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Heath folded his hands on the table and said, “I think you should know there have been a few developments in your brother’s case. I assumed that you wanted to see me in order to agree to my plan, so I took some preliminary steps. First thing this morning I contacted Trevor Hankins in New York, and he called the judge who refused to free Tim on bail. Hankins has arranged for a new bail hearing on Thursday and will be flying in to represent Tim at the proceeding. Hankins feels confident that he can spring Tim within twenty-four hours, and I will put up a cash bond for whatever amount the judge demands.”
It took several seconds for A
“Money talks,” he replied shortly. “I’ve also contacted the board of directors at ScriptSoft to see if I can make a loan to the company in exchange for their dropping the mismanagement suit against your brother. I’ll buy up the existing stock if I have to, bring in a reorganization team, whatever is necessary. I’m confident something can be arranged.”
A
“That won’t get rid of the feds, of course, the SEC is a law unto itself. But Hankins has a colleague who specializes in white-collar crime and I can assure you that Tim will have the best defense money can buy if the stock tampering case comes to trial.”
A
He took a sip of his drink, rattling the ice in the glass. “I keep my promises,” he said.
The emphasis on the third word was not lost on her. “And in exchange for all of this you want... ?” A
“You. Just you,”
“Can’t you let it go, Heath?” A
“Too high a price to pay?” he suggested.
A waiter arrived with a platter of appetizers and he set it down between them, oblivious to the mood of the diners.
“I took the liberty of ordering something for us,” Heath said, taking another small swallow of his drink.
“Will there be anything else at the moment, sir?” the waiter inquired.
“No, thank you. We’ll order later.”
The waiter left and Heath looked around expansively. “Lots of memories in this place, huh, Princess? Well, out in the parking lot, at any rate.”
“Heath, don’t.”
“Why not? Are we going to pretend that none of it happened? That’s a pretty tall order, don’t you think?”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“I see. You thought that leaving me walking in circles in the Big Palm bus station waiting for somebody who never came was going to make me happy?”
“You don’t know what happened that night, you never have!” A
He sat back and surveyed her cynically. “Why don’t you inform me? I know you’re just dying to tell me your sanctified version, it should be very interesting.”
A
Heath’s face was unreadable. “And?” he inquired, raising an eyebrow.
“Isn’t that enough? If I didn’t promise to transfer to that school in New England and never see you again, you would have wound up in jail!” A
“Ah, I see. Very noble of you. Self-sacrifice and all of that. Just like Romeo and Juliet. Or was it Laurel and Hardy?”
A
“How can you sit there, all prim and proper with your bare face hanging out, and lie to me like this, Princess?” he said, his tone deadly. Dangerous.
“I’m not lying!” she said, amazed that he could doubt her. “That’s exactly what happened!”
He picked up his glass again and drained it. “I guess I never told you about my father’s sister Elsie, did I?” he said neutrally.
A
“My father was the black sheep of his family. The rest of his siblings actually work, go food shopping, take showers, remain vertical after 4:00 p.m. You know, they do the normal things. My Aunt Elsie, for example, worked as the secretary to a trust officer in a Miami bank. As luck would have it, the very bank where your daddy did the bulk of his business.”
A
“Now I was fond of Elsie—she was the one relative who lived near enough to visit and take the occasional interest in me. She happened to arrive the day after your abrupt departure on one of her periodic checks to see if my father was still alive, and I’m afraid in my distress I blurted out the whole ugly tale of our somewhat star-crossed relationship. So Elsie was very interested when, one week after you decamped, she found herself typing up forms for her boss that released to you the sum of one hundred thousand dollars. The person countersigning the form was none other than your father.”
A
“Quite a payoff for dumping the boyfriend, wasn’t it, Princess? I knew you were desperate to get away from your father, and taking off with me was one way of doing it, but in the end it must have been impossible to give up all the fine things that the Talbot money could buy.... Why settle for a Georgia hut with a teenage mechanic husband when a plush boarding school in stately New England awaits you, with the cushion of a hundred grand to make dumping the grease monkey worth your while? You found a way to get away from your old man and actually have him finance your exit! I applaud your ingenuity, A
A
“You’re talking about the trust fund,” she said.
He studied her, his expression glacial.
“My grandmother had set up a trust find to finance my education and made my father the trustee. The tuition at the Hampton school was much higher than at my previous school and so my father petitioned the trustee to release the money to me, on condition that I use it for my boarding school tuition and put aside the remainder for college, which I did.”
He said nothing.
“Don’t you see? He wanted to pack me off but he didn’t want to pay for it himself. Invading the trust fund was his neat, financially sound solution. The timing of it was just a coincidence. I didn’t know his plan for footing the bill. My father didn’t pay me off to leave you, Heath, he was just using my grandmother’s money to stash me away in Massachusetts! If I had tried to use a pe
He stared back at her stonily. She might as well have been talking to herself.
“You still don’t believe me, do you?” she said sadly. “You haven’t really changed at all. Eleven years ago you could never quite accept that I would throw in my lot with you, and when I didn’t show up the night we had pla
“So it’s all my fault now?” he said. “You’re a blameless angel and I’m the bastard who had no faith in you?” He laughed bitterly and looked away, shaking his head, as if she were just too ridiculous to credit.
“I loved you, Heath. I have never loved anyone like that again. The only thing that could have separated me from you was fear for your safety. If you choose to think otherwise, there isn’t much I can do about it, is there?”