“What happened?” I didn’t need to know. I could guess the rest, and it made me want to punch the guy’s lights out. What a weak dickhead. Couldn’t make his own money so wanted to live off someone else’s.
“It took him a while to realize I had no money of my own, and it took me more than a while to figure out who he was.” She sighed and tucked her hair behind her ears again, though it was already there. “I lived in a bigger flat then. A place in Mayfair. I ran in a different circle. I suppose he thought I was rich—after all, I’m Arthur Frazer’s daughter, aren’t I? But I wasn’t rich. Dad gave me money if I asked, but I didn’t ask very often. Day-to-day, I lived off what I earned. My bank account was in the black but it wasn’t overflowing. Looking back, he was always disappointed when I gave him handmade gifts at Christmas or his birthday. I missed all the hints he’d drop about expensive watches or gadgets. None of it means anything to me, so I just . . . didn’t pick up the signals. And then one day he straight-out asked for a camera for Christmas and pointed out the model. I laughed and told him I couldn’t afford it. It was something like five thousand pounds. Would have been a drop in the bucket if I had the Frazer money he thought I did.”
She looked up at me.
“Five thousand pounds is a lot of money on a Christmas gift, regardless of how wealthy you are.” I wanted to buy Parker a bath full of diamonds and it still wouldn’t be enough, but everything was relative.
“Right,” she replied. “And I didn’t have it.”
“Your father doesn’t strike me as a man who would keep you short,” I said.
“Of course not. He’s more than generous, but I never expected him to supplement my income. He bought me a house. I left university without any debt. It wasn’t like I didn’t get help; I just didn’t get an allowance. Because I was a grown woman. He would offer from time to time, and he talked about setting up a trust fund, but I wasn’t interested. I always said I would go to him if I needed anything, but I was comfortable with what I had. And you know me well enough to understand that paying my own way felt . . . important, somehow. Anyway, Mike got really upset with me when I said no to the camera. I tried to talk to him about it and suggested something cheaper, but he just got more irate. He told me I should speak to my father and that I was being selfish.”
It took everything I had not to ask for this guy’s surname and cause him some serious problems online. I could have his bank account drained within ten minutes. Give me a day and I could have his passport cancelled. A colorful criminal record is a lovely gift at any time of year, and priceless, too.
“So you dumped him?”
She hung her head. “No. I bought him the camera.”
My stomach plummeted into the floor.
“I put it on my credit card. Looking back, I realize what an idiot I was, but at the time I just wanted to make him happy. Before then everything had seemed so perfect. I just wanted to go back to that. I thought the camera would do it. A few months later, he suggested a trip—he said it would help us relax before the wedding preparations got underway. We hadn’t landed on a venue or anything, in part because we wanted really different things. He wanted a destination wedding where everyone was flown out to the Maldives and put up in a resort. I wanted something more . . . intimate.”
“Something more you,” I said.
She shrugged. “Anyway, for this pre-wedding trip, he wanted to go to Dubai. He’d planned out luxury accommodations and a private plane to get there. But I had work and we were short staffed, and I told him I couldn’t make it. So he said he could make it a boys’ trip. I wasn’t thrilled because it was meant to be our pre-wedding trip, but I accepted it. And then he asked for my credit card.” She gave a half laugh. “What an idiot.”
“You gave it to him?”
She shook her head. “No. It was maxed out from the camera. I told him that. So he told me to go ask my dad. I refused. And then over the next few weeks, he started to question me about whether or not I had a trust fund and if I was the beneficiary of my dad’s will. Finally I told him that my father was leaving everything to charity and that he didn’t believe in handing wealth down through the generations.”