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Caroline Lovechilde
Engagedtotheloveof my life, I should have been on top of the world. Instead, I found myself distracted by the ghost of Alice Ponting, who’d come back to haunt me. No amount of champagne could help me forget those intrusive detectives and their endless questions. I just had to keep up the charade. Something I should have been good at after thirty years of playing my role.
Pushing those niggling thoughts aside, I had another ghost from my past to deal with in the shape of my first daughter.
Bethany circled the room as though facing me would hurt. Even when she’d played that fake maid role, I recalled how she couldn’t stare me in the eyes, as though she’d had something to hide.
Funny about that.
I still hadn’t forgiven myself for failing to read the signs where Bethany and Will were concerned. However, dealing with the humiliation of Ethan marrying a folk singer, my mind had been otherwise preoccupied.
It had hit me hard learning of Will’s involvement in Harry’s murder.
Despite the popular belief that my husband’s death had served me well, I’d grieved deeply for Harry’s loss. Only the world never saw that.
I’d made a promise to myself long ago never to cry in public.
Discussing business on the day of his funeral was in poor taste, but it was my way of dealing with the war being waged in my heart.
I still missed my husband. He was my best friend, and his ability to navigate the machinations of London’s elite had been unparalleled. That was why I’d attached myself to Harry Lovechilde.
Everyone just assumed we hated each other, but that was far from the truth.
It was Rey, and only Rey, who had forced me into building Elysium.
It hadn’t taken me long to realise that the luxurious, high-end resort I’d fought for was merely a façade for his criminal activity. The thought of which had me lying sleepless at nights, pondering ways to extricate myself from the poisonous, tangled web he’d ensnared me in.
Owned by a billionaire, I’d done a deal with the devil to attain my current position—a woman in love, blessed with unimaginable prosperity, and holding the reins of a long-established wealthy dynasty.
But at what cost? Unsavoury and illegal activities at our doorstep and the law circling like hungry wolves.
My engagement to Cary should have lifted me high, given he was the love of my life. My soulmate. The one I harmonised with in that celestial orchestra as described by Plato. However, as a pragmatist, I had little room in my heart for the poetic musings of ancient philosophers.
Before Cary, I’d viewed the whole soulmate, twin flames concept as New Age nonsense that clouded people’s minds into idealising the institution of marriage.
I’d always viewed marriage as a practical business arrangement that ensured my survival, and even more importantly, that my children had everything their hearts desired, thus enabling them to reach their full potential.
That hadn’t exactly gone to plan. No peerage to speak of. Yet. All married to commoners. But that was another matter.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined falling madly in love.
My affair with Will had been purely expedient in that he was good in bed and we both shared high libidos, thus sparing me the need to seek other sexual partners, which had gotten exhausting and messy after the odd lover became attached. During my earlier days of marriage, I had gone a little rogue and fallen for men from the darker side of London.
There had been one in particular… but that was another story.
Harry didn’t mind. If anything, he encouraged my little adventurous trysts outside the marital bedroom.
Strange marriage, that one. But I loved him as one would a brother.
Now there I was in that rarely visited green room with the daughter I had given away.
Of course, I’d often wondered about her, but I hadn’t dwelled on it.
Looking back summoned up too many ghosts.
In that red dress with a cleavage to kill, she had men drooling.
“What plot are you hatching, Bethany?”
