“Oops,” Frannie said. “Anybody know CPR?”
“I do,” one of the gunmen said and Frannie snapped, “Then stay the hell away from him.”
Confused, the man looked to one of his compatriots.
“Look at that,” Frannie observed as with one last rattle, Freddie went still. “He’s dead now anyway. So who do you think you work for?”
After a second, the men fell back.
“Go on,” she persisted. “Go back up on deck and wait for me there.”
“But, ma’am—”
“Now!”
When they were gone, Francesca said, “It’s so hard to get good help these days.”
Smiling down at the corpse of her husband, she said, “My, did I get the dosage wrong.”
Andrea and Evan looked at each other in astonishment.
“Oh yes,” Francesca confirmed softly. “I’m what you might call the ‘deus ex machina’ in this little play, although I must admit I expected the shot of poison I gave him to kick in much earlier. I couldn’t believe it when he was still able to get on the motorboat and come out here, so I thought I better follow along. Good thing I did, I suppose, don’t you think?”
“You poisoned your husband?” Evan asked. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, Aunt Francesca,” Andrea added in a rush. “Why live with him all these years—take that from him—and not leave him, or not, well, not do this? Before now, I mean.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t leave him, I suppose, because somehow I felt I couldn’t. You were always stronger and smarter, even though you were barely a child. I couldn’t leave as you did. So I suppose I felt I deserved it.”
“That’s absurd,” Andrea said swiftly. “He was the evil one, not you.”
“Was he? I thought he was. And I suppose I didn’t kill him because, well, because I thought my immortal soul would be lost if I did.”
“Yeah, well,” Evan said, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I don’t think St. Peter’s exactly holding open the Pearly Gates for your husband. And anyway, you killed him to save Andrea, I mean Athena.”
“Did I? I could have just called the police. Or told your brother. He really did call, you know, and it was clear he was worried. Something about you not coming back to your hotel room. But I knew Freddie was searching for you, Athena, ever since that old fool Tottingham put him on to you. I knew he was sending men after you, but I always felt you were too smart to get caught by him. Or maybe I was just making excuses for my own cowardice. I don’t know. In any case, I always stayed out of it. But when Freddie got the call tonight and I overheard him say you were here, right here, I knew he would kill you tonight. I knew he would.”
“So you saved me,” Andrea whispered.
Francesca shrugged. “Maybe I’ve just lived with a monster long enough to become one myself. Maybe I wanted him dead and that’s all there was to it.”
“Look, however you feel,” Evan said, “you don’t need to go confessing right now. A coroner is going to see this as a heart attack. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Oh, I’m not confessing anything.”
“Francesca, was what Freddie said at the end true? Is it true I’m not a Stavros?”
She shook her head. “He never told me anything like that. But I suppose in his warped brain it might have been true.”
“That’s certainly easy enough to find out.” Evan looked dispassionately at the corpse. “DNA tests work just as well with the dead. But, ah, do you think maybe we could get out of bed and get dressed?” he asked Frannie.
She winked. “Be my guest.” A beat, then, “Oh, you’d like some privacy.”
One of the gunmen trotted down the stairs and at Frannie’s glare, said quickly, “There’s a police boat approaching. What do you want me to do?”
Frannie looked back to Andrea and Evan. “I have the feeling there’s going to be a lot of reeducation needed with Freddie’s workforce or else there’s going to be a lot of involuntary terminations.”
The man blanched and she added, “That just means firing, not shooting, by the way, you dolt. Anyway, if the police are approaching, then fine, let them board. We have nothing to hide. My husband had a heart attack.”
“And those guys?” Evan asked, fingering his head.
“Well, how about in exchange for my little favor here tonight we stay silent on that, shall we? As I said, I’ll be doing some reorganization of the Stavros organization. I don’t think we need to involve the authorities in that, do we?”
The gunman went back up and Frannie followed with a smile. “Don’t you two dally down here!”
They barely had their clothes back on—and clothes in Andrea’s case still meant that barely-to-her-thighs dress shirt, since the investment banker seemed to have no female guest clothes on board—when the first person from the police boat came down.
And it wasn’t a policeman.
“Evan! Oh my heavens, are you all right?”
Feeling a little less surprised than he should have been, he kissed his mother’s cheek. “Fine. What are you doing here?”
Michael and Vanny brought up the rear, Michael talking in low tones to a policeman—not the captain Evan had talked to that afternoon but a policeman he’d never seen—who then immediately went to Stavros’ body.
“Hi there,” Vanny said. “We came to rescue you but I think we’re a beat behind.”
Evan grinned at her as Michael said, “Miss Prentiss. Nice to see you again.”
Andrea grinned herself. “You too, Mr. Reynolds. Hi, Vanny.”
Vanny shot forward and hugged Andrea, hard and fierce, taking her off guard and making her laugh.
“You!” Vanny said. “You’re in a lot of trouble.”
Evan pulled his lover to his side, kissing her temple. “Not anymore.”
“Oh yes she is,” Michael said, deadpan. “With us.”
“That’s right!” Vanny added. “Not only have you been tormenting one of my favorite almost-new-brothers-in-law with running away all the time, you’ve been tormenting me and Michael by leaving us in the lurch on this whole wedding thing.”
Andrea laughed. “Isn’t Miss Grady helping?”
“To paraphrase,” Michael said, “I knew Miss Prentiss. I worked with Miss Prentiss. And Miss Grady is no Miss Prentiss.”
“Yeah, well, plan your own wedding, guys,” Evan warned. “Andrea’s going to be planning ours.”
His intended’s mouth dropped open. Okay, he supposed he should have made it clear she was his intended before dropping that bombshell, but what the hell.
“A wedding!” his mother shrieked, and he glanced sideways at her, seeing as how he’d never heard that particular pitch out of his usually decorous mother. But it seemed as if it was on the happy end of the spectrum of sounds. Amanda Evans was grinning as widely as the rest of them.
“Do you mean it, Evan? You’re getting married? I might actually have grandchildren someday?”
“Well, don’t rush us or anything, Mom. I just popped the question.”
“Or by the looks of it, actually didn’t,” Vanny pointed out.
Epilogue
Two Weeks Later
It turned out that Andrea, as they had all agreed to continue to call her, was remarkably efficient at planning weddings, as remarkably efficient as she was at most things. Moreover, two weddings were no more trouble for her to plan than one.
Of course it helped that the grooms were pretty much threatening elopement if the weddings did not transpire in record time and that the brides, herself and Vanny, had quite a lot of resources at their disposal to accomplish this feat.
Oh, and it helped that only family members were invited. That cut down on the planning quite a bit, although the whole Reynolds family itself required quite a few private jets and helicopters and yachts to get to Evan’s island for the weddings. The Donald family and the Stavros family each had just their lone representative. The only non-family guests were Tommy
O’Neal and Cassie Bailey, who Andrea had insisted on inviting for some reason that she claimed was related to their caring for Bingo.
It ended up being a lively crowd as Evan and Andrea, and Vanny and Michael respectively took their vows in a double ceremony on the beach of the island, the lighthouse in view. The reception was a picnic, more or less, that Damien Reynolds groused about, especially when he noticed his ex-wife, the mother of the groom, or one of them anyway, resplendent in a peach outfit, flirting with her date, the local grocer.
Chris Reynolds sipped a glass of champagne and slapped Evan on the back, admiring his brother’s new wife in her antique-lace cream wedding gown, fitted at the waist, tasteful but low cut. “I cannot believe you got Andrea Prentiss, old man. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Chris, like the rest of the Reynolds family, now knew Andrea’s background and true roots, but in an odd twist continued to seem to regard her in what to them had been her most important role—Michael’s unflappable assistant.
“I’m a lucky guy,” Evan agreed, watching his wife talking to Cassie, probably apologizing to her yet again for getting her on the wrong end of a gun.
“Yep, you and Michael have got some good ones, but for those of us left on the field, you provided some nice eye candy here.” Chris nodded at Cassie, looking hot and resplendent in a short pink minidress. “Though I have to admit she’s a little young.”
Evan eyed Tommy O’Neal, who for his part just looked out of place and uncomfortable in an ill-fitting suit as Evan’s father for some reason grilled him. Probably trying to set him up on some cockamamie internship.
“A word of warning, Chris, don’t set your sights on Cassie unless you want a knife through your ribs while you’re not looking.”
His brother glanced at the grocer. “Really? Her dad doesn’t look that bad. He seems pretty friendly when he’s talking to your mom. I’m sure he allows his daughter to, ah, date.”
“I know your version of dating, bro, and it’s not her dad I’m talking about. That kid over there is wild about her.”
Chris glanced over at the competition. “I could take him.”
“In a fair fight maybe but when it comes to that girl, that kid won’t fight fair. Trust me.”
They laughed.
“It’s like that, is it?” Chris shrugged. “Oh well, the girl’s loss,” he said amiably, wandering off.
Andrea drifted over and Evan wound his arm around her waist.
“My mother wants grandchildren,” he whispered in her ear.
“So I heard. Well, you’re certainly doing your part.”
“I may never wear a condom again. We could have an island full of children,” he warned.
She laughed. “We’ll take that slow, shall we?”
He kissed her neck. “Hey, what the hell did you plan for a honeymoon?”
“For Michael and Vanny? Greece, of course.”
“Who cares about them? I meant us.”
“Oh us. Kicking everybody off the island, of course,” she murmured.
He grinned. “Done.” And with a whistle, he proved he had every bit as much Reynolds in him as Evans and he kicked the whole bunch of them off the island.
The End
About Angela Claire
Angela Claire’s first love was romance novels, but she resolved to give them up temporarily for law books (which were considerably less fun). In a quest for a “responsible” career, she headed off to Harvard law school, obtained her diploma and settled into a corporate law practice in New York City—which she hated! After staying in the rat race long enough to pay back her massive student loans, Angela returned to her roots in the Midwest and is working as a lawyer at a more leisurely pace than big city law firm life would allow. A multi-published romance author, she writes in her spare time and finds romance in real life with her husband. Angela would love to hear from you.
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Also by Angela Claire
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Print books by Angela Claire
Executive Perks
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
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Hidden Depths
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Electronic book publication November 2013
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