Now You See Her Linda Howard(50)

"She ran it. I own it."



"You were going to buy one of my paintings from your own gallery? And pay commission?"

He shrugged. "If Candra doesn't sign the papers by the deadline and I keep the gallery, commission doesn't come into it. She'll sign, though. It's in her best interest."

"What if she doesn't? She was furious to find you with me, and she might make the divorce as difficult as possible."

"I'd break her," he said softly. "She wouldn't have a dime left, and she knows it."

Something else occurred to her. "I wonder why she was going to my apartment."

"She isn't stupid, and she knows me too well. She could tell I was interested in you, that day in the gallery, and she figured it out almost immediately. A few days ago she came to the town house and made an offer: if I upped the settlement amount, she wouldn't prevent any future sales of your work.

She didn't like my counter offer."

"I can imagine." And she could; Richard would make a dangerous enemy. "But still, why come to me?"

"To ask you to convince me to raise the settlement."

"Then why act so shocked to see us together, if she already thought we were involved?"

"Until then, she was just guessing. And thinking I was interested in you isn't the same as seeing us together so early in the morning, at your apartment."

Not to mention Candra had immediately realized Richard's presence thwarted her plan to ask Sweeney for assistance. Sweeney said, "I've made things more difficult for you, haven't I?"

"By existing? Yeah, you have." He eyed her over the table. "You keep me awake nights, you worry me, you drive me crazy."

She nudged his leg with her toe. "I'm serious."

"So am I, sweetie."

She frowned at him, diverted. "You're saying my name funny. What're you doing to it?"

"Nothing," he said, but he smiled.

Deciding she wasn't going to get anything out of him right now, Sweeney looked out the window of the diner, indulging herself for a moment by watching faces. A stooped old man, with tufts of hair on his ears and in his nostrils, walked by holding the hand of a chattering preschooler, a little girl wearing a dainty yellow sundress and a perky ponytail. The indulgent smile on his face shouted "grandfather."

Or maybe "great-grandfather." Next was a young woman carrying her toddler in a backpack. She strode along as if she had a world to conquer, but she had tied a red balloon to the frame of the backpack and the baby's chubby little hand had managed to grab the string; he was staring in wonder at the balloon, which bobbed every time he moved. His eyes were round, his lips a perfect pink bow, and his cornsilk hair stood straight out like a dandelion. Sweeney watched until they were out of sight.

She applied herself to her eggs for a moment, then snorted as she remembered something.

"What?" Richard said, and she marveled at how fast they had settled into the shorthand communication of longtime couples.

" 'Beer-swilling, country-fried little southern girls,' " she said, and they both began laughing.

Candra couldn't stop crying, even though she knew it was stupid. She caught a taxi to the gallery, blubbering all the while. The cabdriver kept eyeing her f the mirror, but he didn't speak much English and she made it a point not to encourage chatty cabdrivers anyway.

She had one tissue in her purse, and it was inadequate for the repair job needed. She blotted her eyes instead of wiping them, to keep from destroying the remnants of her makeup, but more damn tears kept falling.

Damn him. Damn Sweeney. Damn both of them, for looking so… so together. She couldn't believe Sweeney, of all people, could be so sly and sneaky, or could lie so effectively. When Candra remembered her phone call to Sweeney the morning after the McMillan fiasco, she burned with humiliation. Richard had probably been with her then; they might have just gotten out of bed, and afterward they had laughed probably about the phone call.

Candra hurt, in a way she had never imagined she could hurt. Until now, though she had known she had lost him, in a way he had still been hers, because no one else had taken her place. Now someone had, and she knew, finally, irrevocably, deep in her bones, that Richard was gone. She had lost him, thrown him away, and she would never love anyone else the way she loved him. Still loved him, even now. He was the strongest person she had ever known and she couldn't stop admiring him even when that strength was turned against her. Was Sweeney capable of understanding, of appreciating what she had, or was she so damn inexperienced she had no idea?

That inexperience was what had drawn Richard to her, of course, because God knows she had no style, and her conversation often bordered on the absurd. He had even admitted as much. Candra couldn't understand what men saw in her, but even Kai said Sweeney was "cool." She was pretty enough, Candra supposed, if you could overlook the fact that she often had paint in her hair and didn't know what day of the week it was.

She couldn't imagine Richard finding that attractive. He was so organized, so logical and work-oriented, she would have thought Sweeney would drive him mad within two days.

Her nails dug into her palms. Today Sweeney had… glowed. Candra closed her eyes against the remembered shock of stepping out of the elevator and seeing Richard and Sweeney together. Sweeney wore the look of a woman who had been well and truly loved the night before, and perhaps that morning, too—and, knowing Richard, several times during the night.