‘That’s because Griffin is a halfwit.’
‘And I hear this app of hers is going to make her a very rich woman.’
‘Yes,’ he drawls. ‘Your point being?’
‘Why did she marry you? By your own admission, you’re a bastard to be involved with.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Beckett suddenly sounds discomforted. It’s something I’m not familiar with, and I’ve known him for half my lifetime. It’s like I’ve hit a nerve.
‘What have you been up to?’ I ask carefully. He doesn’t answer. ‘This whirlwind romance isn’t a cover for some business deal, is it?’ I hear how ridiculous the notion is even as the words leave my mouth.
‘Harry, you surprise me,’ he murmurs coolly, sounding much more like himself. ‘I wasn’t aware you had such a fertile imagination.’
‘You can drop the act. I know how much you want to get your hands on the senior partnership of JBW.’ Beckett makes a fortune for the venture capitalist company, but they’re reluctant to sell him the controlling share, despite his success. He seems to think they’re disinclined due to a nasty habit he acquired in his youth—a stimulant that has long been acceptable in the finance world.A habit he’s long since been clean of.But he wouldn’t use a woman as collateral of any kind, would he? ‘Please tell me there isn’t an angle here and that you didn’t marry for any other reason than love.’
‘Olivia knew what she was getting into when she married me,’ he answers wearily. ‘If you bed the devil, you must expect at some point to wake in hell.’
‘You’ve been drinking.’ It’s not an accusation but more a concern. Not that he doesn’t drink, but he doesn’t drink to excess anymore. Not anymore. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I do wonder if you should join your storytelling talents with Montague’s father. Who knew you harboured such a fanciful mind?’ Something shimmers dangerously in his tone as he returns to type. I’m not done with this line of questioning, but I’ll leave it for now. ‘You’re certainly very circuitous today. You didn’t call to complain I wasn’t at brunch.’
I rub my fingers over the scruff on my jaw. ‘You’re right.’ Beckett doesn’t answer unless you count the long sigh he breathes down the line. ‘So I’m just going to come out with it. There was a girl helping Olivia out at the speed dating event last night.’
‘Yes?’
‘She works for Olivia, right?’
‘Yes.’ The same answer in a different tone this time.
‘Well, I was wondering if you’d tell me a little about her.’
‘Tell?’ There’s so much condescension in that word. ‘Tell you what, exactly?’
‘How old is she?’ For a start.
‘No,’ he answers firmly. ‘Don’t even think about it. There’s young, and then there’s just wrong.’ I don’t need to see him to know his jaw is clenched to keep in the tirade balanced on the end of his tongue.
‘That’s a little like the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?’ He recently married a woman more than a decade younger than him.
‘Harry, the girl is only just out of the school room.’
My stomach drops like a stone. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
‘She’s barely nineteen. How about you tell meyou’rekidding. I mean, what the fuck, Harry? She’s a little left of field as far as your tastes usually go, but please feel free to tell me I have this wrong.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ I have nothing else to say. Nothing to add, but plenty to regret, it seems. But then I remember there were two of them. ‘Just to be certain; we’re talking about Miranda here?’
‘You said girl. Miranda is a woman, not a girl.’
Well, fuck me for a feminist. Who is this man, and where has Beckett gone?
‘Okay, so Miranda. She’s older, right?’
‘A little,’ he answers in a clipped and painfully concise tone.
‘How much older than nineteen?’
‘I neither know nor care.’
