Gilded Revenge: The Ex-Wife's Billion-Dollar Empire novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Hidden Wife

Eleanor Ferrars came through the cabin door without knocking.

She had driven up the track alone, in the same gray suit she'd worn to the gala, and her face was gray from lack of sleep.

She took in the two of them: Alden half buttoned at the window, Lucinda in a quilt, the clothes on the floor.

Her expression didn't change.

"Good," she said. "You're both alive. The driver told me where you went."

"Mother," Alden said.

"Sit down. Both of you. I've kept this to myself for three years and I'm finished."

Lucinda wrapped the quilt tighter and sat on the end of the bed.

Alden stayed on his feet.

Eleanor set her handbag on the table.

"Lucinda," she said. "I knew who you were."

The cabin went silent.

"What?"

"The first day. The agency sent you for the interview, and you walked into my sitting room with your hair cut short and your chin up, and I knew your face."

"You couldn't have."

"Your father and I sat on the hospital charity board for eleven years. I watched you grow up at the dinners, in a velvet dress with your shoes in your hand." She folded her hands. "A week earlier I'd seen your photograph on the evening news. HEIRESS MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD."

Lucinda could hear her own pulse.

"You hired me knowing."

"I hired you because I knew."

"Why?"

"Because the man who had your father killed was already looking for you." Eleanor's voice stayed level. "I had no proof. I had a hospital board, a death report written by the wrong person, and a very frightened girl with a broken wrist under a cheap bandage. I did not think anyone else would keep you alive."

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