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Nothing. Not even a redirection for delivery of the earrings.
“Her socials have been switched to private,” Willow said. “She hasn’t returned to the house in London. Her housemates are quoted as not knowing where she went.”
Fliss had been photographed leaving her home five days ago, when gossip from her coworkers had leaked to the press. She’d since found a good place to hide because she wasn’t turning up online. That was both a relief and a frustration for Saint.
He didn’t love that she’d hidden so much about who she really was, but she hadn’t been outright dishonest, either.
Are we prevaricating?
I’m out of my league.
He was dismayed to hear she’d stolen from a client’s home. It was too much like Julie’s laptop snooping for his comfort. It made him wonder if Fliss was hiding from paparazzi while she negotiated the best way to capitalize on her night with him—the way Julie had.
“I did find some background on her that was...concerning,” Willow continued.
“I’ve seen what the trolls are saying,” Saint grumbled.
“They claim to be childhood friends.”
“Friends don’t say things like that about friends.” And who cared if she’d had an active sex life? So had he.
No, those rumors bothered him for a different reason. They didn’t fit with the inexperience she’d expressed.
I’ve always wondered how these things were handled.
If she was as practiced as those rumors suggested, he would have expected less bashfulness, more assertiveness. She’d been enthusiastic as hell while they’d been making love, which was the part that really mattered, but maybe playing an ingenue was her kink?
Role-play was fine, too, but he hated feeling gullible. He didn’t want to believe he’d fallen for an act when he’d been fully involved and as real as he could be for those few hours.
He didn’t want to question his own acuity when his father and the board were already doing that for him.
Saint’s phone rang. He glanced to see that it was his father and muttered another curse under his breath.
“I’m talking to the lawyers right now,” he said in lieu of a greeting, then rolled his wrist at Willow to get on it. He wouldn’t out Julie for her gambling addiction, but... “I’ll have them threaten a defamation suit if she doesn’t cease and desist.”
Ted ignored that. “Your mother is asking why you have two hundred thousand pounds for a prostitute’s earrings—”
“She isnot—”
“But I won’t bankroll another thoroughbred. Make that go away.” His father ended the call.
“Fuuuun...” Saint groaned at the ceiling, crushing his phone in his grip. He was tempted to throw it against the wall.
“Tell Legal to inform Julie that Iwillpursue industrial espionage charges if she doesn’t keep my name out of her mouth,” he told Willow. He reached for the extra-strength acetaminophen in his desk drawer and swallowed two before he tapped his mother’s number. “Interrupt me in ten minutes with a life-or-death emergency.”
“Mrs. Bhamra? I’m back,” Fliss called over the Bollywood musical playing on the senior’s television.
She was later than usual, having picked up a few things on her way home and detoured to view a bedsit. She loved being here. It was almost like being home with Granny, but it had been more than two weeks. She didn’t want to overstay her welcome.
Mrs. Bhamra had become Granny’s best friend back when the pair had been young widows raising their children on their wages from the lace factory. They had lost their jobs at the same time when the factory had closed but had continued to bolster each other through the rest of life’s ups and downs—job changes and weddings and grandchildren, Granny’s loss of her son and Mrs. Bhamra’s battle with breast cancer.
The pair had had a standing date twice a month where they drank tea and exchanged gossip, romance novels and knitting patterns. Mrs. Bhamra had teased Granny about her belief in psychics, and Granny had complained that Mrs. Bhamra’s curry was too spicy. Otherwise, they’d been stamped from the same mold, or so Granny had always said.
As they’d both aged, Fliss had moved back into Granny’s modest flat while Mrs. Bhamra had moved to the upscale Mapperley Park, where her son had converted a coach house into a sunny bungalow. It was one floor so she didn’t have to climb stairs and had a guest bedroom that her sister used when she visited from Canada. The front window looked onto the landscaped garden where a bridge crossed a pond before its path continued to the steps of the mansion that was the main house.
When Fliss had turned up in theDaily Mailnext to Saint Montgomery, Mrs. Bhamra had called to ask if the photograph was really her. Since Fliss had been on the verge of hysteria, realizing she was in far worse trouble than simply losing her job, she’d come as clean as she would have to Granny.
Mrs. Bhamra had offered her guest room, much to the chagrin of her son, Ujjal. He wasn’t 100 percent thrilled to have Fliss here. He knew as well as she did that the paps would figure out where she was eventually, especially now that she was leaving the house to go to work.
