Modern Romance February Books 5-8. Heidi Rice

were dark, the shops all closed. The February—no, it was March now; it was past midnight—wind was icy against her cheeks still raw with tears.

      She’d thought it was a miracle when she saw Darius again. She’d thought he’d found out the truth of how she’d sacrificed herself, and he’d come back for her.

      Telling him she loved him had felt so right. She’d honestly thought he might tell her the same thing.

      How could she have been so wrong?

      You disgust me.

      She could still hear the contempt in his voice. Wiping her eyes hard, she shivered, trembling as she trudged toward her four-story apartment building.

      While many of the nearby buildings were nice, well kept, with flower boxes, hers was an eyesore, with a rickety fire escape clinging to a crumbling brick facade. But the place was cheap, and the landlord had asked no personal questions, which was what she cared about. Plugging in a security code, Letty pushed open the door.

      Inside, the temperature felt colder. Two of the foyer’s lights were burned out, leaving only a single bare lightbulb to illuminate the mailboxes and the old delivery menus littering the corners of the cracked tile floor.

      Even in the middle of the night, noises echoed against the concrete stairwell, a Doppler tangle of tenants yelling, dogs barking, a baby crying. A sour smell came up from beneath the metal stairs as she wearily climbed three flights. She felt wretched, body and soul, torn between her body’s sweet ache from their lovemaking and her heart’s incandescent grief.

      The fourth floor had worn, stained carpet and a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Going past the doors of her neighbors—some of whom she’d never met even after three years—she reached into her handbag, found her keys and unlocked the dead bolt. The door creaked as she pushed it open.

      “Letty! You’re back!” Her father looked up eagerly from his easy chair. He’d waited up for her, wrapped in both a robe and a blanket over his flannel pajamas, since the thermostat didn’t work properly. Turning off the television, he looked up hopefully. “Well?”

      As the door swung shut behind her, Letty stared at him in disbelief. Her handbag dropped to the floor.

      “How could you?” she choked out.

      “How could I get you and Darius back together so easily?” Her father beamed at her. “All I needed was a good excuse!”

      Her voice caught on a sob. “Are you kidding?”

      Howard frowned. “Are you and Darius not back together?”

      “Of course we’re not! How could you send him a message, pretending to be me? Offering me for the night!”

      “I was trying to help,” he said falteringly. “You’ve loved him for so long but refused to contact him. Or he you. I thought...”

      “What? That if you forced us together, we’d immediately fall back into each other’s arms?”

      “Well, yes.”

      As she stared at him, still trembling from the roller coaster of emotion of that night, anger rushed through her.

      “You didn’t do it for me!” Reaching into her bag, she grabbed the cashier’s check and shoved it at him. “You did it for this!”

      Her father’s hands shook as he grasped the cashier’s check. Seeing the amount, his eyes filled with visible relief. “Thank God.”

      “How could you?” She wanted to shake her father and scream at him for what he’d done. “How could you sell me?”

      “Sell you?” Her father looked up incredulously. “I didn’t sell you!” Struggling to untangle himself from his blanket, he rose from his chair and sat beside her on the sofa. “I figured the two of you would talk and soon realize how you’d been set up. I thought you’d both have a good laugh, and it would be easier for you each to get over your pride. Maybe he’d send money, maybe he wouldn’t.” His voice cracked. “But either way, you’d be together again. The two of you love each other.”

      “You did it for love.” Letty’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “So the fact that you read about Darius’s billion-dollar deal this morning had nothing to do with it.”

      He winced at her sarcasm, then looked down at the floor. His voice trembled a little as he said, “I guess I thought there was no harm in also trying to solve a problem of my own with a...dissatisfied customer.”

      Glaring at him, Letty opened her mouth to say the cruel words he deserved to hear. Words she’d never be able to take back. Words neither one of them would ever be able to forget. Words that would take her anguish and rage, wrap them up into a tight ball and launch them at her father like a grenade.

      Then she looked at him, old and forlorn, sitting beside her on the sagging sofa. The man she’d once admired and still absolutely loved.

      His hair had become white and wispy, barely covering his spotted scalp. His face, once so hearty and handsome, was gaunt with deep wrinkles on his cheeks. He’d shrunk, become thin and bowed. His robe was too big on him now. His near decade in prison had aged him thirty years.

      Howard Spencer, a middle-class kid from Oklahoma, had come to New York and built a fortune with only his charm and a good head for numbers. He’d fallen in love with Constance Langford, the only daughter of an old aristocratic family on Long Island. The Langfords had little money left beyond the Fairholme estate, which was in hock up to the eyeballs. But Howard Spencer, delirious with happiness at their marriage, had assured Constance she’d never worry about money again.

      He’d kept his promise. While his wife had been alive, he’d been careful and smart and lucky with his investment fund. It was only after his wife’s sudden death that he’d become reckless, taking bigger and bigger financial risks, until his once respected hedge fund became a hollowed-out Ponzi scheme, and suddenly eight billion dollars were gone.

      The months of Howard’s arrest and trial had been awful for Letty, and worrying about him in prison had been even worse. But now, as she looked at the old man he’d somehow become, was the worst of all.

      As she looked at his slumped shoulders, his heartbroken eyes—at his broken arm, still hanging uselessly in the cast—she felt her anger evaporate, leaving in its place only grief and despair. Her mouth snapped shut.

      Slumping forward, she covered her face with her hands.

      The memory of Darius’s words floated back to her. You needed to pay off some mobster who’d broken your father’s arm and threatened to break his whole body if he didn’t come up with a hundred thousand dollars within the week.

      Chilled, she looked up. “Why didn’t you tell me someone broke your arm, Dad? Why did you let me think it was an accident?”

      Howard looked down at the floor guiltily. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

      “Worry?” she cried.

      His wan cheeks turned pink. “A father’s supposed to take care of his daughter, not the other way around.”

      “So it’s true? Some thug broke your arm and threatened you if you didn’t pay him back his money?”

      “I knew I could handle it.” He tried to smile. “And I have. Once I sign over this check, everything will be fine.”

      “How do you know you won’t have more thugs demanding money, once it’s known you actually paid someone back?”

      Her father looked shocked. “No. Most of the people who invested in my fund were good, civilized people. Not violent!”

      Letty ground her teeth. For a man who’d been in a minimum-security federal prison for nine years, he could be surprisingly naive.

      “You should have told me.”

      “Why? What would you have done except worry? Or worse—try to talk to