Page 201 of Charming Deception

“What do you mean?”

“This secret… Only my siblings are allowed to know. But there’s one other person who knows about it. I ran into her at the resort tonight, and it hit me. That I could ask her to tell you. She was… how do I put this? The love of my grandfather’s life, I suppose.”

“But your grandmother is deceased,” I say, confused.

“She is. And it pains me to tell you this because I don’t want you to think I take after my grandfather this way. But I mentioned to you that he cheated on my grandmother. It was even worse than that. In truth, he had a lifetime affair with his secretary. Her name is Valerie, and she’s here, right now. My siblings are bound to not tell this secret, ever. So Valerie is the only one who can.”

“So… you want me… to let some woman I’ve never met, your grandfather’s mistress, tell me the secret you’ve been keeping from me?”

“Uh… yeah. When you lay it out like that, it sounds terrible. And I should probably just have Locke drive her home now.”

“Are you kidding me? Send her in.”

“Really?” Jameson seems stunned. “You want to hear her out?”

“Seriously? I want all her stories. Go get her. I’m putting on tea.”

Finally, his shock dissolves. A faint smirk quirks his lips. “Actually, knowing Valerie, she’d prefer a brandy.”

“Brandy, coming right up.” I hurry behind the bar to get the woman a drink, sifting through bottles. “Where is she?”

“She’s in my office.”

“Well, let’s not leave the woman waiting.”

* * *

I sit in my little office, off Jameson’s office, where I said yes to his proposal. My head’s kind of throbbing with all the information Valerie just gave me.

She’s just left. Clara came to walk her out.

Valerie was polite with me, very formal, and not at all what I might’ve pictured.

She wasn’t beautiful in that way that told you she’d been a stunning-looking woman in her youth. She was rather plain and straightforward. Neatly dressed in a modest skirt and blouse with a cardigan.

The great love of billionaire Stoddard Vance’s life… was fascinating.

I’d seen pictures of his wife. She was beautiful. She was the mother of his two sons, the grandmother of his five grandchildren. What was it about his secretary that had captured his heart? Was it just that they were in such close proximity, that he relied on her day to day, and they’d formed a bond?

No. It had to be more than that. Jameson told me just before he introduced us that his granddad had left Valerie a billion-dollar portion of his estate.

I hear the office door open and get to my feet, walking to meet Jameson when I see him step in and close the door. We meet in the middle of his office, in front of the elegant sofa I flung mud all over.

“She told you?” he asks. I can see his tension.

I take his hands. “She told me everything. About the game, and your challenge.” I squeeze his hands. “And you can relax. All it did was make me like you more.”

“God.” He exhales with relief.

I raise an eyebrow. “Though I now know why you warned me about your family.”

Jameson puts his hand on the side of my neck, his thumb running over my jaw. “Yeah.”

“I can’t believe one of your siblings did that to you.”

“It was Graysen.”

“Really? Why?”

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