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Eyes that also seemed very familiar. “Sorry. Have we met?” he asked, struck suddenly with a feeling that he knew her from somewhere.
Beyond those familiar brown eyes, he took in the easy smile that touched her rosy lips, the honey-blond hair that fell in waves to her shoulders, and the pretty green dress with the low neckline that gave him a glimpse of a very healthy chest that he was not going to stare at no matter how tempting it might be.
He was a professional, after all.
“I don’t believe we’ve ever formally met,” she said jovially, her voice warm and sweet, like honey on the tongue. “Although I understand you had the pleasure of meeting my ex-husband.” She paused, almost as if for dramatic effect. “Spencer Johnson?”
The reason he knew her hit him like a load of bricks.
He’d first met Spencer Johnson—or at least his fist—last June when he was investigating a client’s concern that her new boyfriend was cheating on her. As it turned out, he had been cheating on her.
With his wife. Or rather, ex-wife, apparently. The very woman who was sitting before him right now.
Reynolds ran his hand through his hair, unable to comprehend why she would be here today. Wait. Maybe he could comprehend why.
Spencer Johnson’s face had been plastered across the television and the internet for months now, ever since he’d fled the country with millions of dollars before he could be charged with insider trading, fraud, embezzlement, and a whole slew of other charges.
It didn’t take a genius to see why his soon-to-be ex-wife was here seeking the service of a private investigator. She wanted him—and probably the money—found.
“Why don’t you come in my office so we can talk.”
She stood, coming close to his five-foot-ten frame in her heels. He let her pass him, trying to keep his eyes from the hips that swayed gracefully as she walked.
Waverley Abbott Johnson had certainly changed since he’d last seen her, and for the better.
He followed the woman with curves that a seasoned race car driver would envy handling, recalling the last time he’d seen her through the lens of his SiOnyx night vision camera. She’d been sitting at the counter in her state-of-the-art kitchen in her incredible six-thousand-square-foot house in Boulder, wearing a blue bathrobe even though her hair was done up fancy like Grace Kelly, and looking for all the world like the absolute loneliest woman he’d ever seen.
With a glass of wine in her hand, she’d barely touched the salad in front of her, instead staring ahead as if she was pondering the problems of the world. She’d looked so vulnerable, so sad that his heart had unexpectedly gone out to her, even though, from her net worth, she had nothing to complain about.
She was, after all, Waverley Abbott Johnson, daughter of billionaire Richard Abbott and his sole heir. If that wasn’t enough, she was married to a guy who’d earned one point four billion dollars himself the previous year—although that, it turned out, was probably thanks to some scheming and dealing that were, in the end, his downfall.
And yet, with everything she had, the woman had managed to look like she had nothing at all. Gaunt, with hollowed out eyes and shadows under them as big as bruises—probably malnutrition—she’d sat there that night looking tortured as she toyed with the bowl of lettuce in front of her, and he’d fought the urge to go inside and make her a giant plate of spaghetti and meatballs that might stick to her bones and bring a smile to her face.
He’d never understood the whole skeletal fad where women were praised and envied for having bodies that were little more than hangers for ridiculously priced clothes. A woman should be soft and curvy, with something you could hold on to and love and adore without worrying you might break her like a twig in your arms. Reynolds had enough edges and angles to his own rough body; he didn’t need to get stabbed or prodded with hers.
Needless to say, the figure walking ahead of him was something to behold—and something to be very, very wary of. He had, after all, probably destroyed her marriage and the comfortable, drama-free life she’d been living.
Waverley sat down on one of the brown leather chairs in front of his desk and crossed her legs, pulling her skirt down over her knees before gripping her hands together on her lap.
Nervous.
“So, Ms. Abbott, what can I help you with today?” he asked, taking a seat.
“Waverley, please.”
Waverley. Unique and with a pretty ring to it, much like her. He nodded. “All right then. Waverley.”
She met his gaze head on, not showing any of the abject sorrow he’d seen there before. “You’ve no doubt heard the recent news about my ex-husband’s legal troubles.”
He nodded, deciding not to detail the charges leveled against him or the media attention given the case after the guy took off with any assets he could access and fled the country before he could be arrested. Last he’d heard, they thought he was somewhere in South America.
“As you can imagine,” she continued, “it didn’t take long for the feds to take possession of our home and whatever was left of our marital assets Spencer hadn’t taken with him. And although I have attorneys who are fighting this overreach on my behalf, my own personal funds are now quite limited.”
From what he’d read, the government had gotten a lot of flak for being so lenient in their watch of the guy, and people wanted blood, leaving the feds to take or freeze any asset with any worth left that might be tied to the guy. It wasn’t the first time they’d overreached in the hopes they might put the squeeze in some way on the defendant.
For all anyone knew, however, Mrs. Waverley Abbott Johnson might have been complicit in her husband’s schemes from the start. Therefore, any benefit she or the marriage reaped from that complicity and criminal activity should be forfeited.
Rightfully, he reminded himself.
