A Silken Thread - Brenda Jackson [64]
“I hope that’s not true,” he replied. “Let’s look at the menu. Hopefully, we can start there.”
Wilson knew what he wanted but pretended to study his menu a little longer while Rita was still scanning hers. He glanced up thinking that he liked the way she was wearing her hair tonight. It was styled differently from when they’d been in Sweden. Then it had been shoulder length and now it was cut in a style that to him highlighted her beauty even more.
He tried to push to the back of his mind the thought that he’d told Karen he was in Boston. He had deliberately lied to her and wasn’t feeling guilty about it. He was well aware of lies she’d told him in the past, like the one involving her sister.
It had been by accident last year that he’d discovered Blair was not dead, as he and everyone else thought. He and Karen had separate checking accounts and one day he had come home early from a business trip to find her checkbook open and her records spread across the desk in the study. He had only planned to be there long enough to pour a glass of scotch and had glanced down and noticed an exorbitant amount payable to the nursing home. After looking through the checkbook he’d found several others, all drawn on Karen’s trust fund account.
It didn’t take long to discover the truth. To this day he hadn’t revealed to Karen what he’d uncovered. He knew she had always been ashamed of her sister’s physical and mental state and had probably staged the death as a way to deal with it. As long as it appeared she was doing the right thing by properly taking care of her sister—and from the amounts on the checks she’d written out it appeared she was—he’d decided to let her keep her secret since Blair was probably still in a coma anyway.
“I’ve made up my mind about what I’m having, Wilson.”
He glanced up. “Have you?”
“Yes.”
He smiled. “Good. I heard everything on the menu is delicious.”
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
Jaye Pittman glanced up at the waitress, thinking that she was definitely a looker and hot as hell. He’d noticed her and that cute waitress outfit after the maître d’ had escorted him to his table. She had a pair of gorgeous legs, legs he would just love to get between later.
He slid his gaze to her ringless finger and then back up to her face and smiled, deciding he wasn’t ready to leave just yet. “Yes. I’d like another glass of wine…and what time do you get off tonight?”
He saw the sultry smile that tilted the corners of her lips. His erection was already hardening against his zipper when she replied, “We close at eleven.”
Instead of saying anything, he merely nodded slowly, knowing he would keep that in mind. If he had to be in this town for another week or so, he might as well enjoy himself.
He leaned back in his chair. So far he hadn’t been able to find anything incriminating on Brian Lawson and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Even the man’s former girlfriends were tight-lipped and loyal. And no amount of money could convince them to be otherwise. But he wasn’t feeling the weight of failure pressing down on him just yet. If he had to hire someone to fake a few things, then so be it. Karen was paying him a lot of money for the results she wanted.
The waitress returned and refilled his glass. It was only after she’d left that he glanced around the restaurant and his brow lifted. A man resembling Wilson Sanders was having dinner with a woman who he’d been introduced to last month as the mother of Erica’s fiancé. Rita Lawson.
Evidently Wilson had flown into town to meet with his future son-in-law and his mother and was taking them out to dinner. He wondered why Karen hadn’t mentioned it.
He took another sip and wondered why Brian hadn’t yet arrived. It took a few more sips of his wine for him to pick up that Wilson and Ms. Lawson were actually sharing a cozy dinner for two and Brian wouldn’t be making an appearance. And he saw how they were looking at each other when each thought the other wasn’t noticing. Yes, something was going on between them.
Damn, if that