Millionaire Dad: Wife Needed. NATASHA OAKLEY
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Lydia Stanford…
No. He wouldn’t trust her as far as he could spit. What Wendy had been thinking of to insist on a woman capable of building her career by using her own sister’s tragedy he couldn’t imagine. You had to be an automaton to do what Lydia had done.
Any normal person would have been overcome by grief at her sister’s attempted suicide. They’d have hung by her bedside, too traumatised to do anything else.
But not Lydia Stanford. Ms Stanford had launched an exhaustive vendetta against the man at the centre of the scandal. She’d meticulously collected information on his fraudulent business dealings, making sure she had enough to ruin him.
And in the process she’d made her own fortune. Not bad going. But what about the sister? How did she feel about being a stepping stone in her sister’s career?
Even his ex-wife, Ana, wouldn’t have been so coldly calculating. He rubbed a hand across the spike of pain in his forehead. Or just not as overt? But that made precious little difference to the people around them. They still got hurt. Collateral damage in a game they didn’t know they were playing.
One thing was certain; Wendy’s decision to choose Lydia Stanford had nothing to do with the mane of honey-brown hair which she wore in that half up, half down sexy thing women did. Nor would Wendy have noticed the amber flecks in her brown eyes, or her long legs, or, he altered his position slightly, her unfortunate taste for his ex-wife’s jacket design. Presumably Ms Stanford thought it worth selling her soul to be able to afford an Anastasia Wilson jacket. Now Ana would most certainly have approved of that.
Nick shifted uncomfortably on the floor, listening out for the sound of the ambulance. He stroked the hand in his lap. ‘It can’t be much longer, Wendy. Hang on in there for me.’
He watched the frown of concentration and heard the quietly determined, ‘Apple.’
He leant closer. ‘What about an apple?’
With total concentration she carefully repeated, ‘Apple.’
It made no sense. Nick kept stroking her hand and tried to sound calm and reassuring. The minutes ticked by interminably slowly.
He tried to picture Lydia Stanford at that crucial junction making sure the ambulance crew didn’t waste precious minutes. She’d do that, he decided. She might have ambition running through her veins where lesser mortals had blood, but he believed she’d take a few moments to help the woman whose biography she’d agreed to write.
Even Ana would have spared a few minutes from her hectic schedule. His smile twisted. Or perhaps not. Ana spared no thought for anyone but herself.
The garden gate banged and he sat a little straighter. Thank God. ‘Up here,’ he shouted.
He heard the mumble of voices as they came into the hall; seconds later a face appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Wendy Bennington, is it?’ the woman said, taking in the slumped figure on the floor.
Nick nodded, standing up and brushing down his jeans.
‘Your friend made sure we didn’t miss the turning.’ She knelt down and spoke to Wendy. ‘I’m Sarah. We’ll soon have you sorted, my love.’
CHAPTER TWO
IZZY put a plate of spicy crab cakes and salad in front of her sister. ‘So, tell me. What’s the matter?’ She sat down opposite Lydia and flicked back her softly waving hair. ‘I might have overdone the chilli in the dipping sauce, so go careful.’
Lydia took a mouthful of the crab cake. ‘This is fantastic.’
‘I know. It’s the Tobasco.’
‘You’re getting good.’
‘I’m a genius,’ Izzy said, smiling over the top of her glass of wine, ‘but that’s not why you’re here, is it? What’s happened?’
‘You mean apart from Wendy Bennington having a stroke?’
Izzy nodded. ‘Apart from that. Although it’s horrible for her, of course. I don’t mean it isn’t, but…’
The silence hung between them.
‘You’ve seen far worse things than an elderly woman having a stroke, Liddy.’
Which was true.
‘So, what’s bothering you?’
Lydia sighed and looked across at her younger sister, uncertain as to what it was that was nagging at her. It seemed to be a whole mixture of things twirling about in her head making her feel discontented. Irritated. That wasn’t the right word either.
It was as though she’d been travelling happily in one direction only to have it violently blocked off. Like a train being derailed, if you liked. Normally she’d have worked out a way to make it an opportunity, but…
Lydia winced. It didn’t feel like an opportunity. It felt—
She didn’t know what it felt like. There was something about seeing Wendy Bennington slumped in that doorway that had affected her deeply—and in a way she found difficult to understand. Instead of driving back to Hammersmith she’d rung Izzy and begged a bed for the night.
But why? Her sister was absolutely right when she said she’d seen and experienced so much worse.
In her nine years as a journalist she’d witnessed many terrible things. Not just death and injury, but mindless violence and examples of sadistic cruelty that defied description. Some days it was difficult to maintain any kind of belief in the innate goodness of human nature, but she’d trained herself to cope with it. She was inured against it all.
Almost.
Certainly detached. Lydia picked up her wineglass and sipped. It was as if a steel screen came down and kept her objective. It was the only way it was possible to do her job. She imagined it was similar to the way a surgeon worked. You could care, really deeply, but not so much that it prevented you from thinking clearly.
She looked across at Izzy, patiently waiting, her hands cradled around her wineglass. The only time in her life when she’d felt completely out of control was when she’d found Izzy unconscious. There would never, could never, be any event more terrible than finding her sister had taken an overdose.
She hadn’t felt detached then. That night she’d experienced emotions she hadn’t known she was capable of feeling. She’d believed Izzy would die and fear had ripped through her like lightning in a night sky. There’d been the sense of being utterly alone and desperately frightened. Not even the unexpected death of her parents had inspired such an extreme reaction.
The only thing that had kept her functioning, on any level, was the passionate hatred she felt for Steven Daly—the man responsible. Bitter anger had uncurled like a serpent within her. It had driven her. Had demanded retribution.
Looking at Izzy now, little more than two years on, it could almost have been a dream. She looked so young—and hopeful. Time was a great healer.
‘Well?’ Izzy prompted.
Lydia forced a smile. ‘I think it was the house,’ she said at last, trying to put words on thoughts she couldn’t quite catch hold of. ‘You’ve never seen anything like it. She lives in a cottage that time’s all but forgotten. All alone in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Perhaps she likes solitude? Some people do.’
‘It’s not that…It’s…’ Lydia frowned. ‘The cottage smells of damp and cat urine…and then there are all these frozen meals for one in the freezer. It’s so incredibly…sad. There’s no other word for it—’ She broke off. ‘Oh, no!’
‘What?’
‘I’d forgotten about the cat.’ Lydia put down her wineglass. ‘She’s got a cat.’
‘It’s