very adept at maintaining a whiter than white reputation for himself whilst destroying the reputations of those who are unfortunate enough to become innocently involved with him,’ Dee informed them bitterly.
Kelly was feeling far too muzzy with wine to take Dee up on what she had said, but she sensed that there was some kind of past history between Julian Cox and Dee, even if she knew that Dee would not welcome any probing into it on her part.
‘What we need to do,’ Dee was telling them both firmly, ‘is to use his own tactics against him and lure him into a position where his true nature can be exposed. It’s no secret now to any of us that the reason he dropped Beth is because he realised that there wasn’t going to be any financial benefit to him in marrying her.’
‘Since we do know that, I can’t help but agree with Kelly that we ought to do something to warn his new girlfriend and her family just what kind of man he is,’ Anna suggested gently.
Dee shook her head. ‘We know how blindly in love Beth was, and, although I hate to say this, we could all be done an untold amount of harm if Julian Cox started trying to tar us with the same brush he’s used against Beth to such good effect. The last thing any of us needs is to be publicly branded as hysterical, over-emotional women, obsessed by some imaginary sense of injustice.’
She was right, Kelly had to acknowledge.
‘Besides, if my plan works successfully, and it will, then he’ll drop his current victim just as swiftly as he dropped Beth, and for very much the same reason.’
‘Your plan? What plan?’ Kelly asked her uneasily.
‘This plan. Listen,’ Dee commanded. ‘We are going to mount a two-pronged attack against Julian where he’s most vulnerable.
‘I happen to know that one of Julian’s clever little ways of funding his expensive lifestyle is to persuade gullible people to invest in his apparently initially sound financial schemes. By the time they realise that they are anything but sound, it’s too late and their money has gone.’
‘But surely that’s fraud?’ Kelly protested. Dee shrugged her shoulders.
‘Technically, yes, but Julian relies on the fact that his victims feel too embarrassed or are too timid to complain. For that reason he tends to prey on the elderly and the vulnerable, the innocently naive, too trusting and honest themselves to see what he really is until it’s too late.’
‘The man’s a menace,’ Kelly complained sharply.
‘Yes, he is, and we’re going to expose him as he fully deserves to be exposed,’ Dee told her. ‘You, Kelly, are suddenly going to become an extremely rich young woman. You have a great-uncle, previously unknown and now deceased, who has left you a considerable amount of money. This inheritance isn’t something you yourself have made public, of course; in fact you refuse to talk about it—its existence is something you wish to keep a secret—but its existence has subtly filtered through the town’s grapevine, at least as far as Julian’s ears.
‘We already know that he finds you attractive; you’ve told us both that he made advances to you whilst he was pretending to Beth that he loved her... All you have to do is let him believe that you’re prepared to commit yourself, and, more importantly, your future to him. His own ego and greed will do the rest.’
‘But I can’t pretend that I’ve inherited money...I can’t lie about something like that,’ Kelly said. ‘What. will people think when they know?’
‘Only Julian will ever know about your supposed inheritance,’ Dee assured her. ‘Just as only Julian will ever know that you are a wealthy widow and have money to spare for investment,’ she told Anna.
Anna looked at her uncertainly.
‘He has already tried to borrow money from me, Dee, it’s true, as I’ve just told you both, but I’m certainly not a wealthy woman and...’
‘Look, when it comes to convincing Julian that you both have financial assets that we all know simply don’t exist, you can leave everything to me. I promise you that Julian is the only person who will be made aware of these imaginary fortunes.’
‘But will he believe it? Surely he’ll...’
‘He’ll believe it,’ Dee assured Kelly. ‘He’ll believe it because he’ll want to believe it. He needs to believe it,’ she told them grimly. ‘From what I’ve learned, his own financial position is so perilous at the moment that he’ll grasp just about any straw he can to save himself.
‘Once he switches his allegiance from his current girlfriend to you, Kelly, and once he tries to draw you, Anna, into one of his financial scams, we’ll be able to publicly reveal him for the cheat and liar that he genuinely is...’
‘It sounds plausible,’ Kelly acknowledged. ‘And it would certainly exonerate Beth if we could pull it off.’
‘As well as preventing his current girlfriend from suffering a potential broken heart and losing her inheritance,’ Anna supplied protectively.
‘So it’s agreed,’ Dee slipped in quickly. ‘We don’t have any option but to go ahead and bring him to book.’
‘No, I suppose we don’t,’ Kelly acknowledged.
She still wasn’t totally convinced that she was going to be able to carry off the role Dee had apparently cast for her as a wealthy heiress, but her head felt too muzzy for her to protest properly.
There was one thing she had to say, though.
‘How can you be so sure that Julian will drop his current girlfriend for me?’
‘He wants you, we already know that,’ Dee told her forthrightly, ‘and besides, you’re on your own, unprotected... It’s your money...yours to do with as you please... His current girlfriend isn’t; she’s got a brother who stands between Julian and her inheritance. Julian is running out of credit and credibility. He won’t be able to resist the bait you’re dangling, Kelly. He can’t afford to resist it.’
“The bait...’ Kelly swallowed shakily. The bait Dee was referring to, as she knew only too well, wasn’t just her imagined fortune, it was Kelly herself, and since she personally thought that Julian Cox was the most loathsome, obnoxious, revolting and undesirable man she had ever met...
‘But if Kelly’s going to pose as a wealthy heiress, then surely Julian won’t be interested in my money as well,’ Anna protested.
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Dee corrected her. ‘Julian is greedy and avaricious; he won’t pass up any opportunity to get his hands on some extra cash.’
‘But I’ve already refused to help him once,’ Anna pointed out.
‘You’re a woman; you can change your mind,’ Dee told her mock-sweetly. ‘Look, you can both leave all the details of putting our plans into action to me. All I want from you is your agreement, your commitment, to help Beth, and I know I can rely on both of you completely for that... Can’t I?’
Kelly and Anna exchanged uncertain looks.
‘Beth is very dear to us,’ Dee reminded them, looking first at Kelly and then at
