Read Online A Family Affair: Spring: Truth in Lies, Book 2 by Mary Campisi - Free Book Online Page B

anything to do with it, the woman would be heading out of Magdalena in fifteen minutes or less. He thought about washing the grime from his hands and face, changing into a shirt that wasn’t rimmed with sweat, but figured the hell with it. The woman would consider him low-life scum even if he greeted her in a tuxedo. Nate grabbed a rag, wiped his hands and face, and headed toward the lobby.
    He spotted her before she saw him, which gave him a half-second advantage. Small, petite, blonde, a real blue blood with the education and manners to go along with it. Clothes, too, designer, no doubt, and he knew the glint of diamond on her ears was not cubic zirconium. She turned and her gaze met his, equally assessing, equally disdainful. The woman didn’t need designer duds to ooze wealth; it spilled from her pores. She moved toward him with casual grace and elegance, in a sleekness that proclaimed, I’m rich, more than rich. And you’re not. “Hello, Nathan.”
    “Gloria.” Oh, but those damnable eyes were cold. “What a surprise.”
    Her laughter filled the tiny lobby, swirled and grabbed him around the neck. “I’m sure it is.”
    He crossed his arms over his chest, forcing her to take a step back. “Does Christine know?”
    “No.” She sighed and lifted a delicate shoulder in a gentle shrug. “As much as I’d love to see my daughter, it’s obvious she’s not interested at this point in time.”
    Betty gasped, dropped a basket of paper clips on the floor. “Oh, oh, oh.” Nate glanced over to see her scrambling after them.
    “Let’s go in my office.” He shot one more look at Betty who pretended to zip her mouth closed and led his mother-in-law into his office. He’d never been much good with in-laws. Patrice’s father was dead and her mother had been a money-grubber who’d expected to move in with Nate and Patrice or at the very least, receive a monthly check from them. It hadn’t happened. If the woman could spend half her paycheck on lottery tickets and smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, then she could figure out her own issues. It was a damn sure bet Gloria wasn’t after money. What did she want? His help repairing the mother-daughter relationship she destroyed with her manipulative bullshit? She could go to hell and back if she thought he’d help her do anything other than point her out of Magdalena. Nate snatched a stack of papers from a chair and said, “Have a seat.”
    Gloria Blacksworth eyed the vacant chair a second too long before she sat down. “Thank you.”
    Nate leaned against the desk, determined to gain any leverage over the woman he could. A standing position dominated a sitting one; he’d take it. “Why are you here?”
    The smile she offered was forced and fake. “Maybe I wanted to get a first-hand opinion of the man who stole my daughter from me.”
    “I didn’t steal her. You lost her.”
    The lips pinched, the eyes narrowed. “That’s not true.” She sighed, tucked a stray lock of blondish hair behind her ear. “Christine and I shared a special relationship that only mothers and daughters can share.” She paused, bit out her next words. “Until she came here and this town destroyed it.”
    Was she for real? “You make it sound like we’re the plague.”
    Her chin inched up. “This town and the people in it ruin lives. They latch onto unsuspecting victims and destroy them.”
    “I think you’re the one who does that.”
    She ignored him. “Christine should have married Connor Pendleton, not someone like you.”
    “From what I’ve heard , the guy was more in love with his clients than he was with Christine.”
    “Because he knew restraint? Because he understood lineage was important in a relationship? You’re nothing but a shot of testosterone in a flannel shirt and your mother’s no better.”
    So there it was. She wanted to zing him about his mother. Well, he wasn’t biting. Nate pushed away from the desk and towered over her. “You need to leave.