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“Of course not. But I kept hoping... Siobhan, is there something else I should know? Did she tell you she was leaving me? You don’t seem terribly surprised by this.”
She gave a windy sigh that smelled suspiciously like dirty martinis. “Sit down.”
Ethan wasn’t used to taking orders in his own house, especially from a woman he wasn’t fond of, but he perched on a stool and set his hands on his knees. Siobhan watched him for a moment.
“When we spoke last, a few months ago, Sutton told me she was very unhappy. It wasn’t like her to confide in me. You know we don’t always see eye to eye about her choices.”
“If you mean how you suggested she leave me last year after Dashiell...I know. She told me all about it.”
“Do you blame me, Ethan?” That strange, dispassionate tone again. Almost as if they were confidants here, not enemies. “You treated her badly. You handled things poorly. She was in bad shape and you were too busy with your little fling to notice.”
His little fling. His stomach clenched. No one could know the truth there. It would destroy them all, Sutton especially.
“I made a mistake. I came clean, I apologized. We were getting things back on track. We’d talked about... We talked about moving, maybe, getting away from all the bad memories. Starting over.”
“Moving? Where?”
“Back to London.”
“I see. And Sutton was happy to do that?”
“We hadn’t made any concrete decisions. We were talking. Planning. The future... Bloody hell, Siobhan, at least she was talking to me again. You have no idea what the past year has been like, not really, for either one of us. It’s been torture. Oh, yes, we’ve put on a brave front. But once the door closed and the people disappeared, once the funeral was over and the neighborhood stopped tiptoeing around, we were left alone to try and muddle through. It was hell.”
“I can imagine,” she said, and she sounded almost like she cared. He knew she didn’t, not really. She was in it for the money. Siobhan and Sutton had a weird, twisted relationship, more like catty girlfriends who despised one another than mother and daughter. But despite all his advice, Sutton refused to cut her out completely. Ethan would never understand.
“I don’t care what Sutton told you, or didn’t. She’s been on edge lately, secretive. Something has definitely been going on with her. Do you know what she’s been planning?”
Sutton’s mother suddenly looked gray and old. “No. But her note doesn’t sound like someone who’s gone gaily off to do the Lord’s work. Why don’t you call the police? If you have nothing to hide...”
“Give me a break, Siobhan. I didn’t hurt her. It’s not like she’s a missing person, either. She left a note, after all. Besides, they won’t even take a missing persons report for seventy-two hours on an adult.”
“How do you know if you haven’t talked to them?”
“I do research my work, Siobhan.”
“For your books. Yes, of course.”
Oh, the disdain in her tone. Ethan tried not to place his very large hands around his mother-in-law’s neck. Siobhan had never understood the creative gene that he and Sutton shared. Sutton said Siobhan wanted her only child to find a rich man to marry, one who would allow her to play tennis at the club and host fabulous backyard garden parties. His temperament was optional. What were a few black eyes and broken ribs in the face of never-ending wealth and comfort?
They’d never told Siobhan how much Ethan was worth, how much he made on his novels. It was none of her business.
The uncomfortable silence grew between them. Finally, Siobhan stood.
“I’m sure she’s simply run off. She is always very dramatic when she gets upset.”
“And if she isn’t being dramatic?”
“You’re worried. I understand. You asked my advice, and here it is: Sutton’s been unhappy, and she probably doesn’t want to be found. But if you’re not content with that answer, call the police. Let them look for her.”
“You don’t seem very upset by the news that your daughter is missing. Or that she could have been harmed somehow.”
“Because I don’t think she’s missing. I think my daughter finally left you. Something she should have done long ago.”
“Thanks a lot, Siobhan.”
“You’re welcome. Now, my check? It was due today. If Sutton’s not here, perhaps you should see to it.”
And there it was. She didn’t give a flying fuck about Sutton, just wanted to get the money she wrenched out of them. That’s why she’d called, and then come over. Not to help. To take her cut.
Sutton generally handled the quarterly allowance she stubbornly insisted on paying her mother. It was a sore spot between them; having Siobhan standing with her greasy paw out all the time nearly sent him over the edge.
“You must be joking.”
“I’m leaving town this evening. We have a trip to Canada. I’d like to deposit it before I go. And who knows when Sutton will resurface.”
“You are a seriously cold woman, Siobhan.”
“You have no idea.”
Ethan went to his office, pulled out the checkbook. He filled in the check, dated it, and stormed back to the kitchen.
“Here.” If only I could lace it with rat poison and watch you die, you miserable, uncaring witch.
“Thank you. Keep me apprised if she shows up, will you?”
“Why would I? You’ve made it quite clear you don’t care about Sutton, or about me. All you care about is your precious money.”
“I care more than you realize, Ethan. But you’re her husband. You do what you think is right.”
“I will. Trust me.”
As the door closed on her, she turned. “Ethan? Even after all these years, I don’t think you know my daughter at all.”
THERE ARE CRACKS IN EVERY MARRIAGE
Ethan shut the door on Siobhan, proud of himself for not slamming it. He went into his office and poured a crystal lowball half-full of Scotch. He had a nice mirrored bar cart set up in the corner; it felt very Fitzgerald to him, and he’d always taken pride in it.
Now it looked like failure. He’d been drinking too much this year. Understandable, of course, but he’d been using it as a barrier against Sutton.
It was early to get pissed, he knew this, but he downed the Scotch and poured another. If it was good enough for Fitzgerald and Hemingway, it was good enough for him.
He sat at his desk, glanced at the picture of the three of them placed discreetly in the corner, between the drooping spider plant and the phone. He’d never had the heart to put it away. He liked the photo. They were all happy. Smiling. They’d been at the beach, noses sunburned, the baby wearing a silly sun hat, a breeze blowing Sutton’s gorgeous red hair around. Toothy smiles and hugs and goodwill. Their lives, captured, a moment in time that could never be re-created.
He reached out and touched the silver gilt frame, then drew his fingers back as if burned.
He’d thought having a baby would fix things.
It was a stupid thought. Barmy. He should have been committed for thinking a baby would make things perfect again. But at the time, he hadn’t thought it through. He’d been driven by his own emotions.
Yes, that was it. His emotions had led him astray. Men weren’t supposed to have such deep feelings. It was the artist in him. He wanted things from this life—a career writing, a wife to love him, a home to call his own. Heirs were simply part of things, a fact unstated and understood.
Still, the baby. He didn’t think the concept was terribly complex. Sutton was a woman. All women wanted babies. Right? She said she didn’t, that her life was perfect the way it was, and really, how would they write with a tyke underfoot, but more than once, he’d caught her looking after women with prams with such bald yearning on her face that he expected she’d start hinting it was time. And she’d told Ivy that she loved kids; he’d heard them in the kitchen one day, gossiping over the teapot.
But she never did hint, and every time he broached the subject, Sutton always told him no.
Maybe it was selfish of him, maybe it was wrong. But he’d wanted a baby. He’d wanted to change things between them. He’d wanted Sutton to look at him with wonder in her eyes again. Because he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Sutton used to love him.
He just wasn’t sure when she’d stopped.
He shook himself like a wet dog, the old images of their once-happy life shedding onto the floor. He didn’t know what to do, so he got up and paced through the house. Went from room to room, replaying memories, seeing shadows of his wife in all the right places—the couch, her feet tucked up under her legs like a cat; her office, head bent over the keyboard in that odd way that made her chin look pointed like an elf’s; the bedroom, where she lay willing and open, ready for him to come into her and make her scream.
Their life had always been amazing. Sutton used to make him feel sexy, witty, smart. Every word he wrote was meant to impress her, everything he did was a subtle bit of bragging. Look at me, wife. Look at all that I am for you.
He tried harder for her than anyone he’d ever been with. Gaining a smile, a laugh, made him happy to his core.
He didn’t know when things went south. Didn’t know when she’d stopped loving him, when she gave up on their marriage. It was well before Dashiell, that he knew. Was it when they’d renovated the behemoth? Weren’t renovations a major driver in divorce cases, like Facebook and affairs? He thought he’d read that somewhere.
Or was it when the words he wrote for her dried up, and he stopped working entirely? Before he got desperate. Before he made the greatest mistake of his life.
No, he thought it was maybe before all of that when his warm and sexy wife had grown cold. Frigid. Unwilling. Distant.
The laughs had become few and far between. She’d looked at him with a mix of derision and bemusement, as if she’d woken up one morning married, and to a stranger, to boot.
He’d asked her, one very drunken night, why she’d stopped loving him. She’d laughed, harshly. “I love you more now than the day we met. That’s the problem.” And she wouldn’t say anything more.
And here they were. Five years later, parents of a dead baby, their ruined marriage strewed on the rocks, mistakes piled like a stack of ancient newspapers against the door.
He was responsible for Dashiell’s death. For Sutton’s madness. For the missed deadline, the stalking, the canceled book contract. Ethan knew this, knew it to his bones.
He’d made so many mistakes, there was no recovering from them all.
There was just one problem.
He loved Sutton to his core. He’d never loved a woman as much as he loved her. He would do anything for her. Anything.
He had to decide whether Sutton was simply hiding from him for a few days, or if she’d left for good. Problem was, if she didn’t show up by this evening, he was going to have to bring the police in to search for her, because everyone would be suspicious of him if he didn’t, and the subsequent investigation was going to rip apart their very carefully cultivated lives, and who knew what sort of roaches would scurry out of the woodwork?
If she was hiding out for a few days, all well and good. If she’d actually run, he would have to go after her. For her to disappear permanently and thoroughly would have taken planning.
Either way, Sutton was a very cunning woman. He simply had to think like her, and he’d find the path to her again.
And then it hit him.
The bank account. He hadn’t checked the bank account.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Then
Ethan’s agent nudged him. “There is a woman watching you from across the room.”
Ethan glanced over, didn’t see anyone of note. Then again, he was lubed up, like a lock drenched in oil. He’d already had a few cocktails, and had plans for a few more before he passed out in his soft king bed upstairs. He liked the rooms in the hotel; they were clean and spacious and pleasant, not at all threatening, unlike some of the aggressively modern places his publisher put him up at, thinking the extravagant price tag was a justifiable expense to keep their cash cow happy.
All he wanted from the evening was a solid drunk and a good night’s sleep. He didn’t have to fly back to Nashville until late in the afternoon. He could sleep in, have some room service delivered, take a long, hot shower, and grab the car to the airport with plenty of time to spare. He had nothing else on his calendar, and he was glad for it. The week in New York had damn near killed him. Breakfasts and lunches and dinners, a few women taken back to that soft king bed, endless talking and applauding and schmoozing.
He needed a break from his life.
You wanted this, jackass. Be careful what you wish for.
“Ethan. Did you hear me? There’s a woman over there who’s practically drooling.”
“Bill, I have no time for more women. You know that.”
A hearty laugh and a punch on the arm. Sometimes he wondered if Bill was humoring him, being kind because he was making them both so much money. He thought they were friends; Bill knew almost everything there was to know about Ethan. Almost everything. But sometimes he wondered. Ethan had made Bill rich. Very, very rich. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that the man loathed him and was simply in it for the house in the Hamptons he would soon be able to buy with his 15 percent.
Bill leered at him. “If you’re not interested, maybe you could throw an old dog a bone.”
“You’re married.”
“I’m married, I ain’t dead. I can look. Pretty please? Her dress is cut so deep in the front I won’t even have to stand on my tippy toes to look down it.”
Ethan glanced down at the much smaller man, shrugged. “Fine. Let me get a beer and we’ll wander over so you can gander at the lass.”
There were two lines at the bar. It was moving quickly. Maybe he’d have a Scotch instead of a beer. He started looking at the bottles lined up behind the bartenders, saw a Macallan 18. Nice. That would do.
He felt a hand on his arm. Glanced to his right. A woman stood next to him. Not the one from across the room. This one was tall, with long strawberry blond hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, and seemed endlessly fascinated with his arm. It wasn’t like she was touching him to get his attention, it was almost as if she was caressing him. It was a strange touch, wildly erotic, and the rest of the room bled away in an instant.
Was she drunk? She didn’t seem drunk. She seemed...hungry. And not in the let me take you to dinner way.
He smiled down at her. “I have another, if you’re wondering.”
She jerked back as if burned. Her face turned a becoming shade of red. She had freckles across her nose. Clean skin devoid of makeup. She didn’t need any. But no mask? In this mess? Interesting.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked.
She started to move away, still watching him.
“Wait.” What are you doing, you fool? Chick’s crazy, just another groupie. Let her go, stick with the plan.
The stranger halted, a deer in the headlights. Her eyes showed deep embarrassment and something else, something intriguing and attractive.
Her voice was soft, and he felt something stir deep inside when she spoke.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I promise you I don’t go around touching strange men.” She turned on her heel and started away.
He stopped her, grabbed her hand. “Wait. Don’t run off. I don’t even know your name. I’m Ethan.”
She froze, glanced down at his hand, so large over hers. “I know. Ethan Montclair. I’m a fan of your work.”
He heard it so often it had become rote, but from this woman’s lips, it felt different. Like a prayer. A promise.
“Who are you with?”
“I’m sorry?” She finally met his eyes, and he had his first good look at her. What he saw was entrancing. She was pretty, wholesome, Irish descent, probably, with that reddish hair and the blue eyes. Her sleek black dress showed off a great figure, hourglass but lithe. She looked fresh, innocent. Girl next door, the kind you grow up crushing on, your best friend’s older sister. And then you become old enough to bed her legally, and the tables turn. This one, though, still had the suburban stink all over her. Intern, he thought.
“I meant, what house are you with?”
“Oh. None.”
“What are you doing here, then?”
“I...” The way she dropped her eyes when she was embarrassed, like a courtier looking up at him from her lashes, was maddening, in all the best ways. She took a deep breath. “Okay. We’re at the same house. You’re light-years ahead of me, though.”
A small zing. “You’re not an intern?”
“I’m a writer.”
“Do you have a name?”
The blush deepened. “Sutton. Sutton Healy.”
Irish all the way, though she wasn’t accented. Second generation, then, but he’d bet a pound her family was recent. He knew the name, but he wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of that knowledge. He was enjoying her discomfiture. Most women he met went all sycophant on him within moments. This one was truly tongue-tied, and eyeing him like he was a juicy steak. He thought it was cute. Check that, he thought it was hot.
“Can I buy you a drink, Sutton Healy?”
“From the open bar? Sure.”
She’d touched his arm again then, slower this time, and he’d known. He was going to take her upstairs, and they were going to spend the night together, and he was going to get to know Sutton Healy biblically, and he was going to enjoy every minute of it.
He heard Bill’s voice behind him, a harsh whisper overlaid with laughter. “Sucker.” Ethan flipped him off behind his back.
Sutton Healy wanted Macallan, too, so he ordered doubles. They wandered off to a corner of the ballroom. He turned her to face the room so his back was to the crowd. They managed to stay that way, uninterrupted, for half an hour. He may have run his hand through his hair a few times. He was a little fuzzy on that, but it usually drove women crazy.
Two drinks later, he admitted he’d heard of her work.
“Historical romance, right?”
“Did your agent slip you a note with that information?”
“I read.”
“You read historical romance? You have to be kidding me.”
“It’s very soothing. Besides, I like seeing how women think heroes should act. Gives me guidelines. I need all the chivalry schooling I can get, especially now, with the sensitivity training they make us do. It can get very confusing, where the lines are supposed to be drawn. If we acted toward eighteen-year-old virgins the way your heroes do, we’d be jailed. Can you imagine the juice the press would get out of it?”
“You, Ethan Montclair, are full of crap.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m drunk.” Yes, he had run his hand through his hair then, knowing the thick waves would stand up a bit, mussed, as his mother used to say. He’d given Sutton Healy a slow, lazy smile. “Or maybe it’s the way you’re affecting me. Speaking of crossing lines, you want to get out of here?”
He worried for a moment he’d shifted gears too quickly, sounded too wanting, but she hadn’t hesitated. “God, yes. I can’t stand these parties. Can we go now?”
He remembered every one of the fifty steps it had taken to get to the elevator, anticipation buzzing in his veins. He had a hand on the small of her back—gentle, proprietary—could feel the smooth column of muscle where her spine met her finely shaped rump. He waited until the doors slid closed to kiss her. Her mouth was sweet and smoky from the Scotch, and when she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him deeper into the kiss, he felt his heart begin to race. It was more than the usual turn-on, too. There was something about this woman that was absolutely intoxicating. He had a feeling he would remember this trip to New York for a long time to come.
They had rooms on the same floor, the conference block. He motioned toward his door, but she shook her head. “I need ten minutes. Give me your key.”
He swiped the small plastic card, opened his door, and handed her the key card. “Don’t disappoint me.”
She grinned, eyes a wee bit unfocused. “Never.”
She scooted off down the hall. He paced. He brushed his teeth. He debated pouring another drink from the minibar, decided he was pretty well pissed and would ride the buzz a while longer.
And true to her word, she returned eight minutes later. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so happy to see anyone.
Inside the room, she rubbed up against him like a cat. He quickly discovered she’d taken off her knickers, and he was so turned on by the juxtaposition of naughty and nice he barely got her to the bed before he was inside her.
At four in the morning, sated, sitting naked in the rumpled sheets with an array of strawberries and chocolates and champagne he’d managed to have delivered from a very grumpy front desk overnight manager, watching his dress shirt fall off her pale, freckled shoulder, he decided that he loved her.
DISCOVERIES ARE MADE
Now
He left the Scotch in his office, grabbed the semiwarm cup of tea from the kitchen counter, went to Sutton’s lair on the other side of the house, and booted up the desktop. The banking was always done on her computer. She had the tax files, so it made sense that the financial info was in the same place. Sutton had never shown an interest in the money Ethan brought to the marriage—she paid her mother out of her earnings, as he insisted—but was diligent about making sure the quarterlies and annual taxes were paid.
His family money. Most of it was gone now anyway, eaten up by the price of the house and subsequent renovations. They should have gotten a mortgage, it was insanity to pay $1.4 million in cash, but Sutton wanted to be free of debt, so Ethan had signed on the line and handed over his nest egg.
At the time, money gone wasn’t a big deal. It was simply expected that he could continue earning; his highly anticipated third novel was due to release the following June. But, despite his best efforts, the trials of the past year had been too much for even his prodigious mind to handle; he couldn’t make it happen—the ending was elusive, the words juvenile and trite. Without any sign of a book the publisher had gotten antsy and the contract had fallen through. Bill tried everything he could to stall them, but, apologetically, the publisher had asked for—demanded—the very substantial million-dollar advance back. The brilliant book with the plot that ruined his marriage was officially canceled; Ethan was publicly humiliated in the industry trades and on social media. How does a man recover from such an embarrassment?
But far worse, far worse indeed: Ethan was now reliant on Sutton’s income to support them. Even knowing a royalty check would be coming, they had to reassess their expenditures.
It made him feel like less of a man, less of a husband, less of a writer, but even those indignities hadn’t broken him free of the writer’s block.
Ethan simply hadn’t been able to write a word since Dashiell died. Every time he laid hands on his keyboard, it all felt so fruitless. Pointless. The words drowned in the accusations, in the horrors and sobbing and cries. He’d helped create a life, and helped take it away. The child had depended on them for love and nurturing, and they’d nurtured him right into the grave. How could they forgive each other? How could they move on, move past? Worse, how could words—insignificant, paltry words—heal such a wound?
But dead baby or not, they had to eat. And Ethan wasn’t the type to get a job. Family money had lasted him this long, the small but flush trust fund to which he’d added the impressive advance of his debut novel, but once his parents bit it, there was an estate issue, and some of the money was tied up in a trust, and some went to pay off the accumulated debts, and the rest he’d sunk in the house, so he had all he was getting, at least for now.