Dirty Sexy Alphas (Twenty Book Box Set) - Hannah Ford Page 0,276

voice filled the backseat. “When we get to the top of the steps and have the legal team around us, I’ll stop and make a statement. Then we’ll go inside. Reporters aren’t allowed in the courtroom.”

The door opened and the throng pushed closer. Security held them back but questions were being fired even before they stepped out of the car.

“Remember, not a word,” her father said to her, before stepping out of the car first. Her mother followed. After the crowd next to the car thinned, Harper emerged. Most of the attention was on her parents, but a few reporters thrust their microphones in her face.

“Any comment on your father’s criminal activity?” one asked.

“Did you know your father was stealing money, Ms. Matheson? Are the rumors true that he’s hiding most of it in the Caymans and Swiss accounts?”

Harper kept her face impassive as she followed close behind her parents.

The truth was, she had no idea how much of it was left. Her father had stolen so much, lost quite a bit, and supposedly hidden more. But she was as in the dark with the nature of his fraudulent activities as anyone else.

At the top of the steps they stopped and with his legal team all around him, her father stepped to the microphone that had been set up.

Harper had already seen the comments his publicists gave him earlier. A bunch of bullshit about wanting to do what was right and that the truth would come out. That he wasn’t a crook, just a victim like everyone else.

Harper had read the paper, knew the allegations against her father and had come to her own conclusions. Ones that didn’t match up with her mother’s blind trust.

The crowd grew thicker and her father spoke, reciting the words he’d been given.

Off to the side, half a dozen reporters broke away and surrounded two men who had been walking up the steps just behind them. Her father paused, glanced over at the two men, and his eyebrows drew down, but then he straightened his shoulders and concluded his speech, refusing to take any questions.

The reporters swarmed her father, peppering him with accusations as he continued to refuse to talk further.

As she stood there, being jostled beside her parents, she saw the one man who hated her father more than anyone on the planet.

Robert Wentworth was just a few feet away from them now. The man who lost the most money to her father’s scheme, the man who most vocally called for justice and was putting his own reputation on the line to ensure that justice was done.

Along with plenty of other victims, Robert Wentworth had lost an untold fortune to her father. But unlike many of her father’s victims, Wentworth was not broke because of the scheme.

He was still one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the country. And he was angry as hell about being fleeced.

“Mr. Wentworth, what are you hoping the outcome of today will be?” a reporter asked.

“Obviously I am against moving the venue of the trial,” Wentworth said. “And I’m here today to make sure that the con artist Bud Matheson is held accountable for his trickery and lies.” His voice rang out loudly on the courtroom steps.

The reporters gave way as Robert Wentworth began advancing once more.

Harper froze, her gaze on the man at Robert Wentworth’s side. His hair was cut shorter and the beard was gone, but she knew by the way her skin tightened that it was Ethan. And she knew then that Ethan was actually Ethan Wentworth, the son of Robert and heir to an empire. Her gaze darted between the two men. They had the same build. The same hair color. The same jaw shape.

Ethan looked up and when he met her stare, his eyes widened in shock. His gaze slid from her to her parents and then back again. Disbelief. Anger. Accusation.

All of those expressions flitted across his features in rapid succession.

The ground tilted and Harper took a small step back.

Ethan, the man she’d slept with in Tahiti was Robert Wentworth’s son?

Her pulse pounded in her ears and her stomach roiled. The bug that had plagued her the last few days chose that moment to rear up. Without excusing herself, she turned and ran up the steps to the courthouse.

Inside the restroom, cool air washed over her skin as she sank down and emptied her stomach into the toilet. The stupid virus hadn’t let up after all. The room was empty as she