A Bad Boy is Good to Find - By Jennifer Lewis Page 0,3
about to come to an end.”
She shivered involuntarily at the coldness of his tone. Her parents had obviously gone stark raving mad. She lifted her chin and screwed up her courage. “I have to go. I’m marrying Con tomorrow, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. I’m sorry you couldn’t be supportive, but I…I…I…” Tears rose in her throat and she fumbled in her pocket for a tissue.
Her father cleared his throat. “Tomorrow I’ll be indicted for securities fraud. Most likely I shall be convicted. The company is bankrupt. I am bankrupt, and I’m afraid you are too.”
Lizzie blinked. The fiery ball in the sky outside the window stung her eyes. His words made so little sense that it was a full minute before she could muster a reply.
“But didn’t you just say that Hathaway is one of the leading…”
“Stuck in automatic pilot. I should have inserted the word was.”
Silhouetted against the fierce blaze of sun her father suddenly looked like a pathetic shadow.
“Indicted?”
“And imprisoned, most likely.”
“Daddy…” She took a step toward him.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me. I’ve destroyed your mother’s life and now I’ve destroyed yours. I didn’t like that fellow you brought here, but I doubt he’ll want you now you’re poor.”
“Con loves me, though I don’t suppose you can understand that. Besides, my money is in my own name. Grandpa left it to me.”
“You granted me power of attorney. I’m afraid I betrayed your trust.”
She blinked rapidly. The sky darkened as the sun slid behind the tall privet hedge. “It can’t be gone. My advisor would have…”
“Rollins is implicated too. It was meant to be a short-term strategy, just until the market turned around. But the market didn’t turn around.” The growl of his voice trailed off. She couldn’t even see his face in the eerie half-light but his words sank in like poison.
“Oh.” Her own voice sounded strangely disembodied, like it came not from her but from all the expensive antiques, the Aubusson rug, the rare paintings. Or those that were left. She looked up through the gloom to her favorite Degas sketch and found bare wall where the little dancer had always bent over her barre.
Everything’s changed.
She realized she’d slumped and tried to straighten her back. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Her father looked at her. Or at least she thought he did, the room was almost totally dark. Then he laughed, an unearthly cackle that made her jump. She snagged a heel in the carpet then caught her balance on the back of the sofa.
“Do you really think that you could help me? A fat little nobody. The last of the great line of Hathaways.” A vicious laugh hurt her ears as she stood speechless, her gut in turmoil. “You’ve got none of my fire. Probably your mother had an affair with the mailman before you were born.”
He’s gone completely mad. Panic set in and she found herself stepping back, edging toward the threshold of the room. She fled, heels clacking on the marble foyer floor.
As she crunched across the gravel to her car, every second felt stretched, oddly distorted, like her life was suddenly transformed by an evil spell.
She rolled down the windows as she pulled out of the driveway, gasping for air. She heard a dog bark and a car door slam. People in nearby driveways exhaled city fumes and dragged bags from trunks, ready for another ordinary weekend in the Hamptons.
Nothing in her life had ever been ordinary. The curse of the Hathaway fortune had seen to that. She’d been envied and sneered at and sucked up to and snubbed, all because of money she didn’t earn and didn’t want.
And now she didn’t have it any more.
It should feel like a weight off her shoulders. The millstone of millions was finally gone.
So why, as she drove along Main Street, braking in the bumper to bumper Friday-night-in-August traffic, did she feel utterly naked?
Con would understand. He’d hold her and make her feel whole again.
And tomorrow they’d be married and start a new life.
Wouldn’t they?
Chapter 2
Lizzie was shaking by the time she got back uptown. She parked her car in the garage under her apartment building and dropped her keys getting out. She fumbled around in the dark looking for them on the ground and scraped her knuckles on the cement.
How would he react? He loved her and wanted to marry her, yes, but would he be disappointed that she didn’t come with the brass ring?