Pretty Little Wife(16)

Lila gave them a push in another direction. “While you’re checking, you should talk with Aaron’s brother, Jared. He has access to the one bank account that I don’t.”

Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“Jared and Aaron inherited money, though I don’t think that’s the right word for what happened. Either way, it’s in trust.”

“How much money are we talking about?” Pete asked.

“A few million each.”

Ginny didn’t show any outward reaction to the amount. Pete wasn’t quite as careful. His eyes widened. “If anything happens to Aaron, then that money goes to . . . ?”

“Jared. It’s not mine.” Lila almost smiled as she watched the excitement on Pete’s face vanish.

He looked doubtful. “Your husband has millions of dollars and yet he works as a high school teacher?”

“He likes the students.” And she left it at that.

Ginny took over. “Who did he inherit the money from?”

“Freak accident. A group of hunters shot his mother. She was outside, they didn’t see her when they fired, and they killed her.” Lila recited the version she’d heard almost verbatim from both brothers. “The hunters were drunk and rich, and Aaron was only eleven, so Jared would have been not quite thirteen. Part of the settlement—the one their father signed to buy the entire Payne family’s silence and the court signed off on—included sizable accounts for Jared and Aaron.”

“What about their father?”

“The money he received? I have no idea. I never met him.” From what she’d heard about him, that was not a loss. According to family lore, he’d grown up in a minimalist environment with a father who didn’t believe in government or electricity or any comforts.

Even as Aaron’s father grew up and moved out of the charged environment, the drumbeat of disillusionment and violence didn’t leave him. He preached his antisociety beliefs to Aaron and Jared. On those rare occasions when Aaron talked about his father at all, he credited Jared with getting them out of childhood intact and surviving a father he described as practical but brutally mean. The man ruled the house and his wife as a despot and used his hand and belt to drive home lessons.

Lila rarely spared a thought for her father-in-law, except to curse him now and then for being poison and passing a portion of his I’m in charge way of thinking on to his son.

When it came to paternity, neither she nor Aaron had won the jackpot.

“Why haven’t you met you husband’s father?” Ginny asked.

“Seven or eight years after losing his wife, he was walking on the side of the road and got hit by a car. Died after spending days in a coma.”

Pete whistled. “That’s a lot of tragic accidents for one family.”

Exactly. “Yeah, you’re not the first one to think so.”

“Who else did?” Ginny asked.

Lila smiled. “Me.”





Chapter Eight


GINNY WAITED UNTIL THEY WERE OUTSIDE, STANDING AT THE bottom of the long driveway next to her car, before talking again. She wasn’t sure what to make of Lila’s last comment. Pointing the finger at Jared and Aaron . . . but about what?

Pete followed her lead on the silence but beat her to the first comment now that they were alone. That’s what he did. Raced to be the first. He lacked discipline and experience, but you’d never know that, because he wasn’t afraid to speak up. “She’s weird, right? It’s not just me.”

“It’s not.”

“Like, emotionless or something. But very attractive.”

Ginny fought back a groan. Pete didn’t possess an internal filter that signaled when he should just shut up. She used to give her son “the look” when he spouted off the wrong thing at the wrong time. It worked because he generally knew what was okay to say and when. Late into his twenties, Pete had yet to learn those skills.

He started yammering, like he often did. “Look, that face and those stylish clothes. She’s like Old Hollywood. All buttoned-up but yet not really. Reddish hair, sort of . . . it’s a hot look.”

Working with him was exhausting. “Her hair is brown. Circle around to your point, please.”

“She looks like she could break a man in two, if you know what I mean.” When Ginny didn’t show any reaction, Pete shrugged and kept going. “But there’s a bit of a Stepford wife, trophy thing happening. I bet Aaron enjoys showing her off.”

“Do you know how annoying any of what you just spouted off is?” She doubted it.

Ginny had her own assessment. Lila came off as capable and determined. Strong and fully in control. She’d been blessed with a striking face. Pale, perfect skin highlighted by the right shade of red lipstick. A body honed by exercise or surgery or something that worked for her.

She possessed the perfect mix of pretty with a whiff of mystery. Ginny could imagine men at the yacht club falling over themselves to flirt with her, and her not reacting at all. A hard-to-get-and-hard-to-please vibe pulsed around her.

“She doesn’t seem . . .”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “I dread however you’re going to finish that sentence.”

“Real.” He made a humming sound. “Not at all like the cuddle-in-bed type.”