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.” Melinda lavished a closemouthed smile at him.Before Carrick could speak, Hannah said, “Actually, I have a blot on my record.”Carrick cast her a lethal glance.But all her attention was on Melinda.“My last patient was Donald Dresser, and the Dresser family has accused me of seducing him for an inheritance.”“Who made the accusation?” Melinda knew very well.Only a minute ago, she’d read the file on the Internet.“Jeff Dresser,” Hannah answered.Melinda snorted.“Jeff Dresser.As if anyone in his right mind would believe him.His son was so awful to Carrick after Nathan left.Remember, dear?”Carrick looked down at the book in his hand as if he’d forgotten that he held it.“I remember.”“I’d like to put a spoke in his wheel,” Melinda said with relish.“So the problem’s in New Hampshire?”“Yes, Mrs.Manly.” Hannah watched her, hope kindling on her face.“I’ve known the governor of New Hampshire since he was born.Don’t worry, Hannah.Little Scottie Mac-Donald will do what I tell him.You’ll be reinstated in no time.” Melinda gestured her toward the door.“If you took care of that old coot Donald Dresser and managed to wheedle a few dollars out of him, then I know that you’re a good, patient nurse, and the right one for me.But I wonder, do you know anything about giving a party?”“Giving a party?” Carrick leaped across the room.“What do you mean, giving a party?”Yes, that got his attention, didn’t it? He didn’t want her to take control of her life.He liked her better isolated and brooding, afraid of the world and all its perils.“The government has given me a deadline—tell them what I know about your father’s fortune by November third, or go on trial for collusion in the defrauding of the Manly Corporation’s stockholders.” Melinda Balfour Manly, of the Balfours of Maine, would be held up to the scorn of the world, on charges that would rekindle the scandal and the gossip and the pain.“I will have to leave my home to attend this mockery.I am old.I am ugly.I am ill.And as I look back, I wonder how this came to pass.” Melinda lifted her chin.“But then I remember how this house used to be when I was a child, so full of lights and gaiety.So I’ve decided to make myself happy, turn back the clock, and throw the annual Balfour Halloween party one last time, and when I am done, society will gossip about me, but not in pity.” She took Hannah’s hand and squeezed it hard, determined to seize this one last opportunity to lift herself out of this brew of misery Nathan had cooked up.“My dear, when we get done, the world will stand in awe of Melinda Balfour Manly.”SIXI’m your brother.Gabriel Prescott watched Carrick Manly wend his way through the clustered tables at B’wiched, the latest and best of the sandwich shops in New York City, and wished for a better way to break the news.I’m your half brother.But while Gabriel was very good at manipulating situations to suit his needs, when it came to tact, he could sometimes be found.lacking.It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the need for tact.His family, the family who had given him a last name and treated him as if he really was their brother.they had demonstrated over and over how important the use of tact could be in relationships.His sisters always told him he could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.But in times of stress, he sometimes said things a little too bluntly.I’m one of your father’s bastards.Or a lot too bluntly.The new senator from South Carolina and her husband stopped Carrick to hug him with the assurance of old friends.Gabriel wasn’t sweating this encounter with Carrick.They’d met before, many times.In fact, the first time they’d met, it had been a carefully orchestrated encounter, not long after Gabriel had first begun to suspect his father’s identity.That contact and the possibility that Carrick was his blood relative had left Gabriel feeling as if he was looking into a mirror distorted by old money and a long distinguished lineage.They had nothing in common.Nothing.Carrick was designer suits, Ivy League schools, East Coast founding families, and country clubs.Gabriel was foster homes, long days of loneliness, gang fights, and half-remembered nightmares that woke him in a cold sweat.He had started with nothing.He had made a million, twice, and lost it, twice, by the time he was twenty-one.He was thirty-eight now.He owned the largest security firm in the United States, had interests in a dozen different start-up enterprises and a nose for business.He knew his way around a boardroom.He knew how to fit into the Prescott family, loving his foster sisters and their husbands, and adoring their children.But he was more at home with his fists.With a gun.With facing adversity.With winning.Which was not to say Carrick didn’t project power.He did.But it was a different kind of power.At the age of twenty-six, Carrick owned an apartment in Manhattan and Balfour House on the coast of Maine.He spoke to all the right people, knew how to sail a yacht, and he played polo—polo, for God’s sake.Yet Carrick discussed money with sharp intelligence, and displayed a shrewd aptitude when summing up people’s weaknesses.Gabriel wasn’t blind to Carrick’s failings; since employing Gabriel, Carrick had occasionally treated him as an English aristocrat would treat a servant.Once, when Gabriel had failed to act on Carrick’s concerns with what Carrick considered enough respect, he’d thrown a full-blown, petulant outburst.Neither the attitude nor the tantrum had sat well with Gabriel
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IndexChristine Amsden [Cassie Scot Cassie Scot ParaNormal Detecti
Christine Wood [Life Plan 01] A Life Plan Without You (epub)
Christie Craig [Divorced, Des Divorced, Desperate
Moore Christopher Ssij, mała, ssij (II)
Christine Cody [Bloodlands 01 Bloodlands (epub)
Christina Ross [Unleash Me, A Unleash Me, Vol 3 (epub)
Christian Fletcher [The Left Left on the Brink (epub)
Stasheff, Christopher Wizard in Rhyme 6 Haunted Wizard
Christopher G Nuttall [Royal The Royal Sorceress (epub)
Christine Feehan Mroczna Seri Mroczny Demon