Page 3 of Love Affair in London (Once Again #12)

P iper had the cook prepare Roger’s favorite meal that night, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, with English trifle for dessert.

It would also be the main course at their wedding reception, but tonight she wanted to butter him up.

Perhaps she should have prepared the dinner herself, but she didn’t want to offend Roger’s cook.

Checking herself in the hall mirror, she fluffed the curls in her shoulder-length hair and made sure she didn’t have mascara smudges or blue eye shadow—to accent her blue eyes—in the creases of her eyelids. But everything was perfect.

Roger Richmond was an affable man, always smiling, and with a big belly laugh she cherished.

She had no idea what he was like in the boardroom, but he was always sweet to her.

People could have two sides, one they wore for the business world and one that came out with their family.

She’d always believed this genial demeanor was Roger’s true self.

She’d prepared his favorite cocktail, a Tom Collins, and it already sat by his place setting.

After depositing his briefcase in the hall, Roger grabbed her in a big hug.

He was a large man, not fat, even at sixty years old, but tall and broad, and he hugged like a bear.

Something else she appreciated about him.

Their age gap didn’t bother her. Her mother had been fifteen years younger than her father, and while they adored each other, as they grew older, that age difference became problematic.

But Piper could handle the five-year difference between her and Roger.

“I smell something good,” he said with a lilt in his manly voice.

“Then let’s get started.” Taking his hand, she led him into the formal dining room, the table set with the best porcelain and genuine silver.

This she had done herself, retrieving the china out of the massive glass-fronted cabinet.

The cook had placed the meal on several hot plates along the sideboard.

Roger’s home in Atherton, one of the ritziest suburbs in the San Francisco Bay Area, was a mansion compared to her townhouse in the San Mateo hills.

Not that she didn’t love the townhouse with a view of the Santa Cruz Mountains, its size suiting her former single life.

But this house had stolen her breath the first time Roger brought her here.

Though with both a formal living and dining room, they’d always cozied up in the den to watch TV or read in front of the fire.

For a movie night, Roger even had a home theater with surround sound.

But the jetted tub in the master bathroom, big enough for two, became her favorite feature of the house.

She’d never actually moved in with Roger, but she spent most of her nights here.

As Roger tucked into his medium rare roast beef, she took the opportunity she’d engineered. “I came by to see you at the office this afternoon. Right after lunch.”

Roger smiled with a hint of trepidation he couldn’t hide. “Yes, Ms. Olsen said you were out there while I was finishing up my meeting. By the time I got done, you’d already left.” He looked at her, his gaze clouded, as if he were hiding something. That wasn’t like Roger.

“I hadn’t actually left. I was in the ladies’ room. But when I came back out, Ms. Olsen was showing your daughters into your office.”

“Yes. My meeting finished up quickly. I wish you’d come back.” His gaze on his plate, he asked with feigned nonchalance, “How was lunch with the girls?”

As if they hadn’t told him exactly how it went down.

She hadn’t wanted to get angry. That’s why she’d prepared everything before he got home, created the perfect setting. But now he was making her drag every detail out of him. “What did the girls say?” With effort, she kept her voice even.

He shrugged, rushing his words. “You know how they are. They just wanted to talk about other things.”

They’d wanted to talk about the prenup. Or ask for money. But that sounded too bitchy to say aloud. “I have to admit the brunch wasn’t particularly pleasant.”

He looked up then, giving her a quizzical look. “How so?”

Why couldn’t he just tell her straight out, instead of this endless phrasing of everything as a question or simply not saying anything of importance? She said flatly. “They asked if I’d signed the prenup.”

He shook his fork, gravy and Yorkshire pudding falling onto his plate. “Oh yes, I remember them saying something about that.”

She took a steadying breath. “I’m not sure how they even knew about the prenup. Unless you told them. Even though they’d suggested to you that you needed to get one.” She struggled to keep her emotions out of her voice, but her jaw hurt from clenching her teeth.

He reached for his glass, took a sip of his cocktail. “Yes, they suggested it, and I agreed it could be a good idea. But I had to tell them I needed to make a couple changes you asked for.” Then he cut a piece of meat and put it in his mouth, chewing so he didn’t have to answer anything else.

That just made her angry. All right, angri er , because even though she tried to maintain a complacent expression, she was boiling inside.

It had been building all afternoon even as she’d tried to tamp it down.

“And why did you tell Bethany that I said you shouldn’t invest in Desmond’s project because it was a Ponzi scheme? ”

He just looked at her, as if he didn’t even get the meaning of the question. His answer came as another question. “But why shouldn’t I tell her?”

She gritted her teeth before she could speak again.

He was looking at her and obviously saw the tenseness. “It was the truth. I don’t lie to my daughters.”

“It’s not a lie simply not to tell them I said anything at all.”

He shook his head, wagging it on his neck like a dog. “I know you think they’re going to say you’re interfering. I told them you weren’t. I told them you didn’t say I shouldn’t invest, that the decision not to give Desmond the money was all mine.”

Roger just didn’t get that anything negative coming from her was like waving a red flag in their faces.

“And why did you say anything about our brief conversation where I wondered why you were paying their bills, including their rent, their credit cards, and even their cell phones?”

He pursed his lips like an old maid. “I didn’t tell them that.” Then he added, “Not exactly.”

She fisted her hand around her fork. “What exactly did you tell them?”

She waited as he cut off a hunk of Yorkshire pudding, troweled gravy onto it with his knife, put it in his mouth, and chewed.

As if he were giving her question a weighty thought.

Only after he swallowed did he finally answer, “I said that it came out in one conversation or another between us that Desmond should think about going back to a company instead of working on his own. After all, he’s a financial advisor.

And that maybe they should think about jobs, too, so their educations didn’t go to waste. ”

She remembered pointing out Desmond’s supposed career.

She’d thought at the time that she’d never allow Desmond to manage her finances, if all the schemes he asked Roger to invest in were like the ones she’d known about.

“Why did you even mention me at all? I wasn’t telling you to cut them off.

I just wondered about the dynamics. After all, Megan is twenty-three, Ashley is twenty-five, and Bethany is married and twenty-nine.

They all have college degrees. I just wondered why you were still supporting them. ”

He bobbed his head. “I know, I know. I just thought I’d mention it to them to light a fire under their butts.

Make them think I might actually cut them off.

” Then he grimaced, his jowls suddenly hanging in misery.

“Not that I ever would. You know how terribly broken they were after Helena’s death. It just ruined them.”

They’d been teenagers and losing a parent at any age was difficult.

Piper’s heart lurched for them even as she thought of her own loss.

She’d been thirty-five when her parents died.

It had been painful, especially losing them both so close together.

She still missed them with every part of her soul.

But she suspected Helena’s death had become an excuse for the girls to keep getting whatever they could out of their father.

“But did you need to mention me ?” Her voice came out too strident. She was losing control.

“I don’t think I actually mentioned you. Megan, or maybe it was Ashley, asked me if you’d said something.” He looked at her then, his mouth drooping as if he were shamefaced. “I couldn’t lie to them and say we hadn’t talked about it.”

“It’s not lying to them,” she stressed the word, “if you simply don’t mention that we had a conversation.

I was just trying to figure out the dynamics of the family.

I never meant you were supposed to cut them off.

” But she had thought it was over the top that he supported them completely.

It enabled them not to get on with their lives.

So yes, she had stuck her nose in where it wasn’t wanted. And now she was paying the price.

“I told them it was just because we care about them.”

She wanted to roll her eyes like Megan would.

Her roast beef was cold and the Yorkshire pudding soggy.

But she’d lost her appetite. “Look, we need to have an agreement.” She barely stopped herself from drumming her fingers on the table.

“Anything we say to each other has to stay in the vault. You don’t tattle on me. I don’t tattle on you.”

He actually laughed. “We’re not children tattling on each other.”

“You don’t get it.” Then she told him the truth he’d never wanted to face. “They hate me. And anything you say just makes it worse. So please, don’t say anything at all.”