LITMIR.BIZ

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      Her father’s hands shook as he grasped the cashier’s check. Seeing the amount, his eyes filled with visible relief. “Thank God.”

      “How could you?” She wanted to shake her father and scream at him for what he’d done. “How could you sell me?”

      “Sell you?” Her father looked up incredulously. “I didn’t sell you!” Struggling to untangle himself from his blanket, he rose from his chair and sat beside her on the sofa. “I figured the two of you would talk and soon realize how you’d been set up. I thought you’d both have a good laugh, and it would be easier for you each to get over your pride. Maybe he’d send money, maybe he wouldn’t.” His voice cracked. “But either way, you’d be together again. The two of you love each other.”

      “You did it for love.” Letty’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “So the fact that you read about Darius’s billion-dollar deal this morning had nothing to do with it.”

      He winced at her sarcasm, then looked down at the floor. His voice trembled a little as he said, “I guess I thought there was no harm in also trying to solve a problem of my own with a...dissatisfied customer.”

      Glaring at him, Letty opened her mouth to say the cruel words he deserved to hear. Words she’d never be able to take back. Words neither one of them would ever be able to forget. Words that would take her anguish and rage, wrap them up into a tight ball and launch them at her father like a grenade.

      Then she looked at him, old and forlorn, sitting beside her on the sagging sofa. The man she’d once admired and still absolutely loved.

      His hair had become white and wispy, barely covering his spotted scalp. His face, once so hearty and handsome, was gaunt with deep wrinkles on his cheeks. He’d shrunk, become thin and bowed. His robe was too big on him now. His near decade in prison had aged him thirty years.

      Howard Spencer, a middle-class kid from Oklahoma, had come to New York and built a fortune with only his charm and a good head for numbers. He’d fallen in love with Constance Langford, the only daughter of an old aristocratic family on Long Island. The Langfords had little money left beyond the Fairholme estate, which was in hock up to the eyeballs. But Howard Spencer, delirious with happiness at their marriage, had assured Constance she’d never worry about money again.

      He’d kept his promise. While his wife had been alive, he’d been careful and smart and lucky with his investment fund. It was only after his wife’s sudden death that he’d become reckless, taking bigger and bigger financial risks, until his once respected hedge fund became a hollowed-out Ponzi scheme, and suddenly eight billion dollars were gone.

      The months of Howard’s arrest and trial had been awful for Letty, and worrying about him in prison had been even worse. But now, as she looked at the old man he’d somehow become, was the worst of all.

      As she looked at his slumped shoulders, his heartbroken eyes—at his broken arm, still hanging uselessly in the cast—she felt her anger evaporate, leaving in its place only grief and despair. Her mouth snapped shut.

      Slumping forward, she covered her face with her hands.

      The memory of Darius’s words floated back to her. You needed to pay off some mobster who’d broken your father’s arm and threatened to break his whole body if he didn’t come up with a hundred thousand dollars within the week.

      Chilled, she looked up. “Why didn’t you tell me someone broke your arm, Dad? Why did you let me think it was an accident?”

      Howard looked down at the floor guiltily. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

      “Worry?” she cried.

      His wan cheeks turned pink. “A father’s supposed to take care of his daughter, not the other way around.”

      “So it’s true? Some thug broke your arm and threatened you if you didn’t pay him back his money?”

      “I knew I could handle it.” He tried to smile. “And I have. Once I sign over this check, everything will be fine.”

      “How do you know you won’t have more thugs demanding money, once it’s known you actually paid someone back?”

      Her father looked shocked. “No. Most of the people who invested in my fund were good, civilized people. Not violent!”

      Letty ground her teeth. For a man who’d been in a minimum-security federal prison for nine years, he could be surprisingly naive.

      “You should have told me.”

      “Why? What would you have done except worry? Or worse—try to talk to the man yourself and put yourself in danger?” He set his jaw. “Like I said, I didn’t know if Darius would actually send the money. But I knew, either way, you would be safe because you’d be with him.” He shook his head, trying to smile. “I really thought you and Darius would take one look at each other and be happy again.”

      Letty sagged back against the sofa cushions. Her father’d really thought he was doing her a favor. That he was reuniting her with a lost love. That he was protecting her, saving her.

      She whispered bleakly, “Darius thought I was a gold digger.”

      Howard looked indignant. “Of course he didn’t! Once you told him you hadn’t sent the message...”

      “He didn’t believe me.”

      “Then...then...he must have believed you were just a good daughter looking out for your father. Darius has so much money now, you can’t tell me he’ll miss such a small amount. Not after everything you did for him!”

      “Stop,” she choked out. Just remembering how Darius had looked at her when he handed her the cashier’s check was enough to make her want to die. But after he’d told her about the threat against her father’s life, what choice had she had?

      Her father looked bewildered. “Didn’t you tell him what happened ten years ago? Why you never ran away with him?”

      She flinched as she remembered Darius’s acid words. Go on, Letty. Tell me how your betrayal was actually a favor. Explain how you destroyed my family at great personal sacrifice, because you loved me so much.

      “No,” she whispered, “and I never will. Darius doesn’t love me. He hates me more than ever.”

      Howard’s wrinkled face looked mournful. “Oh, sweetheart.”

      “But now I hate him, too.” She looked up. “That’s the one good thing that happened tonight. Now I hate him, too.”

      Her father looked anguished. “That was never what I wanted!”

      “It’s good.” Wiping her eyes, she tried to smile. “I’ve wasted too many years dreaming of him. Missing him. I’m done.”

      She was.

      The Darius Kyrillos she’d loved no longer existed. She saw that now. She’d tried to give him everything, and he’d seduced her with a cold heart. Her love for Darius was burned out of her forever. Her only hope was to try to forget.

      But four weeks later, she found out how impossible that would be. She’d never be able to forget Darius Kyrillos now.

      She was pregnant with his baby.

      She’d taken the pregnancy test, sure it would be negative. When it was positive, she was shocked. But shock soon became a happy daze as Letty imagined a sweet fat baby in her arms, to cuddle and adore.

      Then she told her father.

      “I’m going to be a grandfather?” Howard was enraptured at the news. “That’s wonderful! And when you tell Darius—”

      That caused the first chill of fear. Because Letty suddenly recalled this baby wouldn’t just be hers, but Darius’s.

      He hated her.

      He’d threatened to take her baby from her.

      Letty

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