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

Her father, however, would be a different story. Driving to the small chapel on the cemetery grounds where the service was to be held, Natalie braced herself. It had been years since she had sought or needed parental approval, but she still hated confrontations.

They weren’t the first ones in the chapel. Her father and his wife, her stepsister and younger sister were already there.

She was aware of the looks she was getting from her family the moment she walked through the chapel doors with Matt walking beside her. Jenna’s face registered first surprise, then looked pleased. Silver just looked stunned. Natalie was well aware that her famous stepsister was sizing up the man who was with her. Silver wasn’t Candace, she didn’t see every man as a possible key to happiness, but she made no secret of the fact that she did like a good, decent specimen of manhood when she saw one.

Daggers and hostile glares came her way courtesy of her father and his trophy wife. Most likely for different reasons, Natalie surmised, pretending not to notice either of them.

The minister she’d engaged for the service was at the podium. Their eyes met and Natalie nodded, giving him the signal to begin even though the chapel was only half full. She was well aware of the fact that Candace had so-called friends who thought that watches were a conspiracy by the government to entrap them in small, confining boxes that were dictated by the sweeping hands of a clock.

The upshot was that half of the “friends” she’d invited weren’t here. She figured it was either because they’d forgotten the day, because they didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that a life force like Candace was actually gone—or because they simply didn’t care. All Natalie knew for sure was that the bottom line was they weren’t here and somewhere, wherever Candace was, she was disappointed at the relatively small showing.

Had she made this service public, Natalie was certain the paparazzi would have come out in force. That might have been enough to lure out the so-called friends who weren’t here now.

Part of her almost felt that she should have done that. Because this was for Candace, not her. But in the end, she decided that her twin’s life had been a three-ring circus for years and not in a good way. Her death shouldn’t be allowed to follow that same path.

It was a short service.

When Natalie delivered the eulogy, she tried very hard to concentrate on only the good moments and spoke, for the most part, about Candace’s generous heart when they were growing up together. It was a life, she concluded, cut short much too soon because she wanted to believe that the best was yet to come for Candace.

Afterward, a few of her friends spoke, saying they would miss her at parties and that she left very big shoes to fill. There was not much to say after that. Natalie was painfully aware that her father said nothing. At one point, he looked as if he was about to stand up, but Rebecca Lynn had linked her arm through his, even while they were seated, and she restrained him from rising. With a shrug, he remained where he was.

As the participants filed by the minister on their way out of the small church, Natalie realized that her father had brought his housekeeper with him. It was she who was in charge of Candace’s two children. With a boy tethered to each hand, the woman managed to keep the boys in check. Mick and David looked oddly subdued, as if they understood what was happening.

In her heart, she sincerely hoped not. Funerals and memorial services were no place for children. Natalie noticed that her half brother was mercifully missing from the service.

Bending down, Natalie looked from one boy to the other. She smiled at them. “You guys okay?” she asked, doing her best to sound upbeat.

Two mop-heads bobbed up and down as they mumbled, “Uh-huh.”

What was going to become of them? she wondered. She doubted that her father was going to allow the boys to move in with him and that would mainly be the fault of the empty-headed witch of the west. Rebecca Lynn would not welcome children who were not her own.

She was tempted to claim the boys herself, but she was realistic. Because of the nature of her work, she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to take them in or adopt them. The job called her away at odd times of the night and day. It was certainly not the most stable environment for two little boys.

But there was time enough to worry about that later, she told herself. Rising to her feet again, she slanted a glance toward Matt. For now, she had more than enough on her plate.

“May I see you for a moment, Natalie?” her father requested, his voice taking on that formal tone that, as a child, used to tell her that she was in trouble.

She turned to Matt. “I’ll only be a minute,” she promised. He nodded and stepped back, after saying, “Sorry for your loss, Mr. Rothchild.”

Harold made no acknowledgment that he even heard him speak. “What were you thinking?” her father demanded the moment Matt stepped away.

She was still angry at him for not getting up to say something, however small, in tribute to Candace. For God’s sake, his daughter was dead. Didn’t he care?

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that, Dad.”

“You know perfectly well what I’m referring to,” Harold insisted peevishly. He looked at Matt. “How could you bring Schaffer here with you?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say, “My arrangements, my choice,” but that would put her in the same low class as Rebecca Lynn, so she focused only on addressing his question. “Because he said he wanted to pay his respects to Candace.”

“Respects, huh.” Harold blew out an angry breath. “The bastard just wants to keep tabs on me.”

“I’m sure if that’s what he has in mind, Dad, he would see a reason to have to do it at a memorial service,” she mocked. Turning serious, she added, “Come on, now. I really doubt that this would be the place he’d plan on a confrontation. Besides,” she reminded her father, “you said you owe money to his family, not to him.”

A harsh laugh escaped his lips. “Same thing.”

“No,” she said firmly, thinking of how she related to her own family and their actions; they might share the same last name, but they were not one and the same. “They’re not.”

When the memorial service was finally over and Candace’s ashes had been placed inside the family mausoleum at the cemetery, Natalie was more than ready to put the whole ordeal behind her. Being around her family for any length of time always managed to exhaust her emotionally if not physically.

Not to mention the fact that the sadness had finally really hit her.

Candace was dead.

All of her life, she had always been accustomed to being one half of a whole. That was just the way things were. She and Candace hadn’t been identical, but there was no denying that there was still an indelible bond. Even when she didn’t see Candace for months at a stretch—other than the usual tabloid in-your-face stories that periodically featured her twin—she knew Candace was out there somewhere. Breathing. Doing. Being her other half.

Now that was gone, and she was no longer part of a set. She had to rethink her existence. Become accustomed to thinking of herself in the singular.

It was an odd, odd feeling. She sincerely doubted that anyone who had never lost a twin would understand, but there was this acute feeling of being lost, of something missing.

Almost, she thought ruefully, slanting a covert look toward Matt, like the feeling she’d had when she’d woken up that fateful morning and realized that he had left her for good.

She supposed that maybe that was her fate in life. To be left behind. Granted that Candace, as self-centered as her twin could sometimes be, hadn’t any control over severing their tie.