“We’re acquiring a pump manufacturer, the rodeo season just kicked off and my father is out of his ever-loving mind,” Oliver said, trying to keep the conversation lighthearted. “I’ve been busy.”
Besides, none of the Lawrence Energies family fortune was invested in Preston Investment Strategies—or their damned pyramid scheme. And he would know, since he had wrestled financial control of Lawrence Energies away from his father four years ago.
“Is he really?”
Oliver shrugged. “There are days I wonder.” His father was only sixty years old—by no means a doddering old man. But the midlife crisis that had been touched off by the death of Trixie Lawrence had never really resolved itself.
He could’ve explained all about that, but she wasn’t here to listen to him complain about his family. She was here because she was in trouble.
Look after Renee, will you?
He should have replied with questions to Clint’s email then. If he had, he might have answers now.
He waited. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see her rubbing her thumbnail with her index finger, the constant circle of motion. Otherwise, she seemed calm.
Too calm.
Oliver did not consider himself the family expert on women. That honor went to Chloe, who was actually a woman—although Flash, their younger brother, gave Chloe a run for her money.
Nevertheless, he had grown up with Chloe and a healthy interest in women. He was not comfortable with the idea of Renee crying, but he was prepared for the worst.
She surprised him with a chuckle. “A lot of it is in the news.”
Knowing Bailey, Oliver would have several hours of reading material waiting for him, so there was no point in making her relate something he could just as easily read—with a healthy sense of detachment, instead of listening to her shaky voice and fighting this strange urge to protect her.
“Tell me the part that’s not in the news.”
“The part that’s not in the news,” she said softly, still rubbing her thumbnail anxiously. “You know, I don’t think my husband was ever faithful to me.”
O...kay. “Then why did you marry him?”
“My parents said we looked good together. He worked for my father and my mother thought we’d have gorgeous babies, as if that was the only thing that mattered. He was suave and sophisticated and hot. We were featured on the Vanity Fair weddings page online. ‘A Storybook Dream’ was the name of our photo essay.” She laughed, but it definitely wasn’t a happy sound. “I wanted a small ceremony, but no. I had to have ten bridesmaids and the craziest party favors ever.” He lifted an eyebrow at her without taking his eyes off the road. “Oh, yes. Everyone got a custom engraved pair of Waterford crystal champagne glasses, a bottle of Dom Pérignon with a custom label and a Tiffany & Co. silver ice bucket engraved with our names and wedding date, as if people cared.” She sighed heavily.
It wasn’t that the elite in Dallas couldn’t be just as ostentatious in their displays of wealth—they could. Hell, his condo was worth a few million alone and the ranch was easily worth twice that. Dallas was not a two-bit town by any stretch of the imagination.
But it was different here. As cutthroat as Dallas high society could be, there was just more heart in Texas.
He must have been having one hell of an off day if he was mentally defending this state. He hoped his father never found out that there were things Oliver actually liked about the Lone Star State. “It sounds a tad over-the-top.”
“Oh, it was—but it was a beautiful wedding. Just beautiful,” she murmured and he remembered what she’d said.
It was a lie. Her husband had never loved her, never been faithful.
“I am such an idiot,” she said miserably, and that bothered him. Strange how it did. He hadn’t thought of her in so long but now that she was here, he found he needed to do something.
“Hardly. You were always smart enough to get the drop on me and Clint, weren’t you? I’m thinking of a specific incident involving water balloons off a balcony. Remember?”
That got him a shadow of a smile. “That was Chloe’s idea—but I did have pretty good aim.”
That shadow of a smile made him feel good. The world was bleak—but he could still make her feel better.
He drove his Porsche Spyder faster, whipping in and out of traffic. The best—and only—thing he could do for her was get her safely out to Red Oak Hill. There, she could have some peace and quiet and, most important, privacy. Once he had her settled, he could get back to town and try to deal with his schedule and his family.
“I don’t know if this part is in the news yet or not,” she went on, sounding resigned. “I’m sure people have been doing the math ever since I began to show—and I began to show very early, to the disgust of my mother. But do you know?” She paused for a second and Oliver tried to get his head around the fact that her mother was disgusted by her pregnancy. She looked stunning, showing or not.
But that was the sort of thing that he couldn’t just blurt out. This was a rescue, sort of. He wasn’t whisking her away for a weekend of seduction or anything. Definitely not a seduction. So instead, he just said, “What?”
“He woke me up early that morning and we...” She cleared her throat. “And afterward, he told me he loved me. I normally said it to him—he rarely said the words. Usually he just said, ‘Me, too,’ as if he also loved himself. But he was different that morning and he surprised me, and I didn’t say it back.”
This was far more than Oliver wanted to know. He kept his mouth shut like his life depended on it.
“And then he went to work, screwed his secretary, gave her the rest of the day off and blew his brains out, coward that he
