great idea. I think you’re absolutely right about people looking for something else, something other than the material lifestyle we’ve all led this past decade. And I think if it’s supposed to be, it will be.”
Tracy stops herself from snorting in disgust. None of this was supposed to be. She was supposed to have been able to walk straight into any bank and be offered a 90 percent mortgage, based on her assets, her income and her business plan.
It’s not like she hasn’t done this before, but how was she supposed to know there would be a mortgage crisis bigger than anyone had ever seen, and that the real estate market was going to come crashing down around their ears?
No one’s giving mortgages now, and if they are, their demands are far higher. Two of her clients were recently offered mortgages with forty percent down. Forty percent! Who, particularly in these times, has that sort of money lying around?
Robert McClore, that’s who.
Keith and Charlie and Alice and Harry may have been reluctant, but their money has probably disappeared in the crashing house of cards. Robert McClore, on the other hand, has the kind of money that doesn’t disappear, and the kind of income that isn’t affected by Wall Street.
For when recession strikes, people turn to the most affordable forms of entertainment on offer: movies and books.
He has already mentioned his island in Maine. An island! In Maine! And he has a real-estate portfolio as well as being co-owner of a number of businesses, including a hugely popular radio station.
Robert McClore is the real deal. The Golden Goose. Too large a prize to blow it by asking for money at this stage of the game. She has done enough research to know that, with his reputation for stinginess and savvy business dealing, that would be the worst thing she could do.
Plus, the potential rewards are so much greater than just an investment in Namaste.
“How about a drink to calm you down? ” Robert eyes Tracy warily. “A nightcap. We could pop into the Horseshoe Tavern.”
Tracy takes a deep breath. This anger isn’t appropriate. Not now. And not with Robert. She turns to look at him and smiles. He is such a good man. So different from what she expected. So different from what she has waiting for her at home.
What she is dreading, when she gets back home.
Tracy thought Jed had disappeared. And as the years passed, the bad memories faded, and she started to remember some of the good. She remembered that she had never felt so attracted to anyone as she had to Jed. She remembered that when it was good, it was the best ever.
A fatal attraction.
She would Google him from time to time, see if she could find out what he was doing, where he was, whether he was married, had children, whether it would now seem that there was hope.
And then there he was, on Facebook. She sent him a message, telling herself she was just curious, that she wouldn’t give him any information about herself, wouldn’t let herself get sucked in.
She got sucked in.
He had changed. This time he had. He had been in therapy for years. Had conquered his demons. Did she remember the early days? How wonderful it had been? How it had never been like that with anyone else, before or since?
He was flying in for business, he said. He’d love to see her. Just a quick drink.
For old times’ sake.
He moved in with her two weeks later, in her little dream house in Highfield. Same old pattern. As fatally attractive as he always had been, he was loving, attentive, kind.
Until he wasn’t.
When he strikes her these days, her mind goes somewhere else. She has a sanctuary in her head, a beach, a place she imagines to try to block out the pain.
He has learned his craft better, since the last time. He doesn’t leave bruises where people can see them. Not often. Vicious pinches. Twisted limbs. Slow and painful. There are no weeping apologies. Not anymore. No promises that things will be different.
If she tells anyone, he says he will kill her.
And she knows this is true.
Robert McClore was Jed’s idea. His grand scheme to get money. Seduce him into marriage, and out to California, where she will, upon their divorce, be entitled to fifty percent of his worth. In the beginning she complied because she was too frightened to say no.
But two things have changed. The first is that she