Now You See Her Linda Howard(49)

"That's enough," Richard snapped, wrapping his arm around Sweeney and bodily moving her out of Candra's reach. He moved so his own body completely blocked hers.

"Oh, don't worry," Candra sneered. "I'm too adult to brawl over a man, though that's probably what you were used to before you met me. Isn't that what your beer-swilling, country-fried little southern girls do?"

Sweeney cleared her throat. "Actually," she said to Richard's back, "I was born in Italy."

"Who gives a fuck where you were born!" Candra screamed. Sweeney peeked around Richard's back and saw tears running down Candra's face, ruining her perfect makeup. "You're an unsophisticated hayseed, so he should feel very comfortable with you! But I promise you, you'll never sell another piece of work at my gallery, and no one else in town will touch you either after I—"

Sweeney felt Richard's temper snap. He took a single step toward Candra as the elevator lurched to a stop and the doors slid open. Her face blanching, Candra backed away from him.

"You're damn right I feel comfortable with her," he said in a tone so low Sweeney could barely hear him. "You don't know how great it feels to be with a woman who doesn't crawl into bed with every swinging dick she meets, the way you did. Yeah, I knew about all your men, every one of them, but you know what? I didn't give a damn, because I didn't give a damn about you. I do give a damn that you aborted my baby, though. Do you know what hate means, Candra? That's the best I feel about you.

I warned you what I would do if you did anything to harm Sweeney's career, and I meant it, so you'd better think long and hard about any step you take."

He towed Sweeney out of the elevator and clamped his arm around her waist again. He had taken two steps when he halted and swung back to Candra. "By the way, I've just added another condition to the settlement. Sweeney is released from any agreement with the gallery, without penalty, effective immediately."

"Damn you, you can't keep adding conditions—"

"I can, and I have. Your only hope of getting the gallery is if you meet those conditions. If not, within three days you won't have to worry about Sweeney's career, because I'll replace you at the gallery and bar you from the premises."

"I'll kill you if you do," Candra shrieked, sobbing. The only other people in the small lobby were the super and a guy who lived on the second floor, but they were staring, not wanting to miss a second of the excitement. "The gallery is mine—"

"No," Richard interrupted. "The gallery is mine. Until you sign those papers the gallery is mine, and if you wait much longer, it will always be mine."




Chapter 12


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Richard ushered Sweeney out onto the sidewalk, leaving Candra weeping in the lobby. He had driven himself, she saw as he led her down the street to where he had parked the Mercedes. The neighborhood wasn't the best, sort of residential going-to-seed, but neither was it the sort where such a car left parked on the street would be stripped bare within ten minutes.

They were both silent as he unlocked the car and opened the passenger door for her. She got in, trying to think what she could say. She had just learned more about Candra, and the reasons for their divorce, than she had ever wanted to know. She was a little shaken, but more for Richard's sake than her own.

He pulled the car out into traffic. "I'm sorry," he said gruffly, after another minute of silence. "I know one of the reasons you didn't want to get involved with me was because you wanted to avoid scenes like that."

"It wasn't your fault; it was hers." The traffic light ahead of them turned green. She looked down at her hands. "I'm sorry, too. About—about the abortion. I didn't know."

"She did it over two years ago," His mouth was a grim line. "I didn't find out about it until right after you moved to the city. I put her out of the town house right then, and filed for divorce the next day."

"You wanted children?" Stupid, she berated herself. Of course he had wanted the child, even after the fact, or he wouldn't have been so upset on learning about the abortion.

"Not by then. Not with her. Her pregnancy was an accident. But once she was pregnant—that was different. It existed. It was my child."

Sweeney couldn't imagine being Richard's wife and aborting his child. She had never thought of children in relation to herself, period. She especially couldn't imagine her father caring what happened to any of his offspring, unborn or born. "How did you find out?"

"She told me. We were arguing, she was drinking—she told me."

The second traffic light turned green as they approached. He glanced at her. "I think I need you in the car with me from now on."

Understanding that he needed to change the subject, she relaxed back against the seat. "Where are we going?"

"To a little diner I know, nothing fancy."

"Good. I don't do fancy very well."

The little diner was across the river in New Jersey. They made it to and through the Holland tunnel in record time, which made Sweeney feel a little smug. If he had doubted her about the traffic lights, he couldn't now.

They managed to snag a booth in the diner, which couldn't have changed much since the 1950s. Over eggs and coffee she said, "I thought the gallery was Candra's."