Silent Run - Barbara Freethy [103]
Jake’s eyebrow shot up in disbelief, and he gave her another amazed look. “You lied to him, too. Do you ever tell the truth?”
“The truth is hard to live with sometimes. You wouldn’t understand, Jake. You didn’t grow up like I did.”
“That’s an excuse?”
“No, but when I met Victor I was barely out of my teens. I knew if I told him who I really was, he’d walk away. In the beginning it was just a way to be Cinderella for a night. But once I started the lies I couldn’t stop them, and then I didn’t really want to stop, because I was falling in love. Victor seemed to feel the same way. He called me all the time. He bought me pretty clothes and paid for me to get my hair cut and have manicures and pedicures and days at the spa. I’d never had anyone care so much about me. I thought for sure I’d wake up any second. Then the unthinkable happened. Victor asked me to marry him. He gave me a huge diamond ring. He took me to the bridal salon to pick out my dress.”
“That was the memory you had earlier,” Jake said. “Did you marry him?”
“No. A few days after that I found him in bed with another woman. My little fairy tale came to an abrupt end. I tried to break things off, but he begged me to reconsider. He told me that it was a mistake and he’d been drunk and it meant nothing. He still wanted me.” She stared down at her fingers, remembering how beautiful and yet how wrong the ring had looked on her finger. She’d known she was living a lie, but she hadn’t been able to stop. “Growing up without a family, I wanted to be wanted. In the beginning, when I’d go to a foster home I’d try to be perfect, so they would want to adopt me. But no one wanted to make me a permanent part of their lives. I was just a temporary guest. Victor was the first one who wanted a legal contract.”
“A legal contract based on a lie. Didn’t he ever ask to meet your family?”
“I put him off. Victor had so much pride and money that he thought it would be fine to get married and tell them afterward. He said he wanted to pay for the wedding anyway; he wanted it to be the highlight of the Chicago wedding season.”
“So you took him back.”
She nodded. “Stupidly, yes. I didn’t realize that Victor was more than just a cheater. He was also dealing in stolen art. I thought he was a reputable businessman. I knew he had some family contacts in Russia, but I didn’t realize they were fencing stolen art from the war. Apparently it brought in millions of dollars. But that money wasn’t enough for him. Victor and his friends wanted more. So they began smuggling heroin inside the frames of the art that came into the gallery. I didn’t know it at the time. That is the truth. And I certainly didn’t imagine that men who were born into such a wonderful life would want to risk what they had to break the law, to smuggle drugs.”
She’d thought she was street-smart, but she’d been naive when it came to how the other half of the world lived. “I grew up with kids who had nothing—who had to steal to survive. But Victor and his Harvard buddies had everything they’d ever wanted. In retrospect, I realized that they didn’t care about money, because they’d never had to earn it. I thought Victor was my ticket to a good life, the life I’d always wanted to lead, and not just because of his money, but his respectability, his family connections. I didn’t understand that evil could wear an expensive suit and have an