Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
The email from me had been short and to the point. I had questions. I wanted answers. I named the time and place. He replied in three words—I’ll be there.
I slowed my gait and glanced into the coffee shop. I saw him a half second before my eyes landed on him. Still the same—the height, the short hair, the starched collar. But at the same time, a stranger to me. I didn’t even know if he was married.
He picked up his coffee cup and then, without taking a sip, put it down again. Was it nerves? Irritation? I pushed open the door, heading straight for the table. I wasn’t interested in coffee.
I pulled out the chair opposite him. His head shot up and he stood.
“Dexter.”
I sat quickly to avoid the shaking of hands or any other greeting that might or might not be appropriate.
“David,” I replied as he sat down. For a long time, I’d told myself I didn’t need to know anything more than I already did. I’d buried my past along with my parents and moved on, just wanting to create a legacy that was worthy of them. But now . . .? I blew out a breath. Why now? What had changed? Yes, the competition and seeing so many people who knew and loved my parents had started unpicking the locks on the door I’d shut so firmly behind me, but there was something about Hollie—something about seeing my future so clearly with her that I needed to understand where I’d come from. “I need to hear in your own words why you—” I’d told myself to stay unemotional. I just wanted the facts. He didn’t need to hear the hurt in my voice. Now we were both men rather than boys pretending, I wanted to hear what possible excuse he had to have betrayed me and my parents so fundamentally and completely. “I want to understand the circumstances that led up to you selling the business to Sparkle.”
The gray suit jacket my brother was wearing seemed to deflate like a balloon with a slow puncture. For a moment, he looked as if he’d expected me to come here and ask him how he thought Frank Lampard was doing at Chelsea. Had he really thought I was going to offer him my hand and suggest we let bygones be bygones?
He shook his head, took a sip of his coffee and leaned back in his chair. “I was twenty-three. Our parents had just died. And then I’d found out—”
I waited for him to finish his sentence.
“You have to be sure you want to hear this,” he continued.
“Hear what?” I asked. “I’ve been quite clear in telling you what I want.”
He glanced around as if to check no one was listening in on our conversation. “Sometimes, it’s best to remember the best about something. Or someone. Sometimes it’s good not to know everything.”
What was he talking about? “I want to know everything. I’m a grown man. I want the truth.”
“I get it,” he replied, nodding. “I just—Our parents were good people. And they gave us a good life before theirs were cut short.” His voice faltered as he finished his sentence.
Ice trailed down my spine. I wasn’t sure if it was a reaction to thinking about my parents’ death, hearing the upset in my brother’s voice or the anticipation of getting to know something I’d been missing for fifteen years.
“I know that,” I said, my tone curt, trying to cover up the emotions simmering just beneath the surface.
“Primrose and the solicitor called me in for a meeting just after the funeral. They told me the business had taken on a lot of debt over the years. There was always just enough to keep everything going—to pay all the bills and cover all the staff costs, but only just.”
“What sort of debts? For the shop?”
“Yes, there were several mortgages taken out on the property on Hatton Garden, and there were also personal loans.”
“But there was plenty of stock. Dad always had a full safe.”
David nodded. “Yes, they were keeping their heads above water. Remember, Dexter, I was twenty-three. I didn’t know anything much about business at the time.”
Looking back, David had always seemed so much older than me, but it was only a few years—the kind of time that dissolves to nothing as you get older. We’d both been kids when our parents had died. We knew nothing of the world.
“Primrose and the solicitor took me through the options but really there was only one.”
My skin heated and I fisted my hands. “There’s always more than one option.”
He shrugged. “Maybe in the circles you move in,” he said. “But for a twenty-three-year-old who just found out his parents’ business wasn’t the thriving, moneymaking place he’d thought it was, it didn’t seem that way.”