Man of Fortune. Rochelle Alers
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“Nope.”
The seconds ticked off. “What are you?” Tamara asked when he seemed reluctant to answer her question.
“I’m a financial planner.”
“Are you a financial planner or an accountant?”
“I’m both.”
“Do you practice accounting?”
Duncan shook his head. “Not in the traditional sense.”
“Why did you get an accounting degree if not to practice or teach?”
“It’s a long story.”
Tamara gave him a winning smile. “Didn’t you say we have nothing but time? And besides, you have a captive audience.”
Duncan returned her smile with a dazzling one of his own, unaware of the effect it had on the woman beside him. “I’ll tell you on one condition.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “What’s that?”
“If you snap at me again, then you’ll have to take me out to dinner. Then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll take you out.”
“What are you going to say to your wife or girlfriend about taking a strange woman to dinner?”
Duncan angled his head as he met Tamara’s eyes. There was amusement shimmering in the black orbs. “I don’t have a wife or girlfriend, so the issue is also moot.”
Tamara gave him a long, penetrating stare. “I should’ve met you years ago before I was going through what became a very contentious divorce.”
“Are you married now?”
“No. And I’ve never been happier.”
“You didn’t like being married?”
“I loved being married,” she admitted. “It was just how it ended. My ex cleaned out our joint bank accounts, and because I wanted to be rid of the bastard I gave him our Upper Eastside co-op. And if that wasn’t enough he also wanted my dog.”
“Did you give up the pooch?”
Tamara’s eyes filled with tears when she remembered the fluffy white bichon frise that had been her constant companion. Edward Bennett had refused to sign off on the divorce papers until she gave up the apartment and the dog, then he promptly sold the co-op and gave her pet to an ex-wife she knew nothing about.
“Yes. It was either give up Snowflake or go to prison for murder.” Her delicate jaw hardened. “I lost many sleepless nights thinking of the different ways I could take him out.”
Duncan winced. “It was that bad?”
“I was at the lowest point in my life and he knew it. I’d just completed my PGY-3. Third-year residency,” Tamara explained when Duncan gave her a confused stare. “I was just recovering from taking the fourth part of the medical boards and my nerves were shot from working thirty-six hours with little or no sleep. I suspected something was wrong because Edward started complaining that we never got to see one another, and when we did, I paid more attention to Snowflake than I did to him.”
“Didn’t he know that when he married a doctor?”
“He knew exactly what it took for me to become a doctor. He’d been through the same course of study. But it was apparent he’d forgotten.”
Duncan went completely still. “He’s also a doctor?”
Tamara nodded. “We met during my first year in medical school. He was my anatomy professor,” she said after a comfortable silence. “I was twenty, impressionable and very, very gullible. Edward was fifty-six, elegant, erudite, and I didn’t know at the time that I was to become his third wife, or that his daughter was also a medical student at Harvard.”
“How did your parents react to your marrying a man more than twice your age?”
“My father was upset because he and Edward were about the same age, but Mother, being the social climber that she is, was thrilled that her daughter had chosen to marry a doctor.”
“How long were you married?”
“Six years, and in the end I walked away with what I’d brought into the marriage—the clothes on my back. The apartment was his and he’d given me Snowflake as a gift.”
“What about alimony, Tamara? You were at least entitled to that.”
“I thought I was until my lawyer told me that Edward was paying alimony to two ex-wives and college tuition for three children.”
Duncan was momentarily speechless in his surprise. It was no wonder she was angry, abrasive. Tamara had married a stranger, a man who’d managed to conceal his past until it had caught up with him. Was her ex that wily, or was Tamara that naive? It was probably the latter. If she was engrossed in med school, studying for the boards and working around the clock as a resident, then delving into her husband’s past was not a priority for her.
“Do you still see your ex?” he asked.
“Thankfully no. He transferred to a small medical school in Rhode Island.”
“Has he remarried?” Duncan teased.
“I hope not,” Tamara countered. “Being married to Edward taught me one thing—never to put all of my eggs in one basket. When he emptied the bank accounts he took the money my grandparents had given me as a gift for my education. I had to take out a loan to get an apartment because I knew I couldn’t continue to live with Edward, and also to have enough to pay a lawyer to handle the divorce. After I got my license, I worked double and triple shifts to pay off the loans.”
“Your lawyer should’ve forced him to return your money.”
Tamara heard the censure in Duncan’s normally melodic tone. He probably believed she’d given up too easily, that she’d permitted a man to take advantage of her. “There was no money for him to return, Duncan. He’d lost every penny in Atlantic City.”
“If he was that broke, then your attorney should’ve insisted he sell the co-op and return your money.”
“Easy, Duncan,” she teased, “you’re snapping at me again.”
His face was a mask of icy anger. “You were screwed twice. Once by your ex and again by your lawyer.”
“Don’t worry. It’s never going to happen again.”
“Because you say so, Tamara?”
“Yes, because I’ll never trust another man as long as I live.”
“Do you think that’s fair?” Duncan asked.
“What?”
“That you lump all men into the same category.”
“It’s not about what’s fair and not fair,” Tamara countered. “It’s about how men have treated me.”
“It’s how you have let men treat you,” Duncan said in a quiet voice.
“Oh, so you’re blaming me for not knowing that my ex hid the fact that he’d been married before? Or that he’d had children from his previous marriages? It didn’t dawn on me to do a background check on him.”
Tamara inhaled and held her breath before letting it out slowly. The heat inside the elevator car was stifling and she was beginning to perspire—something she detested. She’d gone to a colleague’s apartment in the highrise to shower and change her clothes instead of going to her aprtment in the East Village. If she’d known she was going to be stuck in an elevator, then taking the downtown subway several stops would’ve been preferable, even though she avoided riding the