He continued to watch her. Or scrutinize her. Or whatever he was doing. She glanced away, needing a reprieve.
He asked, “Did Rich know you had a savings account? Did you share that information with him?”
She returned her gaze to his. “Yes, I told him. But it never occurred to me that he was going to swindle me out of it. As far as I knew, he was a wealthy man.” After a chop of silence, she added, “When I first got to Dallas, I rented the apartment I have now, and he would stay with me when he was in town. He took me out from time to time, but he never introduced me to any of his friends or family. He said that he couldn’t, not while he and Megan were still keeping a lid on their divorce. I didn’t know anyone in Texas besides him, so there was no one for him to meet, either.”
“Sounds like your life with him was isolated.”
“It was. But at the time, I didn’t mind.” She winced, hating the stomach-clenching ache that repeating this story gave her. “It seemed romantic, just the two of us. But then he started to seem troubled. Only he refused to tell me what was wrong. He kept saying that he didn’t want to burden me with it. It was obviously part of his ploy, pretending to protect me from his problems. But finally, he told me that he was under financial duress. That his personal accounts had been frozen because of something Megan had done, and he wasn’t able to make withdrawals or use his credit cards. He also said that he couldn’t withdraw money from his business accounts, either, because he didn’t want to involve his family, and they were tied to those accounts. He was trying to solve it without them knowing what was going on.”
Rand shook his head. “It sounds like he had it all worked out, blaming his wife while trying to get money from his girlfriend.”
“I loaned him little bits at a time, until the amounts started getting bigger and bigger. But even so, he never gave me cause to think that he couldn’t be trusted. He promised that he would pay me back, and I believed him. The last time I saw him, he said that he was getting close to sorting it out and should have access to his accounts again.” She took a long sip of soda to quench her suddenly dry throat, then went on. “Shortly after that, I received a letter from an attorney saying that he was dead, and I was named as one of the heirs to his estate.”
When she hesitated, Rand motioned for her to continue. She took one more sip of her drink before she said, “I was devastated by his loss. Then later, of course, things took a different turn. I discovered that he wasn’t even Will Sanders. I also learned that four other women had received the same letter, also making them heirs to an estate that didn’t even belong to him. It made me feel as if he’d stolen from me twice, first by taking my money. Then by making me part of an inheritance I wasn’t able to claim.”
Rand nodded, a bit too solemnly. “Did you ever tell your family about him? Do they know he’s the reason you had to borrow money from them?”
“I told them a condensed version of the truth. I admitted that I came to America to be with a man and that he’d taken advantage of me and hurt some other women, too. I couldn’t reveal the entire story since we’re not allowed to discuss the case with anyone who isn’t involved in it, but they’re still concerned about my emotional well-being. They could tell how badly this affected me.”
“And now you’re going to tell them that I helped you through it and you fell in love with me.”
“Yes.” She would be deceiving them about what should be the most important events of her life. Falling in love. Finding her true soul mate. Accepting his marriage proposal.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, much too softly.
Was he comforting her for the lie she was going to tell her family? Or was he consoling her for Rich’s treachery?
Whatever he was doing, it made her feel warm and protected. When she was a girl, eating Ma’s bread-and-butter pudding used to make her feel the same way. Sometimes she used to sit by the fireplace on cold nights and devour the entire pan.
“Do you have a preference for the type of engagement ring I get?” he asked. “The cut of the diamond? Or the kind of setting?”
She cleared her mind. She wasn’t supposed to be feeling warm and protected by Rand. She hadn’t even decided how trustworthy he was. “I thought you were going to get an antique one?”
“I am, but this will be the first time I’ll be buying jewelry for someone other than my grandmother. And I want to do it right.”
“I’m sure you’ll do splendidly with whatever you choose. But I’ll be returning it to you after the marriage ends, so you should get something that has a good resell value so you can get your investment back.”
He frowned. “I don’t want it back. It’s going to be your ring. I’m buying it for you.”
“I know, but it wouldn’t be proper for me to keep it.”
“Then you should be the one to sell it and recoup what you lost.”
“That isn’t necessary,” she insisted. “Besides, I already told you earlier that I don’t want to be beholden to you.”
“Come on, Allison. You should at least get a diamond out of this deal.”
She wasn’t comfortable getting anything out of it except her green card. “Maybe we should discuss this another time. I don’t want to argue on our very first day.”
“All right, we’ll figure it out later.” He paused before he asked, “Do you know your ring size?”
She shook her head. She’d never worn a ring before, on any of her fingers. She didn’t own much in the way of jewelry, aside from the costume stuff that she kept in a small wooden box, all tangled up together.
He said, “There must be a way to measure it. I’ll look it up online.” He checked his phone. “Oh, here we go. There’s a paper method that should work. I’ll print this and we can try it.” He got up from his seat. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
While he was gone, she stayed at the dining table, reminding herself to breathe. Within no time, she would be Rand’s wife. She would be sleeping upstairs in that scandalous boudoir, with her hot-as-sin husband on the other side.
He returned with the paper chart and a pair of scissors, striding back into the room and catching her eye.
As he stood next to her chair and cut out the ring sizer, she asked, “When are you going to announce our engagement?”
“You mean publicly? I’d rather wait to make a splash until after we’re married. We’ve got too much to do, trying to plan the ceremony this quickly. If we get bombarded with media attention beforehand, we’ll never get everything done.”
As he took hold of her left hand to size her finger, his touch sent an electric current through her. She nearly jolted from the feeling. Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice.
“You’re a six.” He set the chart aside. “I’m going to have to wear a ring, too. I need to look as husbandly as I can, to flash my status as much as possible. But I’ll find myself a plain gold band. Not an antique. Just something simple and modern.”
“Yes, plain bands seem to be what most men prefer.” Or so she assumed. “Would you mind
