The Billionaire's Betrayal (Highest Bidder #3) - Carmen Falcone Page 0,26
do for her?”
“I paid for her college, and I set her up in an apartment,” he said, remembering how his father had given Pamela’s mother a good amount of money to keep the story under wraps, but she’d invested in a home and hadn’t spared a cent for her daughter. Pamela, too proud, had never wanted to take her biological father to court and demand to be included in his will, or even get some compensation for all the years he hadn’t provided for her.
“So altruistic,” she said sarcastically. She put the frame on the nightstand, without taking her eyes off his as if she pointed a gun at his chest and could shoot at any moment.
A nagging sensation clogged his throat, and he touched his neck, confused and pissed off. “I loved her,” he finally said, the words almost as sad as his emotions.
“What happened?”
He grabbed a shirt from the chair and slipped it on. “After I left for college, things changed. I was busy for a while, and that’s when she found out and she never forgave me for not being there for her.” He’d been too worried about making his own money, about diving head-first into the entrepreneurial side of agriculture, to call her back as often as he should have. No wonder she resented him for having a privileged life for so long—even after she’d discovered she was entitled to the same lifestyle as he, she’d never had it.
“But you said—”
He swallowed the lump of frustration constricting his throat. “I paid for her college, but she never finished. She had…anxiety and her own set of problems.”
“She resented you for being the official heir, while she never had a father.” Alexa shortened the distance between them, her delicate features set into a hard line. The main vein on her neck jumped. “What happened to her?”
He stretched to his full height. “I was hoping you’d help me figure that out. She was found dead in a car accident, not long after she entered your place of business.”
“What?” She drew back, folding her arms. A glimmer of disbelief hit her eyes. “She was chosen for the auction, yes, but Pamela never made it. We had to call someone else in to replace her at the last minute.”
“Impossible. I saw pictures of her entering the building on auction night. She was never seen afterward,” he said, remembering he’d bribed the janitor from the storage unit across the street to get screenshots of the surveillance camera footage.
“Maybe she had a change of heart and left.”
He shook his head. Why would she go to the auction location just to give up? Didn’t make any sense. If she wanted to give up, she could simply not go or call Alexa. Going there in person would only make things awkward for everyone. “Did you try to contact her?”
“Yes. I called, texted, but if they’re not in the building within a certain time before the auction, we have policies in place to make sure—”
Anger skated through him, sizzling his insides. Did she expect him to believe she knew nothing about his sister’s disappearance? Surely, even with a different woman ready to go, Pamela’s alleged flakiness must have caused some inconvenience. “To make sure the hungry rich men have a virgin to fuck.”
She erased the remaining distance between them, swiftly lifted her hand, and slapped his face. “Bastard,” she cussed at him, and her cheeks flushed. “You used me. You betrayed me. What was your plan? To destroy me and my business because of what you think I did to Pamela?”
He touched his cheek, the flesh warm and tingly from her smack. “I need to find out. I know that accident didn’t just happen. They said she was tired and got distracted, but she was a great driver.” Images of her riding next to him, while he learned to get his driver’s permit, popped in his mind. Pamela’s infectious giggle rang in his ears, cementing his resolve.
“If she was killed, wouldn’t she have some marks on her body or some type of poison in her system that would debunk the car crash?”
“She supposedly drove into a gas tank on a country road. It exploded. They couldn’t salvage enough of her for an autopsy,” he said, his voice thickening with sadness. Worse, his father hadn’t even attended the mass her mother had planned in her memory. He’d acted like she’d never existed, which hadn’t been much different than what he’d done when she’d been alive.