She’d heard that gossip at several parties after each man’s death and simply nodded. One had died of an overdose, and the other from suicide.

  He looked at the wall of books, and then, to Allegra’s horror, a tear slipped down his cheek. She wasn’t interested in his sob story. She just wanted to take the updated trust and leave.

  Oblivious to her discomfort, he continued. “I… when I was young, I was arrogant and stupid.”

  She scoffed, “When you were young?”

  He continued as though he hadn’t heard. “I’ve done a lot of things, bad things in my life, and I’m afraid.” His eyes focused on hers. “I’m afraid of going to hell.” He brought the oxygen mask down again and took several short puffs.

  Good God. Did he expect her to be his confessor?

  “I’m hoping…” He shrugged, “I’m hoping if I try to make things right…maybe.” Shaking his head to clear it of God only knew what, he cleared his throat and started in. “When I was thirty, I’d already made my first seventy million. I was married.” He made a dismissive gesture. “My second wife. She died in childbirth, but the child lived.”

  That was no revelation. “Your eldest son?”

  He shook his head. “A daughter.”

  That was news to Allegra, who’d never heard even the slightest rumor of there being another heir to the Langdon fortune, and she’d been the one to draw up the original trust agreement. “Where is she now?”

  He looked down. “I don’t know. I’ve had private investigators looking for her, but… I don’t even know if she’s still alive. That’s part of what I need you to do as the executor of my trust.”

  “What?” She waved her manicured hands back and forth. “No, no, no. I’m your attorney, not the executor. I never agreed to that.”

  He pulled the oxygen back on and stared at her over the plastic top. When he pulled it off, he shook his head. “I don’t have time to pussyfoot around. Do you remember the village in Lithuania? The cottage you tried to purchase?”

  Allegra’s brows furrowed. Her grandmother had been born in that tiny cottage. She’d been stunned and heartbroken when, something like fifteen years earlier, after a bout of depression when she’d been missing her Noma horribly, she’d tried to buy it only to learn someone had purchased it out from under her.

  “Yes, I can see you do. I’m the one who stole it from you. You’d just stolen the Reardon Complex out from under my nose, so when my investigators discovered you were willing to pay just about anything to obtain the cottage, I did the same to you.” He pointed to the portfolio in her lap. “In the new trust, if you successfully carry out the duties of executor, that cottage is yours.” He glanced back at her. “And yes, I’ve not only preserved it, I’ve improved it while maintaining its original shtetl charm.” He narrowed his eyes, “But if you refuse, or if you fail to carry out the terms of the trust, the cottage will be burned to the ground.”

  Allegra stiffened, livid with rage. “How dare you—”

  He held up his hand. “It’s business, Allegra. Never take business personally.” He puffed another breath of oxygen. “Now, as I said, I don’t have time to waste. Executor?”

  “It’s a breach of ethics for—”

  He waved his hand and then pointed to the portfolio she held in her lap. “Judge Aaron Bronson granted a waiver of ethics, or whatever he called it so that you can do both. Executor or not, Allegra?”

  Feeling her heart beating a staccato in her chest, Allegra considered refusing. That is until her grandmother’s gentle face swam in front of her eyes. She wanted her old cottage. No, she needed it. When she’d had it in her hands and then had it wrenched away, she’d felt as though her Noma had been taken away a second time. Unable to form the words, she pursed her lips and nodded.

  She expected him to gloat, but instead, he motioned her closer. The chair screeched as she grabbed the arms and scooted it forward until her knees were touching the bed. “In lieu of an NDA, I need your word that you will never disclose what I’m about to tell you.”

  Sitting back, she considered his words. After a moment, she shook her head. “What you tell me is already covered under the attorney-client privilege. There’s no need for me to—” He held up his hand, and to her consternation, she stopped talking.

  He pulled in a wheezy breath. “I’m aware of that. But what I’m going to tell you is deeply personal, and I need your assurance that you’ll tell no one. Ever.”

  “I’m not your confessor, Harcourt.”

  “I need to tell you so you understand. So you’ll understand my daughter when you find her and maybe help her more than you normally would. Maybe even be kinder than—”

  “Of course, I’ll help her. I just said I’d be the executor of your will. But I’m not a kind woman, Harcourt. Especially not to your spawn.” She heard the vitriol in her voice and wondered when she’d become that woman.

  “Please, promise me. Allegra.” His eyes took on a pleading look she would have never in a million years expected to see on one of the most powerful men in the world.

  Holding up her hands, she glanced at the tree nook and then thought, What the hell? She was already bound by AC privilege. What did it matter, anyway? “Fine. On one condition. You will leave it to my discretion as to whether or not I disclose what you’re going to tell me to anyone. I give you my word that I will only do so if that disclosure benefits your daughter. Agreed?”

  He stared at her a moment and then nodded. “Agreed.” He glared at Awani. “Leave us. I’ll ring for you when I need you.”

  After the door shut behind his assistant, Harcourt struggled to turn onto his side so he was facing her.

  Sighing, she grabbed an extra pillow from the foot of the bed and placed it behind his back to hold him in place. When her Noma had been dying, she’d preferred lying in that position because it took some of the pressure off her sore hips. Allegra was surprised to hear him whisper, “Thank you.”

  She sat back and nodded, hoping he’d begin so this whole farce could be over and done with. Why couldn’t she just read the new conditions of the trust and be done with it?

  Harcourt cleared his throat, pulled in a strained breath, and began his narrative. “After my wife died giving birth to the baby, I foolishly kept the child, thinking it would make me look…more human to my business associates.” He lifted a brow as though waiting for her to acknowledge the stupidity of that reasoning.

  “How’d that work out for you?” Allegra wrinkled her nose and glared at the callousness of the man.

  “For me, fine. For her—” His voice broke, and he jammed a thumb and forefinger into his eyes to stop any tears from accidentally sliding out. “I’m sorry. If I start blubbering, I won’t be able to finish, and I need you to know what I’ve done.”

  “Harcourt. Maybe a priest would be more appropriate? As I said, I’m not your confessor.”

  He held up a hand, asking her to bear with him. The oxygen mask had slipped up onto the top of his head, and before the elastic left the bare, nearly translucent skin on his bald pate and snapped the damn thing into orbit, he snatched it and pulled it down to his mouth. The greedy sucking sound his lungs made as he pulled in three deep breaths confirmed Allegra’s thoughts that he might only have days left in this world.

  Apparently, he realized it as well because he skimmed over words not necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence. “I partied a lot.”

  Allegra scoffed. “That’s the understatement of the year.” Not being invited to Harcourt Langdon’s parties was tantamount to a death sentence in certain business circles, something Allegra had had to work around in varying degrees of creative socializing.

  Ignoring her, he soldiered on. “I abused drugs. Lots of drugs. Some of my guests—I refuse to call them friends even though that’s what I thought they were—knew which ones to give me so I’d be incoherent for hours at a time.” Another lungful of oxygen, and he continued, “When my daughter was eight years old, they offered me the drugs, and when they took effect, they began passing her around as one of the party favors.”

  His eyes filled again, but Allegra didn’t notice since her jaw had dropped open, and she stared at him in horror. “They…eight years old? And you allowed them to…to….”

  He shook his head, and his voice rose to a shrill whine. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.” His breathing became labored, but he didn’t have the strength to pull down the mask.

  Allegra considered letting the bastard suffocate but decided she needed to hear the rest of his story. She snatched the mask off his head and angrily jammed it onto his mouth, letting go once he had hold of it. “You were her father. You chose to take those drugs even though you had a young daughter in your mansion. I refuse to call that den of iniquity a home because I’m sure that for her, there wasn’t any comfort to be found within its walls. You’re just as guilty as they are, Harcourt, you bastard.” She knew her words sounded melodramatic, but the shock of it all was almost too much for her.

  He closed his eyes and wheezed in several breaths. When he could speak again, he lowered the mask but held it at the ready. “They gave me the drugs and used her. She ran away when she was twelve. I never knew why until one of my guests asked why my daughter wasn’t around.” His throat constricted, and his words came out as more of a whine than anything else. “At the next party, after she’d gone, they asked about her. I thought they were concerned for her well-being because they all knew I was a shit father. When I told them she’d run away, they all laughed.” His voice broke. “They laughed and joked about her being the best party favor I’d ever given them.”

  Without realizing what she was doing, Allegra stood and gaped down at the man. “Wait. She ran away when she was twelve? Please don’t tell me they raped a child at every party you had from the time she was eight until she was twelve years old?”

  He broke down then, covering his eyes and moaning, “I’m going to hell, aren’t I? I’m dying, and I’m going to hell. I don’t want to go to hell. I… can’t—”

  Allegra glanced around the room, looking anywhere but at him. Her infuriated, disgusted gaze finally returned to the pitiful, bellyaching excuse of a human being. If her eyes had been lasers, he’d have two smoking holes where those round, ridiculous orbs blinked up at her. “I certainly hope so, you fucking, self-centered, egotistical bastard.”

  A band constricted around her chest, and there wasn’t enough room for the air she tried pulling into her lungs. The Moroccan baked eggs she’d had for breakfast threatened to make an appearance, and she searched his bedside for a bucket just in case they came up. When she didn’t immediately see one, her gaze returned to him. Even as her initial shock abated, she shook her head, trying to clear it of what she’d just heard.

  She shouldn’t have come. Harcourt Langdon was a monster, something she’d known for years, and she should have told Bernard to take the assignment and shove it. She had enough seniority, and he’d be a fool to try to force her out of the business.

  The hiss of the oxygen machine startled her out of her thoughts. “Jesus, Harcourt. She was your daughter. You were supposed to protect her. Knowing you as I do, there’s no doubt in my mind that she never received a kind word or caring gesture from you. But to allow her to be savaged by—” A sudden, terrible thought popped into her mind. “Tell me you reported them to the police.”

  His eyes, which already looked so huge in his emaciated skull, became even rounder as he shook his head.

  “You mean they’re still out there abusing children and—”

  He shook his head again. “All dead.”

  She blinked several times. “What?”

  “Every man and woman who defiled my daughter is dead.”

  “You—” There was too much being thrown at her at once. Allegra blinked several times as her rattled brain fought to make sense of what he was telling her. “You—” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what had happened to them, but of course, she was well aware that a man of his wealth would have no problem hiring hitmen to eliminate people and make it look like an unfortunate series of accidents.

  He closed his eyes, covered his mouth with the mask, and sucked in a lungful of oxygen. “I’ve tried to find her. Had the best firms searching for her, but that’s up to you now. You have to find her.”

  Allegra ran her hand up into her perfectly coiffed honey-blonde hair. The stiff strands reminded her she was destroying what her hairdresser had so meticulously set into place that morning, but at the moment, she really didn’t care. “She’d be, what? Thirty-seven, thirty-eight years old now?” She glanced down at the papers and portfolio that had slipped to the ground unnoticed when she’d stood in a shocked stupor. “Is all of her information in there?”

  Instead of answering, he pointed a shaky finger at the bell on the table beside his bed. When she grudgingly handed it to him, he grasped the handle and flailed his arm back and forth as though he had very little control over his muscles anymore.

  The shrill clanging exacerbated the headache Allegra had been nursing all morning, and she grimaced before covering her ears to block the sound. She moved to the end of the bed to put distance between herself and the bell.

  As though he’d been waiting behind the door, Awani immediately walked into the room, glanced at the portfolio lying on the floor, and then looked at Allegra standing at the foot of the bed. Without a word, he strode over and picked up the paperwork.

  Being a personal assistant for a man of Langdon’s standing meant that Awani was at the top of the heap. The best of the best, so Allegra wasn’t at all surprised that his face was absolutely neutral when he held out the portfolio to her.

  Langdon motioned for Awani to remove the pillow holding him onto his side and slowly rolled onto his back. “Give her the girl’s file.”

  Allegra braced her hand on her hips and sent Langdon an incredulous look. “The girl? You can’t even say her name, can you, you bastard? What’s her name, Harcourt?” When he didn’t answer, she repeated, louder this time. “Her name?”

  Awani cleared his throat. “We don’t know. We think she changed it after she ran away.” He retrieved yet another portfolio and handed it to her.

  She took it and growled at the man. “You think?” Then something occurred to her, and she asked the assistant, “Do you even know why she ran away?”

  Awani shook his head. “I do not, and when you read my non-disclosure agreement, you’ll see the stipulation that I never ask you for the reason and never attempt to find out. Also, the trust stipulates that you will never offer me the information.”

  Allegra glared down at Langdon. “Who else have you told?”

  “No one.”

  Completely oblivious to the damage she was doing to her stylist’s work, Allegra again ran her hand through her hair. “I don’t believe this.” Disregarding the loyal assistant standing by Langdon’s side, Allegra snarled, “I hope you burn in hell, Harcourt Langdon.” With those words echoing throughout the room, Allegra pulled shoulders back and strode from the suite.

  Three

  Instead of returning to the office, Allegra instructed her driver to take her home. Home, for her, was an elegant gated mansion she’d purchased to celebrate reaching the thirty-million milestone ten years earlier. The home was elegant and personally furnished by the master interior decorator, Miles Antonne. Even though she spent most of her time in only three of the thirty rooms, it was her place of refuge where she could kick off her shoes and hide from the woman she’d become in order to earn that thirty-million-dollar fortune.

  Allegra had two personal assistants, one for the office and one for the home. She’d needed to separate the two because she couldn’t stand the bleedover from the office when she’d used one woman to fulfill both functions.

  Sasha, the forty-two-year-old Chilean beauty she’d been lucky to find seven years earlier, met her at the front door with a smile. “You’re home early.”

  Sasha had known poverty as a child and had been well aware that she’d stumbled onto something wonderful when her friend had called about Allegra Saint-Germaine needing a personal assistant. The two had meshed perfectly the first time Sasha had walked through the front door. The moment their eyes met, Sasha knew she wanted to become the loyal, hard-working assistant Allegra would never want to let go.

  And, if, at times, her employer asked for—always asked, never demanded—sexual favors, Sasha considered it a bonus instead of a trial since Allegra was still a beautiful woman even into her sixties.

  Allegra took all of the paperwork into the den and set it on the side table next to another of her Noma’s favorite wingback chairs. “Please mix an extra dry gin martini with a lemon twist.”

  “My pleasure. Would you like me to put together a crudités platter as well?”

  With a wave of her hand, Allegra sent Sasha away, lowered herself into the armchair, and began to read. She hadn’t noticed when her assistant returned with her drink, but Allegra found herself sipping a cocktail when she came up for air. “Good God.”

  Harcourt Langdon had left the entirety of his estate, including all of his investments and holdings, to a thirty-seven-year-old daughter he hadn’t seen in twenty-five years. A woman who could be dead for all he knew. Or, if what he’d said were true, more probably, given her traumatic childhood, a mentally unstable raging alcoholic or drug-addled prostitute.

  Well, most of his estate, anyway. There was the ten million he’d left to Awani, the cottage in Lithuania and an additional twenty million he’d left to her and a forty million dollar…bribe was the only word she could come up with, to the only other woman who had ever bested him in a business deal.

  That forty million came in the form of a one hundred thirty-seven-thousand-acre ranch set in one of the most sought-after pieces of real estate in the entire western part of the country. It was prime land split between Wyoming and Montana, and knowing Phyla McGuire had originally made her mark in real estate in the upper northwest, Allegra wondered whether Langdon had stolen something precious to her as well. The same stipulation applied to McGuire as had applied to her. Do as Langdon demanded, or the ranch would be split up into one and two-acre parcels and sold at auction.