The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men by Christie Ridgway Read Free Book Online Page B

said it was as if I was a hundred and eighty degrees off. Now my new stock—the stock I’d been tipped to invest in—was worth only pennies on the dollar. That’s when I figured out Vince had planned it that way.”
    â€œHe’s not a man who takes disappointment easily,” Sandy replied. “And you still haven’t confronted him?”
    â€œWhy give him the satisfaction?” Instead, she’d pretended to everyone that her decision to sell off her condo and her Mercedes had been due to her moving up—although she had yet to find the exact right replacements. She’d sold everything she could to pay off the loans, including eBaying a bunch of trinkets andtaking a trunkload of clothes to a designer consignment boutique in a city seventy miles away, where no one would recognize her.
    Sandy tapped her chin with a blood-red fingernail. Eve had worn a dress in that exact same shade when Sandy’s ex had taken her to Sandy’s prom. Eve wanted to ask the other woman if that was what had prompted this little shakedown, but not with accountant Tobey at the table.
    â€œYou remember I told you we can put you away for this.”
    Eve suddenly felt the walls closing in on her, just as she had the first time Sandy had brought it up. Jail. Prison. No way out.
    Darting a quick look at those wide double doors, Eve gripped her fingers together in her lap. “It seems hard to believe,” she managed to say, though she’d done enough Internet research to prove that Sandy’s threats weren’t empty. “You have all the records. You know I’m now broke.”
    â€œWhen it comes to insider trading, it’s the intent that matters, not the result. The SEC prosecutes all kinds of people, from CEOs to custodians. From winners to losers. We don’t want anyone to think they can fly beneath the radar.”
    Eve squeezed her fingers together again. “Have fun,” she suddenly remembered Nash Cargill saying as she’d prepared to drive away to the meeting, and she choked back a half-hysterical giggle. Hey, Preacher, are we having fun yet?
    â€œYou have nothing to say?” Sandy prodded.
    Sadist. “Only that I think it’s time I talked to a lawyer.” Though she had no idea how she’d afford one,unless she went to Bianca or her grandfather. Unless she wanted all the Carusos to know how the inconvenient bastard daughter had screwed up. Screwed up at this time, when her grandfather was preparing to retire and the family was in flux. Wouldn’t they be happy she’d brought the authorities one step closer into their lives?
    â€œWhat made you do it, Eve? On some level, at least, you had to know it was wrong.”
    Like stealing boyfriends was wrong? But she hadn’t made an extra effort to get Scott Chambers to call her when they were seventeen. She just hadn’t hung up on him when he had. As for taking advantage of the insider stock tip…she was a Caruso, wasn’t she? Didn’t that give her a genetic excuse for her crime?
    It had been less than a week after they’d uncovered her father’s remains that Vince Standish had whispered that little financial secret in her ear. All sorts of bad memories had been surfacing during those days, and his tip had appeared so harmless. With less than twenty-four hours to act, she hadn’t mulled it over long. Truth to tell, it had seemed a piece of very good luck at a very dark time.
    But Sandy wasn’t soliciting Eve’s explanations, she suddenly realized. This was less about rubbing on old rival’s nose in her mistakes and more about…
    â€œWhat is it you want, Sandy?”
    The other woman’s expression didn’t falter. She was quiet a moment, then she shrugged. “Standish has toyed with the SEC rules and regulations before. I want him, and with your help I think I can get him.”
    Not that Eve felt very charitable toward Vince at the