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“People?” I shoot a curious glance at the three black suitcases in the foyer. Destiny’s are pink, and the lawyer only had one. “What people?”
“Well, okay, most of the people were already here.” He pinches his lips together, putting one hand on a cocked hip. “Your brother and that lawyer. And the wife, of course. But she left.” His eyes roll so hard it’s almost audible. “Then the ex-wife. Then—”
“Wait.” I fling up a hand, cutting him off. “Ex-wife? Which one?”
“How am I supposed to know? I’m not a Nick Holmes groupie! It wasn’t Brenda Thorne.” He names Dad’s glamorous first wife in a reverent tone and heaves another dramatic sigh. “She’s the only one I know. I love her. She was amazing in The Longest Stripe.”
“Isn’t she dead?” my sister asks.
I glare at her. “No.”
“Was it Victoria Weston? The model?” Maddie puts a wrist to her forehead and flings the other hand out to the side, lifting one knee and arching her back in imitation of her mother’s famous lingerie pose.
Justin’s eyes go wide. “Is she one of Mr. Holmes’s exes? I had no idea. I love her, too!” He points at Maddie. “Now I see it—you look so much like her! No, it was an older woman. Very classy.”
“Very classy” rules out Number Four, which leaves only one possibility. I push past him. “Where is she? Mom? Mom!”
“In the office with your dad.”
I barely wait for Justin’s response before racing to the room across from the master bedroom. I reach for the knob but stop myself from flinging the door open. Instead, I knock three times.
“Come in,” John replies.
I push the door open, hurtling inside. “Mom?”
She pushes up from the chair by the window and holds out her arms. “Nica!”
I throw myself into her embrace. Her perfume—always Chanel No 5—wraps around me in a familiar cloud. It’s like going home. “Mom! What are you doing here?”
After a long moment, she steps back. “It sounded like Nick needed my help, so I came.” She holds me at arm’s length, looking me over. Her hair is dark, with dramatic silver stripes running through the smooth bob. Her ice-blue eyes narrow, wrinkles appearing around her mouth when she frowns. “Are you getting enough sleep, dear? You look tired.”
“I’m fine, Mom.” I turn to Dad, who sits behind the large desk. He’s fully dressed, immaculate in a pale blue button-down shirt and gray slacks. His white hair waves away from his face in his habitual style, and his trademark black glasses frame his bright blue eyes. He looks like the well-known actor today, not the sad old man. “How are you this morning, Dad?”
“I’m fine. You interrupted an important meeting.” He nods at the lawyer and my half-brother who sit across the desk from him.
“Where’s Destiny?” I take the chair across the table from my mother, ignoring my father’s raised eyebrow. Classic Nick Holmes. “Hey, your eyebrow is working again!”
A hand goes to his forehead, and he turns to look in the full-length mirror that hangs on the wall beside the desk. It’s perfectly situated to allow him to check his appearance from the throne-like desk chair. “It is! Excellent. It’s time to put this nasty business behind me. As to Destiny, she’s gone.”
Justin, who has appeared in the door behind Maddie, holds up a conciliatory hand. “It’s excellent progress, Mr. Holmes, but it doesn’t mean you’re back to full health.”
Dad’s brows come down in a glare straight out of his Western days. “Don’t rain on my parade, young man. Now, go away. We have business that doesn’t concern you. You either, Maddie.”
Maddie crosses her arms. “If Nica and John are staying, I’m staying. I’m an adult, and I’m just as much your kid as they are.”
Shaking his head, Dad waves her in. “Fine. Let’s get back to it. Go on.” He waves at the lawyer.
Oliver clears his throat and ruffles the stack of papers he’s holding. “As I was saying. The investigator has unearthed some rather surprising information about Destiny Leroux. It appears she is not who she has represented herself to be.”
We all stare at the man. He clears his throat again, obviously going for drama, but he ruins it with a short coughing fit. When he catches his breath, he goes on. “She grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, not Bel Air. Never went to college. Did not participate in any beauty pageants that we can find. She lied about almost everything she’s told you. And she’s thirty-two, not twenty-three.”
“She’s thirty-two?!” My father’s face turns puce, and he chokes on the words. “She lied about her age?!”
“That’s your biggest concern?” John takes the papers from Oliver. “The fact that she’s almost half your age rather than less than a third?” He pages through the sheets and slams one onto the desk, stabbing the paper with a thud. It has to have hurt. “She hired actors to play her parents!” He turns to Oliver. “Does this mean the marriage isn’t legal?”
“Oh, no, she used her legal name. The last thing she wants is for us to declare the marriage null. She doesn’t get anything in that case. No, from what we’ve been able to determine, she intended to stay with your father for the first year—as stipulated in the prenup—then take the ten million when she left.”
I stare at Dad. “You offered her ten million dollars if she stuck around for a year?”
