She shifted on the hard cushion of her father’s reproduction Louis XIV couch as she sat in his fancy parlor. She looked down at her watch. Six hours he’d made her wait now. Six. It was her first visit in three years, and he’d just left her here, alone and unwelcome in the sprawling house he’d built for his mistress, a forty-thousand-square-foot mansion on a sprawling estate near Minneapolis.
Clearly this was her punishment for not coming home i
n June to marry his employee, as he’d demanded.
Her lower back gave a sudden stab of pain, and she rose to her feet. The parlor had beautiful views of snowy Lake Minnetonka through the black, bare trees, but it still felt like an office, not a home. There were no personal photographs, just posters from various Hainsbury’s advertising campaigns. The closest framed poster showed a happy young couple embracing on a park bench with the image of an engagement ring superimposed around them. Beneath it in big letters was the tagline, Hainsbury Jewelers. When Only Perfection Will Do.
Perfection. Engagement rings. Love in general. Lilley hated them all right now. But most of all, she hated her knack for loving men who did not have the capacity or desire to love her back.
Her father’s abandonment had left a hole in her heart. But Alessandro had done far worse. He’d cut through that hole with a machete, leaving one side of her heart drenched in acid, the other smashed with a meat mallet.
She’d given her husband everything, and it still hadn’t been enough. Alessandro hadn’t even tried to hear her side. He’d just taken Olivia’s every word as gospel—even believing it was possible Lilley might have slept with another man!
Well, she had slept with another man. Without thinking, she reached up and touched the brass-and-pink-rock-crystal necklace hanging around her throat, a gesture she’d repeated many times over the last week. A tragedy that the man she’d loved, the man she’d been so sure Alessandro could be, had been entirely a figment of her imagination.
She swallowed, blinking fast. But work would see her through. After all she’d endured, she was no longer afraid of failure.
She just hadn’t been thinking big enough. Instead of opening a boutique, she was starting her own line of handmade, unique jewelry art, as Vladimir Xendzov had called it. After Alessandro had effectively ended their marriage, Lilley had spent days weeping in her old housekeeper’s suite in her cousin’s castle before she’d resurfaced to play with her cousin’s baby. Théo’s wife had demanded, “Where did you get that fabulous necklace?”
“I made it myself,” Lilley had replied, turning away. Then something inside her made her pause. Made her turn back around. With a deep breath, she’d added, “I’ve decided to start my own business. I’m going to sell handcrafted jewelry to luxury boutiques and exclusive department stores across the world. I’m going back to the States to try for a business loan.”
Carrie had shaken her head vehemently. “No!” she’d cried, and for a moment Lilley was taken aback. Then her friend smiled. “Don’t take out a loan with some banker, please. Let me do it! This is just the investment I was looking for.”
Closing her eyes, Lilley took a deep breath. Her dream was coming true in a way she’d never imagined. She had her financing now and was dependent on no one, not even Carrie. She’d finally been brave enough to take a risk. Alessandro had helped her do that, she admitted quietly to herself. He’d taught her how to have the confidence to follow her dreams. Her business might succeed or fail, but either way, it was all up to her.
She’d finally become strong enough to stand up for what was right, even if it terrified her. And she would rather be alone than be with a husband who didn’t love or trust her.
Lilley was no man’s housekeeper. No man’s helpless wife. And apparently, no man’s daughter.
As the sun started to set, scattering pink light over the snow beneath a black lattice of trees, Lilley finally gave up and turned for the door.
“What do you want?” Her father’s voice was low and hard. Lilley saw him in the doorway, and her mouth fell open with shock.
Walton Hainsbury seemed to have aged decades in the three years since her mother’s funeral. His beady eyes glared at her through his wire-rimmed glasses, but his face looked pale as he took a long suck of his cigar.
Her nose wrinkled at the smell. Cigars had become her least favorite smell in the world. He’d been smoking the day he’d left Lilley and her mother, when he’d announced he would go and build a mansion on Lake Minnetonka for his far younger mistress. Eighteen-year-old Lilley had cared for her mother at their family home in Minneapolis for two years, until she died.
“What are you doing here?” Walton rasped, looking contemptuously at the powder-blue coat and dark, fitted jeans. “Have you come crawling here to try to worm your way back into my will? It’s too late, missy! I’ve left everything to charity!”
Lilley stiffened. “I didn’t come for money.”
“Likely story.”
The accusation stung. “I’ve never asked you for money. Not once. You know I haven’t.” Lifting her chin, she looked at him. “I just came to tell you you’re going to be a grandfather.”
He stared at her. She noticed that the color of his skin was ashy, his jowls flabby, as if he’d lost weight. He took several puffs of his cigar before he said in a low voice, “You’re pregnant?”
She nodded.
His eyes narrowed at her bare left hand. “And no husband.” He glared at her. “You couldn’t marry the man I chose for you. Had to throw yourself away!”
“The man you chose for me was twice my age.”
“If you’d married him, I could have left him my company. I would have known you’d always have someone to take care of you. But you wouldn’t see sense, as usual. And now it’s too late.”
She heard a wistfulness in his voice. A lump rose in her throat. “I’ll be all right. I can take care of myself.”
“You can’t,” he barked. “You’ve just come back with another mouth to feed, expecting me to solve things for you as I always do.”