Lawful Wife (Eternal Bachelors Club)

by Folsom, Tina

  Audrey interrupted him with a laugh. “Wouldn’t she? I think you forget who recommended Frances to you when you were looking for a new assistant.”

  Daniel released her as if he’d burned himself on a hot stove and stepped back. “Frances?” Fuck! How had he not seen that? How could he have missed it? It all made sense now: Frances had constantly kept Audrey apprised of his whereabouts, his comings and goings, even his purchases. And there had indeed been a charge from an escort service on his credit card statement.

  And had Claire Heart told him the truth after all, that she’d contacted his office for comment, and had Frances claimed he didn’t want to speak to her? Frances certainly hadn’t passed Claire Heart’s message along to him.

  Audrey chuckled. “Yes, Frances helped me figure it out. I knew something was fishy when I surprised you and her that night in the hotel. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. But when I heard about Sabrina’s friend Holly, I remembered something: you’d called Sabrina ‘Holly’ that night. You didn’t know her real name.” Audrey straightened her blouse and smiled. “I put two and two together. And when I saw the charge on your credit card, I dug a little deeper. Honestly, in the end it was almost too easy. Sabrina is a prostitute, but she didn’t even have the guts to use her own name. She used her friend’s name, as if that would hide what she was!”

  His blood ran cold. “You’ll pay for this! Mark my words!” He unlocked the door and rushed outside, Audrey’s mocking laughter chasing him.

  When he reached the sidewalk, he took a few deep breaths. But they did nothing to tamp down his rage. He dug his cell phone from his pocket and dialed.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Sinclair,” Frances answered the phone, clearly having recognized his cell phone number on her phone’s display.

  “You’re fired, Frances! Clean out your desk and leave! I’m alerting security, and they will escort you out of the building.”

  A gasp came through the line. “Fired? But I don’t—”

  “Don’t count on a reference from me! Maybe your friend Audrey can find you another position, but I don’t employ people who are disloyal to me.”

  He hung up, for the first time in the last half hour feeling a flicker of satisfaction. Anybody who crossed him would meet the same fate as Frances. The newspaper would be next. And then Audrey would feel his wrath. But for that he needed to enlist help.

  10

  Daniel closed the door to the boat house and turned to face Tim and Holly.

  “What’s all this sneaking around about?” Tim asked.

  “I don’t want Sabrina to know what’s going on.” He looked at Holly. “Are you sure she’s busy for the next hour?”

  Holly nodded. “I’ve talked her into taking a long bubble bath. She needs it. She looks really exhausted. I think all that stress about the wedding preparations is getting to her. And yesterday when she got back from shopping for a present for me, she looked all agitated.”

  Daniel ran his hand through his hair. “Just another reason to make sure that she doesn’t find out what’s happening.”

  Tim raised an eyebrow. “Is this about the article in the New York Times?”

  “You know about that?” Daniel asked, not even really surprised. He’d planned on telling Tim about it now, but was glad he didn’t have to. He was aware that Holly already knew, because she’d been shopping with his mother when Linda had alerted them to the article—or rather when Linda had rubbed in the bad news with glee.

  Tim motioned to Holly. “Holly told me.”

  Holly merely shrugged. “Hey, I just saved you the trouble. Besides, he knows the whole story anyway. So, no harm done.”

  “Just as well.” Daniel sighed. “I know who’s behind it.”

  “Who?” Holly looked at him expectantly.

  “Who do you think? Audrey of course.”

  “Is that confirmed?” Tim asked.

  “She admitted it. I went to the columnist who wrote the article and she claimed she had solid proof that Sabrina is a call girl, but she wouldn’t give me her source or tell me what that proof was. I found out nevertheless and confronted Audrey.”

  “And? Is she going to get the paper to retract the story? It’s clearly false. We all know that,” Holly said.

  Daniel huffed. “Of course not. We’re talking about Audrey here. That’s why we have to discredit the proof she has.”

  Tim braced his hands at his hips. “And what kind of proof does she have?”

  “My credit card statement with the charge of the escort service. Though there’s nothing in the name that suggests it’s an escort service, somehow she figured it out.”

  “Fuck! How?” Tim asked.

  “Most charges have a phone number next to them so you can dispute the charge if needed. I guess she called and figured it out somehow.”

  Holly glared at Tim. “See, I told you we should have never let it run through the agency!”

  “He would have smelled a rat early on if we hadn’t,” Tim defended his action.

  “Hey! Guys!” Daniel interrupted. “What’s done is done.”

  “How did Audrey even get access to your credit card statement? Who did she sleep with this time?” Tim asked.

  “She didn’t have to sleep with anybody. She had my assistant Frances in her pocket.”

  “Crap!” Tim exclaimed.

  “I fired her.”

  “Good for you!”

  Holly leaned against a work bench. “Hold on, guys. How would she make the leap from a credit card charge by my agency to knowing that Sabrina was the one who showed up? Even if she was able to somehow convince the staff at the agency to release the name of the escort who took the booking, she would have gotten my name, not Sabrina’s.”

  “Holly’s got a point,” Tim agreed.

  Daniel rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure. She said she got suspicious, because I called Sabrina ‘Holly’ the night Audrey surprised us in the hotel room. So she believes that Sabrina used a nom-de-guerre, so to speak, when working for the agency. That she pretended to be somebody else.” Which ironically was the truth. She had pretended to be Holly, but Sabrina was no escort.

  “It shouldn’t be too hard to disprove that. After all, the real Holly is right here.” Tim pointed at Holly, who tilted her head sideways, glaring at him then lifting her middle finger in salute.

  “No, Tim. I’m not going to expose to everybody what Holly does for a living. There has to be another way. Besides, then the rumor mill will really start to turn and people will assume I’m sleeping with Sabrina’s best friend. In any case, I can’t expose Holly.”

  Holly smiled at Daniel. “Thanks, it’s good to know that at least one person here has some decency left.”

  Tim shrugged. “It was just a thought how we could play out a case of mistaken identity. Nothing personal, sweetheart.”

  Holly rolled her eyes then looked back at Daniel. “But you know I’ll do it if that’s the only way we can save the day. I will. But think for a moment. How can you mistake me with Sabrina or vice versa? We look nothing alike!”

  “Well, so much for making a case of mistaken identity stick,” Daniel said, resigned.

  “Not so fast,” Holly suggested.

  Daniel stared at her in confusion. “What do you mean? I thought we just agreed that we won’t tell them that you’re the escort.”

  “Yes, we did. But I’m not talking about myself. If we want to convince the paper that this was a case of mistaken identity, then we’ll have to give them a different Sabrina.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not following,” Tim interrupted, rubbing his nape.

  “So what exactly did you have in mind, Holly?” Daniel asked curiously.

  She smiled mysteriously. “Let me work on it. It’ll take a little time to set up, but I’m sure I can pull it off.”

  Daniel exchanged a look with Tim, who nodded. “Fine. In the meantime, Tim, can you find me a really good private investigator?” He knew that Tim’s firm regularly used privat
e investigators.

  “Local?”

  Daniel nodded.

  “Sure can. I’ll talk to my guy in San Francisco and have him recommend somebody in New York. What do you want him to do for you?”

  “Dig up some dirt on Audrey. Nobody is squeaky clean. We need leverage to get her to go to the paper and admit that the documentation she provided is fake so that they will retract the story.”

  “Okay, I’m on it.”

  11

  Sabrina stood on the front steps, a coffee mug in her hand, and watched the chaos unfolding in the driveway. Several trucks were parked there, and workers were unloading equipment in order to build a tent in the backyard, where the wedding ceremony and the reception would take place.

  She bounced down the steps and weaved her way through the throng of workers, watching them with trepidation as they carried long poles toward the back of the house, trampling over Raffaela’s pristine lawn, grazing her beautiful flowerbeds and destroying delicate plants with their boots.

  Sabrina cringed, but she knew there was no other way to get to the backyard other than going through the house itself—which was definitely not an option. The workers would knock over priceless vases and other irreplaceable decorative items if they carried the poles through the hallway.

  Sabrina turned, not wanting to watch the inevitable chaos any longer, when a FedEx van stopped at the end of the driveway. She waited until the driver jumped out and walked toward her, an envelope in hand.

  “Good morning,” she greeted the courier.

  “Morning. I have a delivery for a Miss Sabrina Palmer,” he replied.

  “That’s me.” Sabrina smiled and took the letter he held out to her.

  “Please sign here.”

  Sabrina placed the mug on the stone fence and scrawled her signature on the display window of the electronic device then handed it back to him. “Here you go.”

  “Have a nice day,” he said and turned back to his van.

  Curious, Sabrina ripped the envelope open. Inside was a single piece of paper. A letterhead from her current employer: Yellin, Vogel, and Winslow.

  Her heart stopped. Once before, when she’d lived in San Francisco, she’d received a letter from her employer, also delivered by courier. It hadn’t been good news back then, and she had the feeling that it wouldn’t be good news now either.

  Dear Ms. Palmer, it read.

  This letter is to advise you that your employment with Yellin, Vogel, and Winslow is hereby terminated effective immediately.

  You may collect your belongings at the front desk upon returning from your leave of absence.

  It was signed by the office manager, not even by one of the partners.

  Sabrina’s heart raced. They were firing her? Without giving any reason? A sense of déjà vu hit her. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

  Tears burned her eyes as she reached for her cell phone. Surely this had to be some sort of mistake. She’d done nothing to warrant this. In fact, right before the leave of absence they had granted her to prepare for the wedding and go on a proper honeymoon, the partners had told her how well she was doing. Mrs. Vogel had even expressed her pleasure with Sabrina’s performance on the job thus far.

  She dialed.

  “Law offices of Yellin, Vogel, and Winslow. How may I direct your call?”

  “Hi Martha, this is Sabrina Palmer. May I please speak to one of the partners, whichever one is available, it doesn’t really matter who,” Sabrina said with impatience as she paced back and forth on the driveway.

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry, Ms. Palmer, but the partners are tied up in a meeting and won’t be available for most of the day.”

  It was a lie, and Sabrina knew it. She could hear it in the receptionist’s voice. Not only had the partners fired her, they had instructed the receptionist not to put Sabrina’s call through. What was going on?

  “Thank you,” she mumbled and hung up.

  But they wouldn’t be rid of her so quickly. She scrolled through the contact list and found the direct number to Celeste, Mrs. Vogel’s assistant. She dialed it.

  “Mrs. Vogel’s office,” Celeste answered on the second ring.

  “Hello, Celeste. This is Sabrina Palmer. May I please speak to Mrs. Vogel?”

  The quick intake of breath she heard coming through the line told her that Celeste was searching for an answer to her request. “Uh, I’m sorry, Sabrina, but she’s out of the office. I don’t expect her back until tomorrow.”

  Sabrina paused for a moment. The receptionist had said that all partners were in a meeting and now Celeste was telling her that Mrs. Vogel was out of the office.

  “Celeste, please I need to speak to her. It’s an emergency. I know she’s there.”

  “I’m really sorry, Sabrina, but I can’t put you through.”

  Sabrina fought back tears. “Celeste, please tell me what’s going on. I just received a certified letter terminating my employment. I’m just trying to find out why. But nobody will talk to me.”

  Celeste hesitated, then lowered her voice to a level where Sabrina had to strain to hear her. “I’m sorry. We were all shocked when we heard about you being fired. But, you know, you can’t really blame them.”

  “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything! They praised my work before I left on vacation.”

  “It’s not about your work.” Celeste sighed. “It’s about the article in the New York Times a few days ago. The one in the society pages. I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  The call was disconnected.

  For a moment, Sabrina stood there, stunned. An article in the society pages of the New York Times had gotten her fired? With a racing heart, she ran into the house, realizing too late that she’d left her coffee mug on the stone fence, and rushed upstairs.

  She reached the room she shared with Daniel a few moments later and snatched the laptop from the bedside table. She brought it to the little desk below the window and sat down. While the computer booted up, she nervously tapped her fingers on the wooden surface.

  The moment her laptop was showing her the welcome screen and she had logged on, she opened the browser and typed in the website address of the New York Times. The site came up instantly. She didn’t lose any time by scrolling through the stories, but used the search function instead, typing in her own name and hitting return.

  The search results came back within a second.

  She clicked on the first hyperlink. It brought her to the engagement announcement that had run several weeks earlier. Beneath a photo of her and Daniel, two paragraphs had been written about their upcoming nuptials. There was nothing incriminating in the article. In fact, her employers knew full well whom she was marrying: a business tycoon from an extremely wealthy and well-connected family in the Hamptons. They were also fully aware that Sabrina didn’t need to work if she didn’t want to. Yet, she didn’t want to merely be Daniel’s trophy wife. She’d insisted on getting a job where she felt she was contributing something. She had made it clear to her employers after the engagement had been announced that she intended to continue working after the wedding.

  Sabrina clicked the back button and returned to the search results. She clicked on the second hyperlink. The same photo as before appeared and Sabrina was about to click the back button again, when her eyes fell on the headline: Business Tycoon Daniel Sinclair to Marry High-class Call Girl.

  Her heart stopped for an agonizing moment. This couldn’t be happening! But as her eyes flew over the text underneath the headline, dread and shame settled in her stomach.

  A little birdie tells me that successful entrepreneur and millionaire Daniel Sinclair, whose equally wealthy family lives in Montauk, NY, has decided to marry outside his class. According to a reliable source, his fiancée, Sabrina Palmer, worked as a high-class escort in San Francisco, where she met Mr. Sinclair, who was a client of the escort service which employed Ms. Palmer. Neither Mr. Sinclair nor Ms. Palmer could be reached f
or comment.

  Had somebody stumbled over the little white lie of being an escort that she’d told Daniel on the night they’d met, and thought it was true? The only other people besides Daniel and herself who knew about it were Holly and Tim. And Sabrina knew that neither of them would ever mention a single word about it to anybody. But who else? Could Hannigan somehow have found out after he’d surprised them at their little weekend getaway in Sonoma? She wouldn’t put it past her former supervisor at her old law firm who’d so desperately wanted to get into her pants to make allegations like these if he suspected something. After all, he’d lost his job because of Daniel.

  That anybody who’d done business with Daniel would do such a thing she doubted highly. Then she froze. Daniel! Once he found out, he would be enraged. And his parents, they’d be devastated. Clearly they didn’t know; otherwise Sabrina would have seen their behavior change.

  She glanced at the date of the article. It had appeared the day the newspaper hadn’t shown up. Coincidence? She didn’t want to speculate.

  But she needed to speak to Daniel this instant.

  In the kitchen, she found only Raffaela. Sabrina’s stomach lurched at the thought of Daniel’s mother reading the article. What would Raffaela think of her?

  “Raffaela, have you seen Daniel?”

  “He left about half an hour ago to go pick up the place cards from the printer. He’ll be back soon.” Raffaela smiled.

  “Thanks. May I borrow your car?”

  “Sure, cara. The keys are on the side table in the hallway.”

  As calmly as she could, Sabrina left the kitchen. Maybe it was best that she and Daniel had this conversation away from the house where his parents couldn’t overhear them.

  12

  “Good afternoon, how may I help you?” the older, pudgy man said as he pushed his thick glasses back up his nose and stared directly at Daniel. His eyes looked huge behind the thick lenses, suggesting that his eyesight was extremely poor.