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Guy was half dressed, his shirt open at the neck and his trousers rumpled. He’d cast off his jacket and waistcoat somewhere else—or perhaps he’d never put them on—but she could see his Italian leather shoes kicked off, one in the middle of the carpet and one poking out from under the sofa. Several empty glasses lay knocked over next to him, and a nearly empty whiskey decanter was close at hand.
“I told you no one is to disturb me, Mrs. Jarrett,” Guy groaned.
“What in God’s good name do you think you are doing, Guy Whitley?” Adele asked, marching over to the windows to throw open the curtains and flood the room with light.
“Adele?” he croaked out.
She undid the latch and hauled up the sash window, letting fresh air into the room. “Look at the state of this place. Look at the state of you.” She threw open a second window. “Weren’t you the one to always tell me that appearances matter?”
She heard the slide of a stopper being drawn from a decanter and then the clink of crystal against crystal as an unsteady hand poured a drink.
“What good has that done me?” he asked. “It’s all gone.”
She turned around, hands planted on her hips. “What do you mean, ‘It’s all gone’?”
“Just what it sounds like.”
Her heart skipped. “The mountain lodge?”
He swept his hand through the air. “Gone. That was a nice bit of icing on the cake.” He gave a hollow laugh. “My wife leaves me, my investors practically storm the doors, my moneylender comes to collect, the banks want to call in my loans, and the hotel that’s supposed to get me out of this mess goes up in flames.”
“Is there not insurance?” she asked.
He snorted into his drink. “Do you think I could have afforded insurance while dealing with the likes of Earl? I canceled the policy in June.”
She stared at him, horrified.
“I’m ruined, Adele,” he said, letting his head fall back against the sofa. “Everything I’ve worked for is gone.”
“But what about the Andalusian?” His original hotel, his crown jewel, was successful and profitable. It should be safe.
“What do you think secured the loans for the Colorado Grand and the mountain lodge? The Andalusian and the Gables. I’m bankrupt.”
A new thought dawned on her. “Will you go to prison?”
He tilted his head up enough to take a deep drink.
“I don’t know,” he finally rasped out. “Would it matter if I did?”
“Of course it would,” she said.
“Your mother doesn’t seem to think so. She has announced that she is returning to England.”
“Yes, well, Mama has always been primarily concerned with her own survival.”
“Do you know that she told the Hotel Green to send her bill straight here?” He gave another one of those horrible, cynical laughs. “She couldn’t even choose one of my hotels. Like mother, like daughter.”
She reared back. “I am nothing like my mother.”
He raised one dark brow in her direction. “Are you not? You’re both happy to let me pay for your life, but at the first sign of trouble, you run.”
“Do you really think that is what happened?”
“What else could I think, when all you did was spend my money?” he countered.
The injustice of his words stung. “What of everything I did for you for years? Surely you cannot deny that I created this home for us. Or what of all the times I worked over tea to convince the wives of your investors to lean on their husbands in your favor? What of all the endless dinner parties I attended where I was seated next to the owner of the second-largest slaughterhouse in Chicago or the third most-prominent steelmaker in Pittsburgh when they were on a visit to Pasadena? What of the teas and the balls and the hours spent listening to people drone on and on about things I truly could not have less interest in at the Valley Hunt Club?”
“That was your role as my wife, Adele. You knew that when you married me.”
