When She Dreams (Burning Cove #6)(30)
Satisfied, Maggie slipped into the front seat. “Excellent.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam asked.
“I like the we’re looking for a connection. I think we are developing a true working relationship, don’t you? A partnership.”
Sam got behind the wheel. “I was afraid of that.”
Chapter 14
This is a fucking disaster.” Arthur Guilfoyle took a long, deep swallow of his scotch and soda, lowered the glass, and sucked in a breath. “The news of Nevins’s death will be in the local papers tomorrow. What are we going to do? We’ll be ruined.”
“Calm down,” Dolores said. She picked up the silver lighter on the coffee table and lit her cigarette, giving herself a moment to decide how to handle Arthur’s seething panic. It wasn’t the first time he had lost his nerve at the hint of a crisis. He was an actor, after all—high-strung, impulsive, easily rattled. “The death of Miss Nevins is unfortunate. However—”
“Unfortunate? It could destroy me.”
Us, Dolores corrected silently. It could destroy us. Arthur had a way of forgetting they were a team. Yes, he was the star of the show, but she was the producer and director. It was her inheritance that was paving the way into the big time for the Guilfoyle Institute and the Method.
She walked to the window of the villa and looked out over the moonlit Pacific. The private villa was on the grounds of the Institute. It had originally been one of four lavish guesthouses. Designed in the same Spanish Colonial style as the main building, it was perched high on the cliffs overlooking the restless waves that lashed the rocks below.
There had been only enough money to remodel two of the guest villas. The others were still empty and shuttered. The villas and the rest of the estate were her inheritance, the birthright that had long been denied her because the bastard who had fathered her had refused to recognize his illegitimate daughter.
Carson Flint had planned to leave Summer House to his legitimate son and heir. But Carson Flint the Second had succeeded in killing himself on a motorcycle shortly before his father died. Distraught at the realization that he had no legal heir, Carson had done what any self-centered mogul would do—he had left all of his worldly possessions to his only surviving offspring. She might be illegitimate, but at least his blood ran in her veins.
Sadly, while Flint had not been wiped out by the crash, he had lost a large portion of his fortune in the Depression that had followed. In addition to the run-down estate, Dolores had received barely enough money to renovate the main building and the two guest villas. From now on, the Institute had to start paying for itself.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said, careful to use a soothing, reassuring tone. What she really wanted to do was scream at Arthur. “There will be a small mention of a tragic event here at the Institute, but that will be the end of it. Trust me, the death of a woman from out of town—a nobody—is not front-page material. It’s not as if Beverly Nevins was a movie star or the daughter of a tycoon.”
“You’d better be right.”
Some of the panic was seeping out of Arthur. Dolores considered how to move on to the disturbing questions that had been raised that evening. She decided to go with a straightforward approach.
“Were you sleeping with her, Arthur?” she said. “Was she one of your devoted acolytes?”
“No.” Arthur sputtered on a mouthful of scotch and soda. “I never met the woman until tonight, when she came through the reception line. I forgot her name as soon as she was introduced.”
Dolores decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Arthur’s movie-star looks combined with his talent for seduction and his promise to help a woman access the psychic side of her dreams was irresistible. Hell, back at the start she had leaped into bed with him, just like all the others over the years.
Eventually the novelty of their affair had worn off for Arthur, but by then he had found her useful because she had a head for business, and he knew he desperately needed a business manager.
Eighteen months ago she had come into her inheritance. That had cemented the relationship as nothing else could have done. Arthur had begged her to marry him. She had agreed because she had discovered he was as useful to her as she was to him. His gift for seduction was not limited to individuals. Arthur could seduce an entire audience. His talent had never translated to film, but it was amazing to behold in person.
His acting ability combined with a complete lack of conscience made him a consummate liar, but she was almost certain he was not lying tonight. She did not need to watch his face to know when he was trying to con her. They had been together long enough for her to be able to hear the truth or lack thereof in his voice. He was definitely unnerved by Beverly Nevins’s death. He was far more concerned with the future of the Institute than with covering up a meaningless affair.
And they were all meaningless. That was the one thing she could be sure of when it came to Arthur. No woman mattered to him, not for long. He was the most self-absorbed individual she had ever met. Astonishingly, his lovers, including her, never realized that until he lost interest in them. When that happened—and sooner or later he always lost interest—it was as if he had switched off a light. Probably a tribute to his acting talent.
“You heard the doctor,” Arthur said. “The Nevins woman might have died of an overdose.”