The Billionaire's Secrets (33 page)

He turned to Marcus, knowing he was really in debt to his partner and friend for this one. "Marcus, get my lawyers on the phone. Ask them if I can go ahead with the wedding, then deal with Colleen. I imagine you'll find her in Chloe's room. She didn't
sho
w up just to ruin my wedding
-
s
he showed up because she thinks she can get more money out of me.
A second divorce settlement or something."

"Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't
understand
this," Kathryn interrupted. "You gave Colleen the money for the divorce settlement before the divorce was final?"

"No, it was I who was stupid. The money was in trust with my lawyer. He gave her the money before she finalised the divorce. I discovered she was sleeping with my lawyer too."
Gaelan
sighed and shook his head. "Needless to say, he isn't my lawyer anymore."

"
So you're still married to her?” Kathryn asked.

"Exactly."

"Oh no,"
she
said quietly.

"Just imagine how Chloe must feel right now,"
Gaelan
said. He did up the buttons on his coat. "I've got to find her. He opened the door, and they could hear the guests in
the hall laughing and talking,
oblivious to the fact that the bride had run away. "One last thing,"
Gaelan
said to the room in general. "Say a prayer that she'll forgive me."

* * *

Crying, Chloe walked down the bluff, following the fence that guarded the edge of the cliff. Around her the snow swirled, but she barely noticed. She could only just remember how she came to be out here, conscious only of wanting to put distance between herself and Widow's Cliff.

She did remember getting dressed. Under Colleen's scornful gaze, she had thrown on her jeans and a sweater, barely taking the time to grab her coat before fleeing down the back stairs of the house and slipping out the side door. She needed to get away from Colleen, from the house full of guests, and to make sense out the terrible mess
that had become her life.
First
the whole fiasco in
Boston
with Shawn when she lost her job.
And now this.
Her fairy
-
tale ending was turning into
the ultimate horror story
.

She tried to focus on the facts. Everything Colleen had said contradicted
Gaelan's
version of events. But they matched what Bowen had told her. According to Bowen and Colleen,
Gaelan
had stolen Colleen from Bowen. According to
Gaelan
, Colleen and Bowen had plotted together to get his money.

She had believed
Gaelan
at the time, accepting that everything Bowen had told her was a lie.
But now?
What was she supposed to believe now that
Gaelan
had lied about Colleen's death? All along he had made love to her knowing that Colleen was alive. Here she was marrying a man who already had a wife he was hiding in Italy!

She stumbled over a rock hidden in the snow, falling to her knees. In the distant reaches of her brain, she acknowledged the pain and stood up again. She wiped the snow absentmindedly from her jeans with her bare red hands,
then
put them back in her pockets.

She kept walking, her head bent into the snow and wind. No. It didn't make any sense. There was something she didn't know, some piece of the puzzle that was missing. What did
Gaelan
gain from hiding his wife from her? Not only did it not make sense, it just didn't fit with the
Gaelan
she had come to know these past
months
.

Gaelan
was not a man who was comfortable with secrets. She had seen how
he
had struggled with the secret of
Sophia
's parentage. How it had torn him apart to withhold from
Sophia
the truth. She had see
n him come to peace with it too
and how he was able to show his love for
Sophia
now
as much as if she
were
his own.

Chloe also knew how
much he had tried to resist her,
afraid that she was like Colleen, after his money, not his love. He could have had her as his lover that very first night, but he didn't.

A gust of wind whipped the snow into
a frenzy
, and she raised an arm to protect herself from the stinging
precipitation
as she tried to make sense of everything.

More than anything else, Chloe was sure of one thing.
Gaelan
loved her. She felt his love to the very centre of her being. The way he looked at her, the way he treated her, the way he made love to her, the way he wanted to share the rest of his life with her. And then there was this baby, conceived in love. She knew how happy he would be when he found out.

If he loved her enough to entrust her with the secret of
Sophia
's parentage, he would also have trusted her with the secret of his wife. If
Gaelan
had known Colleen was alive, he would have told her. She remembered what she
said to
him when he found out she had been fired from her job. She told him he shouldn't be so suspicious. Now it was time she took her own advice. She would trust the man she loved. Really, the only thing that made sense was that
Gaelan
would be as shocked as she was when he learned Colleen was still alive. She would go back. He would explain everything
,
and then she would marry him.

She wiped away her tears. Her decision made, she finally looked around her for the first time since leaving the house. It was hard to see. The wind drove the snow into her face, blinding her as she tried to penetrate the wall of white swirling around her.  For the first time, she noticed she was cold, very cold. But that was okay, she was going home now, soon she would be back in front of her fireplace where it was warm. She would put on her dress
,
and she and
Gaelan
would be married.

She turned around and reached out for the fence that would guide her back, but her hand found only air. She edged over, sure that the fence could only be steps away but
still there was only the snow-filled emptiness. How long had she been wandering around out here? She looked down and realised she
was standing in her own snowed-
in footsteps. Circles! She was going in circles!

* * *

Back at the house,
Gaelan
checked the garage for the Jeep first and was relieved to see it still there. He didn't like the idea of Chloe driving in the storm. But then he didn't like the idea of her being on foot either. He looked at his watch. She had been gone for an hour
,
and the temperature was dropping. He hoped she had the presence of mind to put on a warm
coat
.

Head bent into the wind, he walked around the house and across the headland to the fence. He looked over the edge of the cliff but could not see the ocean below, only a bottomless pit of churning snow. He was glad the fence was there - in this weather, it would be only too easy to step over the edge into nothingness. He shuddered at the thought.

The storm was getting worse. Up until now he had been mainly concerned about her mental state, but now he was more worried about her physical safety. He kne
w only too well how dangerous
storm
s
could be. They were disorienting
,
and it was absolutely true that people could walk around in circles for hours. But hypothermia was the real problem. Once the body temperature started to drop, sleep became only too tempting. To sleep was to die. He had heard of people freezing to death only yards from their front door.

His heart clenched with fear. He needed more help.

He pulled his cell out of his pocket and called the police station in Puffin's Cove. He asked for the chief, David Carpenter, a man he had known since childhood. During the investigation into Colleen's "death," David had been steadfast in his conviction that
Gaelan
was innocent of any wrongdoing.
Gaelan
didn't explain to him that Colleen was back from the
dead, only that
his girlfriend was upset and had gone out into the storm. "I’m getting worried. I'm searching the grounds of Widow's Cliff right now, but I'm wondering if she might have taken the road in the hopes of getting a ride. Can you radio the snow plows to be on the lookout for her?"

"Sure,
Gaelan
.
I'll send out a patrol car to check the road between
Puffin's Cove and Widow's Cliff
too."

Gaelan
thanked him and put his
cell
back into his pocket. He looked behind him. Already his footsteps were filled with snow. There was no hope that Chloe's tracks would still be visible.  He walked along the fence, calling her name every couple of minutes. They had often taken walks along here
,
and
Gaelan
hoped she had chosen this direction again.