AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ms. Killian, or is it Mrs. Harold?” He was in her face with his fat jowls and beady eyes peering out of thick black rimmed glasses.
“It’s Ms. Killian in business.”
“Let me introduce myself …” he started.
“I know who you are, Mr. Trueblood. Please be brief. Certainly you must know by now that I’m not answering any questions without consulting my lawyers and they just left.” The stubby man grated on her nerves.
“It’s a matter of some urgency.”
“Isn’t everything?”
Standing in the outer office where Emma’s trained ears would hear any conversation no matter how muted, the man looked about, then took Jocelyn’s arm by the elbow. She immediately shook him off. “I think in private would be more suitable for this,” he said.
“If it will make you leave,” she said, consenting to being led into her private office by the oily man who made her skin crawl just looking at him.
“You remember Ian Suffolk?” Trueblood asked.
At least he was to the point. “I’m sorry I don’t know the name,” she answered.
“Ian Bradbury. Ian Pennywhistle. Ian Devors? Perhaps?”
“Perhaps I knew Ian Pennywhistle fifteen years ago. The others…”
“All the same.”
“Then he’s probably the same scoundrel he was when I made his acquaintance.”
“You know he’s returned to the States?”
“I wouldn’t know where he is, Mr. Trueblood.”
“He’s not looked you up?”
“Why would he? He’s been out of my life for years.”
“Years?” Trueblood did not believe that. “Didn’t he post a letter to you about six months ago.”
“None that I received.”
“And you’ve not received letters from him every few months in the last several years.”
“One or two at the most,” Jocelyn offered, knowing that it was unwise to have even admitted to that. Who could say what trouble Ian was in. “How did you know I was ever associated with him in the first place?”
“There are people interested in finding him, I’ve been investigating Suffolk for nearly three years. In that time I’ve learned just about everything there is to know about the man. Including your affair.”
“I was young. I’m married now, happily so. I wouldn’t have any reason to entertain a renewed relationship with Ian whatever you want to call him. And if I had replied to any letter he’s written, I’m sure I would have told him as much. Now you have to leave.”
“Does Mr. Harold know about Ian?”
“Mr. Trueblood you’re treading into personal territory where you have no right to be.”
“You say you have a sacred marriage.”
“I said it was happy one,” she replied, though as she vowed that, she wondered just how true that was. It had been two weeks since she’d seen Reggie, and their last few days together were filled with barbs that stuck—all because of the sticky business of lawsuits and a fractured reputation. Her perpetually arrogant husband, under the guise of love, suggested it was time to give up Killian Management. “Banging your head against bricks is a tough and useless waste,” was the first foul thought from his lips. “It’s over, Jocelyn,” was the second.
All that she’d built for nine years and he was so quick to cast it off as if it meant nothing to her. To suggest it was over made her heart ache, and her stomach burn with fear, even though he was likely right. (In such assessments Reggie was rarely wrong.)
There was still fight in her however, and she gave up going to Japan with him to stay home and work her way out of the predicament. But the way things had developed, she’d have been better to have spent the last few weeks in Japan wearing silk and serving tea with the Japanese matrons, watching them fawn all over her blonde Adonis, with his sculptured body and aristocratic face and uncommonly aloof resonance of darkness that was an accompaniment to his sapphire eyes.
