Dare To Love Again - Jordan Silver Page 0,72
I knew I had to get rid of him before he could do any…” Her eyes widened, and she looked at me with fear until she remembered that she and I were alone, and it would be my word against hers.
“It doesn’t matter if you tell anyone about your stupid suspicions. People have been gossiping about that since his death. I’ll just tell the authorities that your accusations are more of the same. Besides, a man like you would never go to the police about this. You wouldn’t want your wife or your precious son associated with something like this.”
She smiled smugly, and I looked down at the hands I had clasped over my knee. “You’re right; my family name has been blemish-free for hundreds of years, barring the occasional minor scandal here and there. Something like this, having a murderous mother in law, might be bad for business.”
“So you see if you want me to keep my mouth shut, you’d tell that bitch to give me what’s mine.”
“Wait, wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. I can still work around all of that. I can pay people to put a spin on it so that nothing touches us, but you, on the other hand…” I let the words trail off until she got the message.
“Me what? Nothing will happen to me because no one would believe that I had anything to do with Sterling’s death after all this time. He’s been cremated, you know, so there’s no way for…” “But you and I both know. You know what, forget about all that. We seem to have each other at an impasse. I don’t want word of this getting out to taint my family name, and you don’t want it getting out for obvious reasons; why don’t we make a deal?”
She was right to look at me skeptically. Still, I’d already concluded that this narcissistic bitch was so far up her own ass she’d fall for anything at this point because she was operating under the notion that she was smarter than everyone else. “What kind of deal?”
“Nothing much, I just want some information.”
She walked across the room and dropped down in an armchair, looking pleased with herself. She really believes that I’d sell my wife and son down the river to keep my name from being associated with her crime. What an entitled bitch.
“What is it that you want to know?” She actually had the nerve to smile like the cat that ate the canary.
I found it hard to understand just what Giselle feared about this insipid creature, but I imagine if you’d learned that fear as a child, it would be hard to shake as an adult. “How did you get my wife to leave me? What hold do you have over her that makes her afraid to face you?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Let’s just say it’s for my peace of mind.” I sat back as if her answer wasn’t that important to me, as if I could take it or leave it. But the truth is, I needed to know. If I’m going to help Giselle in any way, I must know what this monster did to instill such fear in her since childhood.
“Your wife…has always been a timid little shit stain. Things could’ve been different. I could’ve raised her to be like me, strong, courageous, a fighter. And I would’ve had my husband not transferred all his love and affection for me to the child even before she was born.”
Her face changed, and for a few minutes, it was as if I weren’t even there, which worked perfectly for me because it kept her talking while I listened. “Before I fell pregnant, I was the most important thing in his life; the only thing that mattered. I meant more to him than those stupid buildings and that firm he built from the ground up, his pride and joy.”
“But as soon as I became pregnant, he seemed to just change overnight. He was so excited about the baby, and I was too. Until we learned that I was having a little girl, then he became obsessed. Everything was about her. I had to listen to him go on and on about his precious daughter day in and day out as if I no longer mattered.”
“Everything became about her, and no one else had any say in anything. I even had to switch doctors to one he chose because he was the best, never mind that