Page 14 of The Billionaire's Secret
“I want to know everything about you.”I shouldn’t, but I do.
Her smile slowly fades.“I don’t get involved with rich men.”
I don’t understand why she’s saying that.Of course she doesn’t.She’s married.“I wasn’t suggesting you did.”
“You were looking at my lips,” she says.
“Because your lipstick is smudged.”
“Oh.”She touches her fingertips to one corner of her lips.
“It’s there.”I gesture to the other side of her mouth.Then I realize she’d emphasized the word rich earlier.“Did you have a bad experience with a rich man?”I ask, unable to look away as she wipes away the smudge.
“Horrible.He’s the reason my entire family had to leave.”
“Your entire family had to leave?Your husband, too?”
“Wh…no, not him.”Her gaze locks with mine.
“Do you love him?”I ask when I didn’t mean to.
“Of course I love Lear.”She looks away, then back and holds my gaze.
The intuition that’s served me well in business goes into overdrive.Something’s not right.Her answers are cagey.Plus, a happily married woman wouldn’t look at me the way Salem does.
Chapter Six
Salem
Thearrivalofthehelicopter ends the conversation, and I could weep in relief.I noticed Locke frowning like my answers made him suspicious.
Inside the helicopter cabin, the noise is too loud for us to talk so we silently take the flight back to where the private jet awaits.I think I’ve escaped without further scrutiny as we settle on the plane, but Locke picks up right where we left off.
“What happened to your family?”
“The person I had dated got both of my parents fired.Then his family made it clear they wouldn’t be happy with anyone who hired them.They couldn’t find work and we ended up losing the family home.”Thinking about the years I spent growing up in that little house on a tree-lined street and my parents crying as they sold it fills me with grief all over again.
“They had to move out Laketon Heights to find work.”Recalling the smug expression on his mother’s face still makes my blood boil.
“What did he do to you?”
I tread carefully.Doug’s family and the Montclairs run in the same social circles.“I started a business, and he immediately destroyed it by claiming I did something I didn’t.”
I don’t tell him that after working as an apprentice with a well-known gemologist, I’d designed a set of jewelry and proudly set out to sell it.Then Doug’s family claimed I’d plagiarized their design.I’d lost creditability in the jewelry community.
To add to their lies, they’d sued me and thanks to the judge in the civil case being a friend of the family, I’d lost the case.Now my design that I created to honor my late grandmother is displayed in their jewelry store.
I don’t want Locke to know the depth of my humiliation and pain.
“Salem?What happened?”
I snap back to the present.“The accusations he made against me weren’t true, but he was rich.”I shrug like the matter doesn’t still sting.
“What kind of business did you have?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“If you let me know who your ex is, I’ll right the wrong.”
