the guests had finally gone home, Leland Fox, her parents’ longtime friend and the family’s lawyer, asked if they were up to going over Ben’s will.
“If you’re too tired today, we can do it another day,” he said gently, smiling down at Isabel.
“No, let’s get it over with.”
Sabrina would have preferred to wait, but the decision was her mother’s, so she settled herself in a chair and waited for Leland to dig the will out of his briefcase.
“I’ll just go give Florence a hand in the kitchen,” Sabrina’s Aunt Irene said. She smiled at Sabrina, then left the room.
There were no surprises in the will. The family home had belonged to Isabel’s parents. After their death, she had bought out Frank’s and Irene’s shares, so the house was already in her name. Her and Ben’s bank accounts and investments were held jointly with survivorship benefits. As for Ben’s company, Sabrina and Isabel already held twenty-four percent of the stock apiece. Of the remaining fifty-two percent, eighteen percent belonged to Bob Culberson, Ben’s general manager, and thirty-four percent was in Ben’s name with the provision that upon his death, any stock held by him would be divided equally between Isabel and Sabrina.
In addition, there were two cash bequests: one to Florence and one to Jennifer Loring, Sabrina’s cousin and the daughter of Irene.
For a few moments, Leland discussed the logistics of transferring money and stock, then he kissed Isabel goodbye and Sabrina walked him to the front door.
As he was putting on his coat, he dropped his voice and said, “Sabrina, could you stop by my office in the morning? I need to see you about a private matter.”
“Of course.” She wanted to question him, but she could see he didn’t want her mother to know about this, so she only said, “What time?”
“Ten?”
“All right.” Standing in the open doorway, she watched as he got into his car and drove off. What could he want that couldn’t be said in front of her mother? A bequest, perhaps, that her father wanted kept secret? That seemed unlikely, but it was all she could think of.
For the rest of the day, as she helped Florence clean up after their guests, as she tended to her mother and helped get her ready for bed, and as she finally had some time to herself and was able to take a soothing bath before climbing into bed in her old room—she was staying at her mother’s for a few days—she thought about Leland Fox’s request and wondered what it involved.
The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over and her mother and aunt were ensconced in the sunroom with a pot of tea and their knitting, Sabrina said she had some errands to run and would be back for lunch. She kissed her mother’s cool cheek with only a twinge of guilt.
She arrived at Leland’s office, conveniently located next to the courthouse in the town square, ten minutes early.
“He’ll be with you shortly,” said Betty Treehorne, his longtime secretary.
Sabrina settled herself on to one of the burgundy leather sofas. Less than five minutes later she was ushered into his office.
“Have a seat, my dear,” Leland said. He stood—a tall man with dark hair turning gray and friendly blue eyes—until she was seated in one of the chairs flanking his desk. Only then did he sit, too. “How are you holding up?”
Sabrina shrugged. “Okay.”
“And your mother?”
“She’s doing all right. Aunt Irene is going to stay for a couple of weeks.”
“That’s good. The next months are going to be hard for you both.”
His kind face was almost Sabrina’s undoing. But she fought the tears that hovered and managed to subvert them.
“Well…” He seemed at a loss. “You’re probably wondering why I asked you to come to the office.”
Sabrina waited.
He opened a file that lay on his desk and removed an envelope. “Your father left this letter in my safe-keeping. He asked me to give it to you should anything happen to him.”
Sabrina’s hands shook as she reached for the letter. Her heart felt as if it might burst. Her father had written her a farewell. It was so like him to know how much she would need to know he had been thinking about her and wanting to ease her grief.
She didn’t open the letter in Leland’s office. Instead, she headed for the park, thinking that would be a fitting place to read her father’s final message to her. Even after arriving and settling on their favorite bench next to the rose garden, she didn’t open the envelope.
She looked at the seal, looked at her father’s hand-writing—the bold letters and black ink. She traced the letters with her finger, then held the envelope close to her heart for a long moment.
Then, with a tremulous smile, she put her index finger under the sealed flap and slit it open.
Chapter Two
The letter was dated November, two years earlier.
Dearest Sabrina, she read.
Her father went on to say how much he loved her and how sorry he was to cause her pain, but there was something important she needed to know.
This is hard for me to write, and I know it will be painful for you to read. There’s no easy way to say it, so I’ll just say it. Six years ago I fell in love with a woman I met while conducting a tour in Italy.
I couldn’t seem to help myself. I knew she would never keep seeing me if she knew I was married, so I pretended I wasn’t. I told her I had been, but I was divorced. I told her my name was Ben Arthur. She had no idea I owned the tour company. I told her I was a consultant who worked for a dozen different companies, both in the U.S. and abroad.
After we’d been seeing each other for almost a year and she began to press for a permanent commitment, I tried, but I couldn’t give her up, so we were married in Las Vegas and honeymooned in Italy.
Sabrina gasped.
Married!
He couldn’t mean that. Her father was already married to her mother. How could he marry someone else?
She and I have had two children together. Sabrina, I know how this must shock and hurt you, but please believe me when I say that what I feel for Glynnis and our children takes nothing away from what I feel for you. You are my first and will always be the beloved child of my heart. But I love little Michael and Olivia, too, and I know you will love them as much as I do after you get to know them. As I write this, Michael is three and a half, and Olivia is just a month old.
If you are reading this, I am dead, and there will be no one else to take care of some things that must be taken care of. I could have asked Leland to do them for me, but it’s going to be painful enough for Glynnis to discover not only that she’s a widow but the truth about our marriage, so I was hoping you could find it in your heart to go and see her and tell her everything in person.
Sabrina
