The Billionaires: The Stepbrothers (Lover's Triangle 3)

“I’m not trying to badger—”

“I’m asking you a question, Miss Drake.”

“It would be incredibly helpful to know where the money went so that I can report back to my client and we can wrap this up.”

“It’s not a crime to spend the payout,” Sam contended.

“It is if that payout came from a fraudulent claim,” Scarlet corrected.

“But it didn’t,” Michael insisted.

“I understand your natural compulsion to protect her,” Scarlet said to both men. “But if she’s covering something up—”

“She’s not covering anything up,” Sam insisted in an edgy voice.

“Then it shouldn’t be so difficult to ascertain where the money went.” Scarlet’s gaze snapped back to Karina. “It’s a simple ques—”

“A gambling debt!” Karina blurted.

Looking just as shocked and devastated by her abrupt confession as Michael and Sam.

SIXTEEN

“It was a gambling debt, okay?” Karina repeated. “A very large one, Miss Drake.”

Sam sank back into his chair. Michael’s brow crooked.

Karina shook her head. Let out a heavy breath.

Scarlet’s stomach plummeted. But she asked, “You couldn’t have just told me that from the onset?”

“No one knew,” Karina said. “Aside from Mitcham. I didn’t want my sons to find out.”

“Mother—”

Karina lifted a hand to cut Sam off. She explained, “I developed a vile and evil addiction not long after that artwork was stolen. I started drinking in the afternoons. Sipping vodka with my Valium. Call it cliché if you must, Miss Drake, but you have no idea, I’m sure, what it’s like to be a waitress living in a horrific neighborhood and doing everything you possibly can to raise a son. Only to fall in love with a man of Mitcham Vandenberg’s caliber. He moved me and Sam out here. To a completely different world in so many ways. There were expectations to meet. There were people to convince that I truly did love my husband, and that I wasn’t just after his money. There was pressure, Miss Drake, to fit in.”

Scarlet asked, “You feared you were falling short?”

“Miserably.”

“I’m not calling you cliché,” Scarlet told her. “And you’re right, I don’t understand what you went through. I can comprehend it in my mind, but I can’t fully relate to it.”

“I did everything I could think of,” Karina continued as she toyed with her napkin with her finger and thumb. “I was willing to do anything to prove I was genuine, to be the kind of wife Mitcham deserved, to live up to the image and reputation of his first wife.” Her gaze lifted from the table and landed on Michael. “I know it was a painful situation for you. It all happened so fast.”

“Yes, it did.” Michael sat again with the rest of them. The air in the solarium shifted from tense to dismal.

Karina told him, “I worked in a café close to Mount Sinai. Your father would come in mid-afternoon. He’d order coffee but never drank it. He’d stare out the window toward the hospital, not saying a word. With his frequent visits always around the same time of day, we reached a point where he didn’t even have to ask for the coffee. I just brought it to him. He didn’t have to speak at all, and I could tell he preferred that. He’d just gaze outside, lost in his thoughts. It was perfectly evident to see that he was distraught. Tormented.”

“My mother got ill suddenly,” Michael said. “Died quickly.”

Karina nodded. “After a couple of weeks, I noticed a change in him. The tear in his eye as he stared out the window. Just one. It’d pop up on the rim and he’d whisk it away before it fell. Then his entire demeanor would turn rigid. His jaw would clench and his fists would ball on the table, next to his untouched coffee. He’d take a few deep breaths, and then he was composed again. On the outside, at least.”

Scarlet stared at the woman, seeing Karina’s turmoil as much as Karina had witnessed, become wrapped up in, the turmoil of the stranger in her café.

Karina’s eyes misted as she said, “I didn’t know who he was, but I could tell he was a strong, prideful man. From the way he dressed to the way his shoulders were always squared, no matter the hell playing out in his mind. In his life. I didn’t doubt that he felt out of control of this situation that I knew nothing about and it tore him up.” She paused a moment, sniffled, then told them, “It tore me up, too. I didn’t even know him, but I was heartbroken for him.”

“That was very compassionate of you,” Scarlet said in a soft voice.