Marie Ferrarella - Las Vegas - Seduction - The Heiress's 2-Week Affair

And her father seemed apparently blind to all of his wife’s shortcomings.

Reluctant to walk into the lion’s den, Natalie stalled for a moment. “How’s the meeting coming along?” she asked the butler.

A whimsical half smile fleetingly played along the older man’s lips. “No one has killed anyone yet.”

“Always a good sign,” Natalie agreed.

She unconsciously squared her shoulders, the way she always did when she was about to face Stepmother 2.0—which was the way she’d taken to referring to Rebecca Lynn. The thinly veiled animosity between the woman and the rest of the family had never really died down.

Too bad her father’d had that midlife crisis of his. Instead of buying a new sports car—he already had more than ten housed within his cavernous garage—he’d shed his second wife and married a woman young enough to be his daughter.

As far as she was concerned, Natalie had always preferred her father’s last wife. Anne Worth Rothchild not only had pedigree but she had class. She was a lady in every sense of the word. In contrast, Rebecca Lynn was a grasping gold digger in every sense of that word.

Try as she might, she just couldn’t get herself to like Rebecca Lynn, or her spoiled brat of a half brother. The only male heir in the family, Ricky, even at this tender age, radiated an aura of entitlement. Something, Natalie had no doubt, that had been taught to him by his mother. As someone who preferred to earn her own way, she found it absolutely repugnant.

Rebecca Lynn, Natalie was certain, was angling to be become the sole heir of the Rothchild fortune—once Harold Rothchild passed on.

Over her dead body, Natalie vowed. Not that she wanted any of the money. She just didn’t want Rebecca Lynn getting her hands on it exclusively.

Natalie stopped just short of the living room. As a matter of fact, now that she thought about it, Candace’s sudden death dovetailed nicely with their stepmother’s plans. She’d bet her last dime that Rebecca Lynn would have liked nothing better than to have Candace’s fate befall her and her two remaining siblings—her sister Jenna and stepsister Silver.

Can’t tell the players apart without a scorecard, Natalie thought dryly.

Forcing herself to walk into the living room, Natalie saw her youngest sibling, Jenna, a self-assured twenty-five-year-old, currently heading up her own party planning business, crouching on the floor. She was busy picking up the pieces of what had been, until moments ago, a colorful vase from a trip to Hawaii.

The vase, for reasons unknown, had suffered Ricky’s sudden displeasure. He would have gone on a rampage except that Harold had grabbed him.

Rebecca Lynn took immediate possession of their son, giving her husband a dark, censoring look. When that faded, it was replaced by a disdainful expression that took up residence on her perfectly made-up face.

Everything about the woman screamed “fake,” Natalie couldn’t help thinking. Rebecca Lynn’s hair was currently a riotous cloud of red that could not be found anywhere in nature.

Silver, Anna’s daughter, was sitting over in a corner, her expression barring anyone from attempting to approach her.

Ever the outsider. Although, from what she’d heard, in the last few years, Silver and Candace had actually gotten closer. However, the relationship had come about for all the wrong reasons, at least when it came to Candace, who had orchestrated the “friendship.” Her twin had been extremely jealous of their stepsister. Silver, who was the same age as they were, had been born beautiful. With her mother’s support, she had become a singing sensation by the time she turned sixteen. This after bringing the modeling world to its knees.

Silver, Natalie had always felt, could have become anything she wanted to be.

Looking around the room at the various members of her extended—or was that distended?—family, Natalie viewed them all with a disparaging eye and now just shook her head.

Talk about dysfunctional families. Hers would probably be up for some kind of prize—if there were prizes given for something like this.

His temper on edge because Rebecca Lynn had usurped his authority to discipline their son—again—Harold Rothchild looked at the latecomer with no attempt to hide his displeasure.

“So you’ve finally decided to grace us with your presence.”

“Yup, finally,” Natalie echoed in the same tone her father had just used.

So far, it’d been one hell of a day, and the rest of it wasn’t shaping up to be any better. Making her way over to a chair that was near Silver, Natalie sat down. Her stepsister slanted a glance in her direction and nodded a silent greeting.

“All right,” Natalie said, bracing herself for anything. “Let’s get on with it.”

After Natalie took her seat, Harold didn’t begin speaking immediately. Instead, he moved restlessly about the wide, cathedral-ceilinged living room like a caged man desperately searching for the way out and only coming up against dead ends.

Finally, his back to the baby grand piano his wife insisted on getting for their son, he said, “By now, you’ve all heard the news. Candace is dead.”

“Is that why you called us here, to make sure we all knew?” Silver asked incredulously, raising her voice to be heard over her stepbrother’s high-pitched whining. “There’s been nothing else all over the news all morning,” she pointed out.

“No, I called you together because we need to make funeral arrangements.” His intense blue eyes shifted toward his wife.

Rebecca Lynn took immediate offense. “Hey, don’t look at me. I’ve never handled things like that.” A disdainful expression crossed her face. “Funerals give me the creeps.”

Anything that required work gave the woman the creeps, Natalie thought. “Eloquently put,” she murmured under her breath.

The general tone, since the words were not audible, earned her a dirty look from her stepmother. Bored and frustrated, Ricky’s whining went up a notch. It was a little like walking into an insane asylum, Natalie realized.

Her father shifted his attention to her. “Natalie, exactly when can we expect to have your sister’s body released?”

Her father was a reasonably intelligent man. He should have known the answer to that. And then it occurred to her that he expected her to have some kind of special pull at the coroner’s office. The system didn’t work like that.

“As soon as the ME finishes the autopsy and determines the cause of death,” she replied patiently.

Horror registered on Silver’s face. “You mean they’re gutting her like some kind of fish?” she asked, not bothering to stifle a shiver.

“We know the cause of death,” Jenna insisted. When Natalie looked at her, waiting, her younger sister declared, “Someone killed her.”

Was everyone being deliberately obtuse, or had the fuse on her temper been shortened by Matt’s sudden reappearance into her life?

“That’s not the cause, that’s the effect,” Natalie explained, trying to at least sound patient. “If we know how, we might know who.”

“What good is that going to do us?” Jenna asked sullenly. “She’ll still be dead.”

“No, Natalie’s right,” Harold cut in. “If we know who, then we’ll know if killing Candace was personal—or personal.” Was his daughter killed by a jealous lover, or someone who had it in for the family, for him, and this was their way of striking out?

A loud, exasperated sound escaped from Rebecca Lynn’s lips. The other women in the room all looked in her direction. “Okay, you’ve officially gone off the deep end,” she told her husband nastily.

“Don’t go declaring him mentally incompetent just yet, Rebecca Lynn, although I’m sure that the thought is near and dear to your heart,” Natalie said, a deliberately fake smile on her lips. Turning to her father, her “smile” vanished. “Just what do you mean by that?” she wanted to know.