Page 116 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
“You’re a smart girl, and your love life is none of my business. So I’ll say this, then I’ll say no more.” Her gaze grows intense and a little frightening. She says darkly, “The egg does not swim to the sperm. Never chase a man. It goes against nature. If you want him, let him chase you until you catch him.”
She pulls herself up to her full height of four-feet-eleven inches and sniffs. “And no more sex in the dressing rooms. Who do you think has to clean in there?”
She turns on her heel, calling over her shoulder, “If you want to meet a good man, read a book! Now let’s get back to work!”
When I get home that night, the house is eerily dark and quiet. I flick on the light in the kitchen and find a note from Lorenzo on the small white pad near the telephone. It says the marchesa has gone to Milan in advance of Fashion Week as she does every season. There’s a phone number where they can be reached in case of emergency and the name of a swanky hotel.
“The plot thickens,” I mutter. A few weeks in Milan isn’t cheap, especially with a butler and two dogs in tow. She’d need connecting suites in the hotel . . . Unless she and Lorenzo are sharing a room.
I realize with a jolt I never asked where Lorenzo sleeps. Probably because he never seems to. As far as I know, all the second-floor guest rooms are still closed off, as they have been for years. Does he sleep in the attic?
Ten minutes later, I have my answer. The second-floor rooms are still closed off, and no one has slept in the attic for years. There’s a layer of dust on top of the dresser, the bedcovers smell musty, and judging by the droppings on the floor, a family of rodents is the only resident.
I trudge downstairs to my bedroom, lost in thought and aching to talk to Matteo.
Instead, I spend an hour online playing amateur detective. I hit the mother lode when I find a website offering title reports on Italian properties, but the kicker is the cost for the report and the wait: two hundred bucks and two days.
I already maxed out my credit card for the plane ticket I didn’t use to get here, but there is one other option. From my purse, I pull out my shiny new Amex card in the name of Mrs. Bradley Hamilton Wingate III and stare at it.
“It’s stealing,” I say to the empty room. Or is it a small form of payback?
Probably stealing. I text Brad that I’m going to charge two hundred dollars on the card. It isn’t a question. And I don?
??t think it can technically be considered theft if I tell him about it in advance.
He texts me back that there’s a fifty-thousand-dollar credit limit, so I should knock myself out.
That brings a dangerous smile to my face. Fifty thousand. Good to know.
I order the report, then call Dominic. He picks up after the first ring.
“Hello, tesoro. How are you feeling?”
Impatient to get to the point, I bypass a polite greeting. “I have to ask you something, and I need you to be completely honest with me.”
After a short pause, Dominic says, “Of course. Anything.”
“How much money did my father lend you?”
I was going to ask about the marchesa first, but decided at the last second to go with the money angle. I have an idea of what to say if he denies it.
Which he does. Vehemently.
“Your father never lent me money! Where did you get such an idea? Did that horrible woman tell you that?”
He sounds overly outraged and offended, the way guilty people do when charged with the truth. But his tone is proof of nothing. Unfortunately, there’s only one way to get to the bottom of this, and it’s with a white lie.
“I found a ledger my father kept.”
I leave it at that, trusting Dominic’s imagination to fill in the blanks.
I hold my breath, waiting for his answer with my heart in my throat. Finally he says, “I don’t know anything about that.”
Now his tone is flat and unequivocal, but there’s something off about it. Something that makes me want to dig a little more. “That’s very interesting because there’s a lot of information here about dates, loan amounts . . .”
Convince me, Dominic. Tell me it’s not true. Tell me you loved my father, you never took money from him, and I can trust you.
The moment I hear his heavy sigh, I know he’s giving up the ruse of innocence, and my stomach falls.
