and owners of the cars parked in the street where Lia’s apartment was located. He had found Richardson’s sports car parked at the other end of the street, neatly—deliberately?—hidden between two SUVs.
Gregorio had left his hotel suite in such a hurry he had still been talking to Raphael on his cell phone when he’d stepped into the lift and impatiently punched the button for the basement car park.
If Lia had invited Richardson to her apartment, against all Gregorio’s advice for her to stay away from the man...
The thought had Gregorio pressing his foot down hard on the accelerator, his expression grim.
* * *
‘I’m still waiting,’ Lia challenged as David stood unmoving and silent in the sitting room of her apartment.
A mocking smile tilted his lips. ‘This place is a bit of a come-down for you, isn’t it?’
Her gaze remained fixed on him. ‘I like it.’
And she did. The apartment was compact and easy to keep clean. It was also her first very own space. She had enjoyed living with her father, but there had been a formality to it, with meals served at set times and an army of staff to cook for them and clean the house. And consequently very little privacy. Here she could do exactly as she pleased, when she pleased—including eating what and when she wanted. In the nude if she so chose.
‘If you say so,’ David derided sceptically.
‘Well?’ Lia’s impatience deepened.
‘Aren’t you going to offer me a coffee or something?’ He made himself comfortable on the sofa.
‘No.’
He chuckled. ‘I think I like this new, outspoken Lia after all. Very sexy.’ His gaze ran slowly over her, from her head to her toes and back again.
Her hands clenched at her sides. ‘Will you just tell me what happened the night my father died?’
David’s expression became guarded. ‘He invited me over. We talked. He had a heart attack. I left.’
Anger welled up, strong and unstoppable. ‘You already told me that much in the hallway.’
Had her father known David was responsible for the missing money? Had he confronted the other man and then David had simply let her father die when he collapsed?
Why hadn’t her father confided in her?
The answer came to Lia so suddenly and with such force she almost bent over from the pain.
David had been her fiancé. The man her father had believed she loved and intended to marry. At the time she had believed that too. She had no doubt her father had loved her enough to want to protect her from knowing the truth about her future husband.
‘My father confronted you about the embezzlement of Fairbanks Industries funds.’ It wasn’t a question but a statement.
David’s mouth twisted derisively. ‘He said that if I returned the money then no one else needed to know what I’d done.’
‘But you no longer have the money, do you?’
‘Not all of it, no.’
‘Because you’re addicted to gambling.’ Lia looked at him with disgust.
‘I’m not addicted!’ There was an ugly expression on David’s face. ‘I just enjoy the thrill...the excitement.’
Addiction.
‘Can’t you see how it’s ruining your life?’ Lia frowned. ‘How it’s turned you into a man who steals from his clients to feed his addiction?’
‘You sound just like your father,’ David scorned. ‘He said if I returned the money no one else need ever know about it and the two of us could live happily ever after. He withdrew from the de la Cruz negotiations to give me time to make the adjustments.’
Which proved Gregorio had been telling the truth when he’d told Lia her father had been the one to withdraw from the negotiations with De la Cruz Industries, even though the sale of the company would have saved her father and the people who worked for him.
Because he had hoped to resolve the situation of David’s embezzlement from the company without anyone being any the wiser. Certainly without Lia knowing what David had done.
My father confronted David alone that evening for the same reason—because he wanted to avoid hurting me.
And David—thief, liar and manipulator that he undoubtedly was—had no doubt used her in the same way to try and blackmail her father into silence. The strain had finally proved too much for her father and he’d had a heart attack.
Lia hadn’t been in her father’s study that evening, nor had she heard any of the conversation between the two men, but she knew with certainty that that was exactly what had happened.
‘Get out,’ she told David coldly.
His brows rose. ‘We haven’t finished talking yet.’
‘Oh, we’ve finished,’ Lia assured him evenly. ‘We’re way beyond finished,’ she added vehemently. ‘My father acted the way he did out of love for me, and now I’m going to do exactly the same out of my love for him. I am going to ruin you, David, as you ruined and eventually killed my father. I’ll expose you for the cheat and a liar you really are—Take your hand off me!’ she protested as David stood and moved across the room so quickly she was unable to avoid his painful grasp about her wrist.
Instead of releasing her David twisted her arm and held it at a painful level against her back, stepping behind her and bringing himself nauseatingly close to her.
‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured viciously as he bent his head close to her ear. ‘Why don’t you just agree to be a good girl, hmm? Otherwise...’
‘Otherwise?’ she echoed sharply.
He shrugged. ‘Well, you’re grieving for your father... Not adapting well to your change of circumstances. People would understand if you were to take a bottle of pills and just fall asleep...’
‘You’re insane!’ Lia truly believed it at that moment: no man in his right mind would threaten to kill her so cold-bloodedly.
‘Desperate,’ David corrected grimly. ‘And you should know better than to threaten a desperate man, Lia.’
Gregorio had tried to warn her. Had warned her. Lia just hadn’t listened.
Gregorio...
‘You would never get away with killing me,’ she warned him as she struggled and failed to release herself from David’s painful grip. ‘Gregorio would know I hadn’t killed myself, and he would hound you until he caught you.’
‘Wouldn’t change the fact you were dead,’ David reasoned.
There was no arguing with that logic.
Lia
