Gotcha! by Fern Michaels Read Free Book Online

plastic surgeons. She was into daily spa treatments, and expensive three-hour lunches with her son. She single-handedly kept Saks and Bergdorf Goodman in the black. She decorated a five-room apartment in the Trump Towers for Eli and didn’t once look at the price tag of anything she bought to furnish and decorate the place. Or so it was rumored. She demanded and got a chauffeur, then demanded a place in the Catskills. The reporter went on to say that while he couldn’t prove it, he thought Mrs. Eileen Carlisle had carte blanche at Tiffany’s.
    Oliver Goldfeld was yet another pillar of the community; no taint of scandal anywhere near him. Excellent reputation in the legal field. Several years ago, he’d taken a case all the way to the Supreme Court and won. He was Mace’s best friend, something both men shouted to the heavens. Oliver had never married but had been keeping company with federal judge Marion Odell for many years. Julie liked the old-fashioned term, keeping company. It was rumored that Mrs. Carlisle did not like Oliver Goldfeld and was jealous of the friendship the two men had. It was also said that her son worked long and hard behind the scenes to sabotage the legal and personal relationship between the two men, causing strife in the new marriage.
    And then the latest report, dated just two weeks ago. CP stock tumbled again, and there were rumors of a hostile takeover just as the company was waiting for FDA approval of their new children’s cholesterol drug.
    The cherry on top of what she’d just finished reading was what she’d heard on the news this evening. Even an idiot could figure out why Mace Carlisle had cut and run. To get his head on straight. She would have done the same thing if she were walking in his shoes. Sometimes, as she’d found out the hard way, you had to distance yourself from a situation to get your bearings. God, had she learned that lesson. The hard way.
    The big question for her at the moment was whether to let Mace know she knew his secret or to just go along with his charade. Always the first to champion the underdog, Julie finally decided to keep his secret and pretend she knew nothing. As long as the man paid his rent, she had no right to interfere in his private life. She felt sad that she couldn’t help him in some way.
    Julie Wyatt felt sorry for Mace Carlisle, so sorry she wanted to run across the yard, wake the man, and hug and comfort him the way mothers had done since the beginning of time. Of course, she wouldn’t do any such thing.
    Julie squinted without her reading glasses and tried to see the red numerals on her digital clock. Five o’clock! She looked at her bed and almost laughed out loud. Cooper was stretched out on her side of the bed, Gracie on the other, with no room for her because Cooper wouldn’t move until he was ready to move, and he was out for the count. Oh, well, she might as well shower and think about making breakfast for her new tenant, since there was no food in the cottage. When the dogs finally stirred themselves, she’d send them over to the cottage with a note.
    At five forty-five, Julie was in the kitchen, trying to decide what to make for breakfast. In the summertime, she usually just had fruit, usually a mango, some yogurt, or toast. In the winter, she liked warm cereal. She wasn’t sure, but she thought Mace Carlisle might be a breakfast eater like her sons, who early in the morning would eat anything that wasn’t nailed down.
    Such a dilemma.
    While Julie pondered her breakfast menu, she turned on the small television sitting on the counter. Maybe there would be fresh news, but what that could possibly be, she had no idea. She made coffee while she waited for the six o’clock news to come on.
    Her elbow propped up on the counter, her chin in the palm of her hand, Julie stared at the television. The face of the latest politician to be caught with his hand in the till appeared, smug and self-assured. She muttered a few choice words