“And he got lonely.”
“That’s not what happened,” she said irritably. “The thing is, Jim and Lena had made out their wills years before, when Seth and Tamzin were little. Like most couples, they made each other their total beneficiaries, leaving it to the surviving spouse to figure out what to leave to the kids. Even though Jim went on to make a huge fortune, he had a blind spot when it came to his will and they had never updated it. When Lena died, he realized he had to change the will, but when he looked at his kids he didn’t like what he saw.”
“Neither did anyone else,” Cam said drily. “Still don’t.”
“We’re in total agreement there.” Especially since Seth was the only person on their suspect list. “Anyway, he was in the process of setting up their trust funds when he found out he had advanced cancer. He’d always hoped Seth would wake up, settle down, and start taking an interest in the company, but when he found out he was dying he knew he couldn’t afford to give Seth any more time. So he hatched this plan.”
“Let me guess.”
“Oh, please do.”
He made an amused sound in his throat at her sarcastic tone. “You’re a tough cookie, you know that? That’s probably why he picked you. Okay, here goes: he wanted to hire you to oversee their trust funds, but knowing you’d have to deal with Seth and Tamzin for the rest of your life, you charged so much that the only way he could afford you was to marry you.”
She went from being annoyed to laughing, because, oh, if she’d only known! “I wish I’d been that smart. But you’re sort of on the right track. Remember, Jim was a manipulator. He was always juggling this and dangling that, pulling on a thread over here, tossing a bone over there. He couldn’t help it; that was his basic personality. He didn’t have any hope for Tamzin, but he never gave up on Seth. He thought that if he married me and gave me control of their trust funds, Seth would be so humiliated and outraged that he’d see the light and turn his life around.”
“Yeah, that worked out real well. If Seth’s seen a light, it was the one above the bar in his favorite nightclub.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, and sighed. “If Seth started acting like a mature adult, then I was supposed to turn over control of the trust funds to him—but Seth couldn’t know about that part of the arrangement. Jim said Seth was smart enough he could fake whatever he had to fake long enough to get control, then revert back to his old self. Jim was sure this would work. So far, it hasn’t.”
“He didn’t have to marry you,” Cam pointed out. “He could have handled all of this simply by the way he set up the funds.”
“Marrying me was part of the stick he used to beat Seth into shape, though. If I was just a trustee of the fund, in the background, Seth might be pissed about it but he wouldn’t be humiliated. It was everything about me: I’m younger than Seth; I supposedly took advantage of an older, dying man; I moved into their mother’s place. Having people know that Jim gave control of their money to me was supposed to be the kicker.”
He said, “Well, that answers one question.”
“And that question is…?”
“Why he married you.”
Wasn’t that what this entire conversation was about? What else was there? “What’s the other question?”
“Why you married him.”
Bailey thought she’d answered that. She frowned over her shoulder at him, though he likely couldn’t tell in the tiny amount of light coming from the fire. “I told you. It was part of the deal.”
“But why did you agree to it? Marriage is an extreme step.”
Not in her family, it wasn’t. Her parents had looked at marriage as a legal convenience, to be dissolved whenever they got a whim to move on. She didn’t go into all that, though. Instead she said tiredly, “I’ve never been in love. So I thought—why not? He was dying. I would do that for him, and in exchange he’d make sure I was financially secure.”
“So he did leave you some money.”
“No, he didn’t.” The relief had faded, and she was getting very sick of this conversation. “I have privileges, such as living in the house, my expenses taken care of, and I’m paid a very nice salary for managing the funds, but I didn’t inherit anything. All of the privileges stop if I remarry, but the salary continues as long as I do the job.”
“Got it. I won’t even ask what you consider a ‘very nice’ salary.”
“That’s good, because it’s none of your business,” she said acerbically.
He snuggled her closer and rested his chin on her shoulder. “I’m curious about something, though. You’ve truly never been in love? Ever?”
The change in subject made her uncomfortable and she shifted restlessly. “Have you?”
“Sure. Several times.”
It was the “several” that made her wince. If it were truly love, wouldn’t it be only once? Real love shouldn’t fade. Real love expanded, made room for children and pets and a host of friends and relatives. It didn’t come with an expiration date, and after that date you moved on to someone else.
“When I was six, I fell madly in love with my first grade teacher. Her name was Miss Samms,” he said reminiscently, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “She was fresh out of college, she had these big blue eyes, and she smelled better than anything I’d ever smelled in my whole life. She was also engaged, to some bastard who wasn’t nearly good enough for her, and I was so jealous I wanted to beat him up.”