Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,29
things. Mom used to take care of the finances. The money was hers, you know. Her father owned a bunch of local newspapers, and she inherited the spoils. That’s why my father chose her over Dominique.”
“The money?”
“This place was in trouble back then as well. A few bad winters, and they weren’t sure they’d make it through another. My father was in love with Dominique, but he needed my mother. And Mom was so set on keeping her cowboy that she forgave him for the affair.”
“What happened to Dominique?”
“She died. After Daddy ended things, her car went off a bridge. The police never determined whether it was an accident or suicide, but it broke my father. He changed. First, he sank into a depression, and when he was ready to face the world again, he’d become more…guarded, I guess. Red After Dark was always meant to be his. He’d paid a deposit. But Edwin Bateson, the artist, was also in love with Dominique, and after he realised she’d lost her heart to my father, he refused to hand the painting over. Daddy thought it had been destroyed until it turned up in the Becker Museum. I guess Bateson was short of money too. Or maybe he just wanted revenge? To keep Dominique away from my father forever?”
“That’s such a sad story.”
“It’s what happens when you marry for money rather than love. Why do you think I’m still single? I’d rather live the rest of my life on the streets than defy my heart.”
“I wish I’d met you twelve years ago. I needed to hear that then.”
If I could turn the clock back, I’d have done a moonlight flit with Polo and spent my twenties penniless but happy as a groom on somebody else’s stable yard. Who knows? Perhaps I’d have come across a man like Alaric before both of our lives turned to crap.
“You mentioned an ex-husband—it was a bad break-up?”
“You could say that. I wasn’t out on the street, but until Alaric gave me this job, I was in dire straits financially.”
“How long have you worked for him?”
“Officially, this is my second day.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“Exactly. The afternoon we met, I basically screwed up his surveillance operation, and I think he felt sorry for me.”
For a moment, Harriet just stared at me. Then she burst out laughing. In a heartbeat, I joined in, because it was a far better option than crying.
“We’re both disasters,” Harriet half giggled, half choked.
“Horses are better than men anyway. They don’t screw my friends. Or their dental nursing assistants.”
I’d never been able to confirm about the nurses, but for a pompous work-shy ass, Piers spent an awful lot of late nights at his dental practice.
“You married a dentist?”
“A cosmetic dentist. Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking. ‘Darling, I’ll do you a great set of veneers’ was the worst pickup line ever.”
“He really said that?”
“I thought he was joking. So I laughed, and then he laughed, but now when I look back on that evening, I think he was actually serious.”
In the end, Piers had given me the veneers as a wedding gift. And goodness only knew what I’d do if I chipped one because it wasn’t as though I could afford to get it fixed.
“A guy once invited me over to see his pet snake.”
“Oh my gosh. You didn’t…”
“I was eighteen, and thanks to my parents, my upbringing had been quite sheltered. So I thought a pet snake was totally cool, but it turned out to be more of a worm.”
“What happened?”
“I also laughed. He didn’t. Hey, do you want to try barrel racing after lunch?”
Did I? Hell yes. It looked a little scary in the videos Harriet had shown me on her phone, but I didn’t ditch my old life only to stand on the sidelines of my new one.
“I’d love to, but isn’t your father’s nurse coming over to speak to us?”
Harriet’s face fell, her earlier good humour wiped away in an instant.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“You’re right, she is. Maybe tomorrow, if you come back?”
“Maybe.”
I had no idea what tomorrow would bring.
After lunch, I met Harriet’s father. Irvine Carnes ignored me completely, and he barely seemed to register Harriet’s presence either. There were pictures of them together all over the house—the latest taken just a few months ago—but Irvine looked a decade older now. Wispy hair curled over his temples, and his voice was thin, almost inaudible. When he told Dominique they’d be together again soon, Harriet’s eyes glistened, and I couldn’t stop