Free Bad Heiress Day by Allie Pleiter Page A

invisible smudge on the front headlamp. “How’s Darcy holding up now that her dad’s gone?”
    Jack wasn’t sure how much he wanted to get in-depth on this topic just yet. He gave his standard response. “As well as can be expected. We’ve known this was coming for so long, it mostly feels over. She gets blue some days, then on others she’s her old self again.”
    Ed didn’t look up from the headlamp, moving to inspect the other instead. “Dying’s hard on a family. On a marriage, even. Glyn and I had more fights the year her mother died than we’d had in our entire marriage until then.” He turned to look at Jack. “’Course Glyn’s mom was a stubborn old battle-ax, and Paul was a saint, hmm?”
    Jack wasn’t quite sure what to make of that last remark. Was Ed speaking well of the dead, or inviting Jack to share his honest opinion? He sure didn’t know this guy well enough to read between his lines. He sipped his Cherry Coke to bide a bit more thinking time.
    “You’re a smart man, Jack.”
    “Pardon?”
    “I know half a dozen fellows your age who wouldn’t have seen that comment for the minefield that it was.” He laughed, folding the handkerchief back into his pocket. “You knew there was no real safe way to respond to a remark like that. I could spot it in your eyes. I like a man who knows that sometimes the best answer is not to answer at all.”
    Jack eyed him, half annoyed, half impressed. “Do you always test people for their conversational—” he searched for the right word “—agility so quickly after meeting them?”
    “Only if I think they’re worth it, Jack my boy, only if I think they’re worth it.” Ed tossed his Coke can into a large recycling bin clear across the garage in one perfect long shot. “I think I’m ready for lunch.”

Chapter 7
The Torture Man Cometh
    K ate pulled up a stool to Darcy’s kitchen counter as they shared a cup of tea. “So the Bidwells have a nice house?”
    “Really nice. Jack was drooling over the guy’s sports car. Nice furniture, the works. Real art, not just prints from a superstore. She had silver ice tea spoons, even.”
    Kate made a dour, uppercrusty socialite face and stuck her pinky out.
    “No, it wasn’t like that. I mean, that’s what I was expecting, but she was really nice. The house was gorgeous, but it was a…comfortable sort of gorgeous.” Darcy sighed. “It’s hard to describe. It was really a lovely afternoon.”
    Darcy could tell that Kate had caught the edge to her voice. “But…” Kate cued.
    Darcy sighed and stirred her tea again. “It just seemed to make everything worse.”
    “Worse how?”
    “They were so perfect, so happy, so…compatible.” She looked at the colored plastic handle of her teaspoon and thought of Glynnis’s graceful flatware. “I could look at them and see what could be…and see what isn’t.” Darcy put down her spoon. “Isn’t, isn’t, isn’t.”
    Kate sighed. “You guys fought again last night, didn’t you?”
    “It’s so funny, Kate. Jack talked to Ed Bidwell, I talked to Glynnis. Ed and Glynnis are so in sync with each other, so agreeable, and yet Jack and I came out of that visit with two completely different viewpoints. No, let me rephrase that. We came out of there with the same viewpoints we’ve had all along, only just farther apart than before. How can that happen? It doesn’t make sense. It should have made things better, but it made things worse.”
    “Jack still on the investment bandwagon?”
    “More so than ever. If I didn’t know better, all he and Ed Bidwell talked about were the miracles of compounded interest. I think he told Jack the interest off his latest investment strategy bought that shiny new car Jack was eyeing.”
    “Ed Bidwell’s a pretty big honcho. Maybe it did.”
    Darcy eyed her. “You’re not helping.”
    “Okay, tell me about this Glynnis lady. All I know about her is what I see on the charity ball page of the newspaper. She’s a