Harvest Moon (Virgin River #15)(61)

“I didn’t send this.”

“I realize that now,” he said.

“Olivia came to see me, at work. She thought we were sleeping together and asked me to stop. She told me you sent her, that she was often sent to clean up your messes, that you wouldn’t be taking my calls any longer, that you were finished with me.”

“So I’m told,” he said. “I learned this very recently.”

“Luca, I tried calling you, sending you texts, emails. I even got in touch with Shannon to get a message to you! You should have come to the restaurant.”

“Oh, I did that, of course. The very next day. I was told you took some time off for personal reasons, for a family emergency. Something about going out of town to help a family member. I was promised a phone call when either Durant or Phillipe heard from you. I knew your only family was your sister, but I also knew she had moved to some small town and was no longer in the area. I continued to try to reach you, and finally, after a very frustrating two weeks, I went to your flat to confront you. But you were gone.”

“What about my emails to you?”

“Shannon, obviously taking her instruction from Olivia, screened my mail on the office computer and deleted anything from you. When I looked for email on my phone, there was no new message from you. It never once occurred to me to check deleted emails. We were tricked.”

“How did you find out?” she asked him.

“I found your phone in Phillipe’s desk. I was using his office recently, was looking for a ruler to line my paper, and found this.” He put a hand on the phone.

“Why, Luca? Why did Olivia do this? How did she do this?”

“She had far more control of the business than I ever realized. I didn’t know she controlled so many of my people. She was obviously threatened by the prospect of anyone ever replacing her, both in her business and social stature. Bella, everything I told you was true—we’ve been living separately under the same roof for twenty years. We were always on the best of terms. I thought she was devoted to our business even if she wasn’t in love with me. And yes, we were trying to negotiate a divorce. I thought we were doing so amicably. Certainly she was asking me for the earth, but I had no problem with that—I’m a fair man and she’s the mother of my children. Even if her motivation was strictly selfish, there was little doubt she worked like a crazy woman, both as my partner in business and as head of our family.” He shrugged. “I’m old-fashioned. It was always my intention to see she was taken care of.”

“But she said there were other women! That there were children outside your marriage!”

“Women, yes—my marriage was over and sometimes I was lonely. From time to time, with the greatest of discretion, my eye wandered. But not for a long time, Bella, I promise you. And there were never children.” He shook his head. “So many lies.”

“Unbelievable. What if I hadn’t left the restaurant? We’d have found her out!”

He laughed remorsefully. “We’d only have learned that she tried to drive you away by lying to you and asking you to end our friendship. She would have played the desperate, injured wife. She’s been making excuses about not feeling the divorce was right, that we should continue as we were for the sake of the family, but I wouldn’t go along with that idea. I never found my phone—I’m sure it’s at the bottom of a river. It was finding your phone that pried open all the lies. One confession led to the next.”

“Who confessed first?”

He lifted a brow. “Who do you suspect? Phillipe, of course. Under the threat of losing his position and never finding another one in the Bay Area. Next it was young Shannon, in a flood of tears. Then some of the accounting staff admitted they answered to Olivia. Durant was also her man. That doesn’t even account for household staff.”

“What did you do to Phillip?” she asked.

“Oh, I fired him on the spot. He accused me of not keeping my word and I confessed that he was right.” He grinned a bit evilly. “But not until he told me where he mailed your last check. How could I keep a man like that around? He’d sell me to the devil!”

“Olivia said she lifted your phone from the nightside table…”

“No, Bella. I don’t have proof of this, but I believe I left it in the car. We were riding into the city together and I remember using it en route. Shortly afterward I couldn’t find it and had the driver tear the car apart in search of it.”

Kelly rested her forehead in her hand. “She must have worked very quickly after that,” Kelly said.

“Very quickly, with Phillipe agreeing to steal your phone from your purse while she talked to you in his office.”

Kelly laughed lightly. “And shortly after that, I was taken out of the kitchen on a stretcher!”

“What?!” Luca said, sitting forward with a shocked look on his face.

“It didn’t have all that much to do with you, or with Olivia for that matter. Her visit was a blow, but at that point I didn’t even know my phone was gone. I thought it fell out of my purse in the kitchen.”

“Bella, what happened to you?” he asked, grasping her hands.

“Oh, Luca, I wasn’t going to survive in that kitchen. The stress was too much. I’m not as stubborn or hard-headed as you are—Durant was eating me alive and Phillip was constantly conspiring against me. And that was before either of them knew our friendship was special.” She gave a shrug. “I crashed in the kitchen. Grabbed my chest, could hardly breathe, passed out cold.”