Page 94 of Owned By a Billionaire

“Hey,” Declan snapped with authority. “Calm down.”

“I won’t calm down until I’ve spoken to her.” Natalia pointed her finger at me.

“Then you better step in there and lower your tone,” I said. After directing the agitated woman into my office, I turned to Declan. “Stay.”

Manon, standing close by, came in as well.

“Not her,” Natalia demanded.

I nodded at my granddaughter, who rolled her eyes and left.

“Won’t you sit?” I gestured at the armchair by my desk.

Natalia sat and crossed her legs, which were somewhat constricted in a skintight skirt. While she might have just inherited an empire, Natalia had yet to learn about the dress code of the super-rich.

She slammed a letter down on my desk. “I’m sure you had him murdered,” she announced.

“I think that’s for law enforcement to decide,” Declan said.

She turned and gave him a pointed look before returning her attention to me. “He wrote this, which I’m sure the police will be interested in. I’ve made copies.”

She’d brought the original, which wasn’t smart, but I wasn’t about to educate her on how to run an empire.

The letter read:

To whom it may concern.

Should I be murdered, as I imagine there are some that want to see me dead, this posthumous letter reveals some hidden truths about Caroline Lovechilde.

I took a breath and paused. That bastard had apparently decided to take me with him.

Caroline Lovechilde, or Carol Lamb, as she was known, killed Alice Ponting. I just cleaned up her mess. This tragic event enabled her to marry into one of the UK’s richest families. Alice was Harry Lovechilde’s fiancé.

As someone who didn’t miss opportunities, I made a pact with the newly married Caroline Lovechilde that I would take a parcel of land, namely the ground where Elysium resort now sits, and the adjoining farmland, in return for my silence.

I pledge that the transfer should continue accordingly into the name of my lawful wife. Or, as the bearer of this letter, which contains dates and necessary details as proof, Natalia Crisp has enough evidence to see that Caroline Lovechilde be charged with the murder of Harry Lovechilde’s intended wife.

I set the letter down and stared Natalia in the face. “It will be his word against mine.”

Natalia rose and stood over my desk. “That’s bullshit and you know it. You did it, just as he said.”

“Calm down,” Declan said, before looking at me with a question in his eyes.

Natalia scowled. “You’re no better than any of us. Even worse, because you murdered your dead husband’s fiancé and that’s why you’ve been living the highlife here in Downton Abbey all these years.”

Her words acted like a whip on naked skin. I winced as she exposed my long-held secret and unleashed a monster despite Reynard Crisp’s fake version of events. The self-confessed atheist clearly didn’t believe in judgement by taking his lies with him to the grave.

Declan had gone pale. He turned to Natalia. “I need a word with my mother. Alone.”

Lifting her chin with insolence, she tottered in her skyscraper heels to the door. “The transfer will go ahead, and then I will destroy the letter.”

I slumped back in my chair, fixated on the letter before me, scrawled by a man educated on the streets rather than at school where clean handwriting was as fundamental as the basic alphabet.

All kinds of thoughts flooded my brain, like how I’d been duped as a teenager into believing the man was suave and sophisticated when his only talent was masquerading as a man of the world.

“Is it true?” Declan asked.

“I didn’t kill Alice.” I went to the window, where a menacing sky revealed nature’s unrest. Gulls struggled through turbulent winds, just like the gale-force emotions pushing me around.

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