Chapter 11: Pool House

I found him at the pool house.

It was one in the morning, and the moon was out, and the whole ninth fairway was silver and quiet.

Ramsay sat on the ground with his back against the boarded door and his tie hanging loose.

He had a bottle of water next to him, unopened.

He saw the ledger under my arm and closed his eyes.

"Zara," he said.

"She's gone to Charleston."

"Good."

"Ramsay. Who burned the pool house?"

He opened his eyes.

I had never seen anything so tired.

"I did," he said.

The night went very still around us.

"I was eighteen," he said.

"It was the night of my graduation party, up here at the club, and my father had the whole terrace.

"I'd had too many drinks. I took a golf cart without asking and drove it down here, because I wanted to be alone."

I sat down on the grass.

I didn't trust my legs.

"I hit the pool chemicals shed with the front bumper.

"The fumes ignited, and the pool house caught in under a minute.

"I stood there on the grass and watched it burn."

"Where was my father?"

"Mowing the back nine, because it was cool at night."

His voice cracked.

"He heard the explosion and ran across the whole course.

"He went into the building, Mara, into the fire, because he thought someone was inside."

"Was there?"

"No. Just me, outside, standing like a statue.

"He came out with his hair singed and his hands burned.

"He looked at me, and he said, are you hurt, son?"

I put a hand over my mouth.

"I couldn't answer him. I was shaking.

"Then Stanford Lorring ran up with a flashlight.

"He saw your father covered in soot beside the burning shed, with a groundskeeper's keys on his belt."

"And you let him say it was my father."

"I let him."

He said it.

"My father arrived ten minutes later.

"He took one look at me and took Stanford aside, and the two of them made an arrangement in five minutes.

"Stanford would say the groundskeeper left the chemicals unsecured. My father would write Stanford a check.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Corrupting My Billionaire Boss's Heart from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.