A Bad Boy is Good to Find(3)

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?

Who wouldn’t be?

She found the keys and shoved them into her pocketbook. She wouldn’t need them to open the door since she’d left Con in her bed watching movies. It was nearly midnight after her long drive back from the Island, and she’d bet money—if she had any—that he’d still be there, warm and welcoming, crumpled sheets the only cover on his muscled body.

Con was always there for her. Never too busy to see her, to hold her, to massage her tight shoulders and cook a gourmet dinner with her. When she told her cousin Maisie about him she’d laughed and said he sounded too good to be true, and for once Lizzie had been the smug one. After two years of hearing about Maisie’s engagement to Dwight the Perfect Fiancé and all the boring details of their years-in-the-planning wedding, it was a delicious coup to announce “I’m getting married on Friday.” She didn’t need napkins hand-embroidered with their entwined initials to declare her love for Con.

The elevator jerked to a stop on the eleventh floor and prickles of anxiety crept over her. How would she tell him?

Thick carpet absorbed the sound of her high heels in the eerily silent hallway. The apartment was in her father’s name. She’d have to move.

She and Con would find a new home together. In a nice friendly neighborhood. Not this snooty Upper East Side co-op where you had to have old money to get past the board. Maybe they’d even get a house? Not a big fancy one, but somewhere pretty and comfortable, just for them. She and Con shared the same taste in everything.

Except olives. She liked them, he didn’t.

She rapped on the door with her knuckles, trying to ignore the cantaloupe-sized knot forming in her stomach. She could make out the sound of the TV through the door, and her breathing quickened as she heard it flick off, followed by the tap of bare feet on the parquet.

Maybe she imagined that. How could you hear bare feet through a solid door?

I’m not an heiress any more. Sorry.

She heard the lock slide back and the door opened. Con smiled at her with that lopsided grin that sent her heart skittering every time.

“I missed you.” His voice and those dark sleepy eyes were just what she needed. She stepped over the threshold and threw her arms around him. He responded instantly, wrapping himself around her, holding her tight—so tight—absorbing all the stress and hurt that dogged her.

With her head on his chest and his strong arms around her back, she felt safe. Everything was going to be okay.

“That bad, huh?”

It had been her idea to go tell her parents about their planned wedding. He’d wanted to get married and deal with the fallout later. He knew he hadn’t made a top-notch impression on them last week, though neither of them could figure out why.

They’d decided to get married right away, with a minimum of pomp and ceremony. To make it just about them and their commitment to each other. They didn’t have anything to prove.