bouncing across the floorboards. There were three thin cards in there, and he bypassed the Centurion Amex and the health-insurance ID … and took out the driver’s license.
Sutton Smythe.
With the correct address of her family’s estate.
“Edward? Hello? Edward, you all right, chere?”
He must have moaned or something. “It wasn’t one of your girls.”
“No?”
“No. It was …” The love of his life. The woman of his dreams. The one person he had vowed not to see again. “An old friend of mine playing a trick on me.”
“Oh, that’s funny.” Beau chuckled. “Well, you still want someone next Friday?”
“I’ll get back to you. Thanks.”
Edward ended the call and looked over his shoulder toward the sideboard by the door. Sure enough, the thousand dollars was still there, right where he’d put it.
“Oh … fuck,” he whispered, closing his eyes.
After Gin hung up her phone—not with her brother, but with the person she had called after she’d spoken with Lane—she sat in front of her vanity with her head in her hands for the longest time. All she kept thinking of was that she wished she could go back to the night before last, when she’d been on the phone with that idiot from Samuel T.’s law firm, stringing him along as people did her hair and brought her diamonds.
If only she hadn’t taken the Phantom. That had been the domino that had started all the others to fall.
Then again, her father would still have been trying to maneuver her into marrying someone she hated, and he would still have been doing whatever he had been with the money, and Rosalinda would still have killed herself.
So actually, no, trying to escape through a reality rewind wouldn’t really change anything.
Was fifty-three million dollars a lot of money? On one level, of course it was. It was more than most people saw in a lifetime, several lifetimes, a hundred lifetimes. But was that a blip on the radar for their family? Or a crater?
Or a Grand Canyon?
She couldn’t … she couldn’t imagine a life of nine-to-five. Couldn’t fathom budgeting. Saving. Denying.
And that was what had happened to one whole branch of the Bradford clan. Back in the late eighties, before the stock market crash, her mother’s aunt’s people had bought into a bunch of bad technology and leveraged their Bradford stock to do it. When those “investments” had proven to be nothing but a black hole, they had ended up losing everything.
It was a cautionary tale that had been whispered about by the adults when they’d assumed the children hadn’t been listening.
Getting to her feet, she let her silk robe fall to the ground and left the thing where it lay. In her wardrobe room, she walked around and looked at the hundreds of thousands of dollars in fashion, the brilliant swaths and tiny whimsies hanging from crystal holders that had scented tufted pads so that the shoulders of dresses and blouses did not lose shape.
She chose a red dress. Red for blood. For fighting. For the Charlemont Eagles.
And for once, she wore a complete set of underwear.
She also ensured that her hair looked wonderful, making up in buoyancy and bounce what her mood was sorely lacking.
When the knock she had been waiting for finally hit her door, she was out in her bedroom proper, sitting at her dainty French desk.
“Come in,” she said.
As Richard Pford entered, his cologne preceded him, and Gin held on to the fact that at least he smelled good. The rest of him left her cold, however. Even though his pale blue suit was cut from the finest cloth and his bow tie was perfectly done, and in spite of the bowler in his hand and the handmade shoes on his feet, he was Ichabod Crane.
Then again, compared to Samuel T., even Joe Manganiello looked like he needed some work.
“Let me make myself perfectly clear,” she said as he shut them in together. “I am not doing this for my father. At all. But I expect you to give the favorable terms to the Bradford Bourbon Company as the two of you discussed.”
“That is my agreement with him.”
“Your agreement is with me now.” She smoothed her hair. “We will live here. This is what Amelia is used to, and there is a guest room next door to this suite.”
“That is acceptable.”
“I am prepared to act as your wife at all social engagements. If you indulge in affairs, and I expect you will, please keep them discreet—”
“I will not be having any extramarital affairs.” His voice grew low. “And neither will you.”
Gin shrugged. Given the way things were going, she didn’t expect herself to find any male of any interest for quite some time.
“Did you hear me, Gin.” Richard came across to her and loomed. “You will not like what happens if you disrespect me in that regard.”
Gin rolled her eyes. She had been double-crossing boyfriends for years and none of them had found out—unless she’d wanted them to. If the mood struck her, she had no intention of denying herself.
“Gin.”
“Yes, yes, fine. Where’s the ring?”
Richard reached into his pocket and took out a dark blue velvet box. As he opened it, the emerald-cut diamond inside flashed and sparkled.