The billionaires unexpected love

Chapter 6: Sofia Meets Margaret

Margaret had never poured tea with such care in her life.

She set out the good cups — the ones that had belonged to Edmund's mother, kept wrapped in cloth at the back of the cupboard for occasions that never came — and arranged a small plate of the shortbread she usually reserved for the harvest festival, all while Sophia settled onto the worn sofa with the composed patience of a woman used to waiting for people to make themselves useful.

"You have a lovely home," Sophia said, in a tone that made clear she meant nothing of the kind, glancing around at the sagging shelves and water-stained ceiling with the polite disinterest of someone cataloguing evidence rather than admiring décor.

"It's modest," Margaret said, setting the tea tray down with a practiced smile, "but we make do. Since my husband passed, we've had to be resourceful."

"Of course." Sophia accepted a cup she had no intention of drinking from. "I'll be direct with you, Margaret, because I suspect you're a woman who appreciates directness as much as I do. Your stepdaughter had an encounter yesterday with a man named Adrian Kingston. I imagine you're aware of who that family is."

Margaret's eyes flickered — a woman doing rapid math behind a carefully neutral expression. "I've heard the name mentioned in the village papers, of course. Very important family."

"The most important family in this country, without exaggeration." Sophia set her cup down without having touched it. "I've been with Adrian for three years. Our marriage has been all but arranged by both our families — his father and mine have discussed the merger of our companies as much as the merger of our lives, if I'm honest. It is, for all practical purposes, settled."

"How wonderful for you," Margaret said, though her eyes had already sharpened with the particular calculation of a woman deciding exactly how much this information was worth and to whom.

"It would be wonderful," Sophia agreed, "if it weren't for a small complication. Adrian appears to have taken an unusual interest in your stepdaughter after yesterday's incident. A note. A personal apology, hand-delivered, which is — let me assure you — entirely out of character for him." She leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping into something more confiding, more conspiratorial. "I don't believe Lillian did anything wrong, if that's what concerns you. I believe she was simply in the right place at the wrong time, and Adrian — being a man easily bored by the life he was born into — has mistaken novelty for something more interesting than it is."

Margaret said nothing, waiting, sensing correctly that the woman across from her hadn't come merely to deliver a warning.

"Here is my proposal," Sophia continued. "I would like you to make sure your stepdaughter has no further contact with Adrian Kingston. If he comes to this village again — and I suspect he might — I would like to know immediately. In return, I am prepared to be generous. More generous than the sum Marcus delivered yesterday, and considerably more generous than anything a fish market could provide your family in the next decade."

There it was. Margaret's smile widened, slow and satisfied, the shape of a woman who had just been handed exactly the kind of leverage she'd spent five years wishing for.

"I think," she said carefully, "that you and I are going to understand each other very well, Miss Reyes."

"I had a feeling we might." Sophia rose, smoothing down her linen dress, glancing once toward the window where Lillian could still be seen faintly through the glass, hanging the last of the laundry with her back to the house, unaware of the alliance being sealed behind her. "One more thing. It would be helpful if Lillian were kept — occupied. Busy. Perhaps sent to work further from the village for a while. Somewhere Adrian is unlikely to think to look."

Margaret's smile turned thoughtful, calculating in a new direction now. "I have a cousin who runs a laundry house two towns over. Always looking for extra hands."

"Perfect." Sophia extracted a card from her purse and set it on the table, along with a second envelope considerably thicker than the first. "My number. Call the moment anything changes."

She left the way she'd arrived — unhurried, composed, the convertible's engine purring back to life on the dirt road — leaving Margaret standing in her kitchen with an envelope in one hand and the first real plan she'd had in years already taking shape behind her eyes.

---

Adrian's car reached the outskirts of Saltmere just past noon, the coastal road unwinding beneath fresh tires in a vehicle considerably less prone to breakdowns than the last one.

He told himself, for the entire drive, that this was simply due diligence — checking that Marcus's visit had gone well, that the family had been properly compensated, that no lingering resentment would surface later as a story sold to some tabloid hungry for Kingston scandal. He told himself this so many times that by the time the village came into view, he'd almost convinced himself it was true.

Almost.

He had Marcus park at the edge of the square this time, well clear of any errant baskets, and made his way on foot toward the address Marcus had noted in yesterday's report. The village was smaller than he'd registered the first time, quieter, weathered in a way that spoke of hardship worn into every surface rather than hardship freshly arrived. He passed fishermen mending nets, children chasing each other between stalls, an old woman selling shellfish who watched him pass with open, unashamed curiosity — clearly, a man in a tailored jacket was not a common sight on these streets.

He found the house exactly where the report placed it — small, leaning slightly, laundry strung across a side garden — and was raising his hand to knock when the door opened first, and Margaret Hart appeared on the threshold with a smile so immediate, so eager, that it set something instinctively wary humming beneath Adrian's ribs.

"Mr. Kingston." She said his name like a prize she'd just been handed. "What an honor. Please, come in, come in — can I get you anything? Tea, perhaps?"

"I'm here to see Lillian," Adrian said, declining to move past the doorway. "Is she home?"

Something flickered across Margaret's face — too quick to name, gone almost before it appeared. "I'm afraid she's not, Mr. Kingston. She left early this morning for work. A laundry house, two towns over. My cousin runs it — good honest work, and Lillian's always been eager to earn her keep, bless her."

Adrian studied her for a long moment, a sense he couldn't quite name prickling at the back of his neck — the timing too neat, the smile too practiced, the eagerness in Margaret's voice not quite matching what he'd have expected from a mother whose daughter had simply gone off to a normal day's work.

"Two towns over," he repeated slowly. "Which town?"

"Oh — Millbrook, I believe. Or perhaps Ashford. I confess I don't keep close track of my cousin's business affairs." Margaret's smile never wavered, though her eyes had gone carefully blank in a way that told him, more clearly than any words could have, that she was lying. "Was there something urgent, Mr. Kingston? I'd be happy to pass along a message."

Adrian didn't answer immediately. He glanced past her, into the small front room, and saw — sitting on the table beside a half-finished cup of tea — an envelope considerably thicker than the one he'd sent through Marcus, and a small white business card he recognized instantly, even upside down, even from ten feet away.

Sophia's card.

Something cold settled in his chest, colder than anything he'd felt kneeling in the dirt two days ago.

"No message," he said quietly, already stepping back from the door. "I'll find her myself."

He turned and walked back toward the car without another word, leaving Margaret standing in her doorway with her practiced smile finally beginning to falter, and dialed a number before he'd even reached the gate.

"Marcus," he said, the moment the line connected, his voice flat and dangerously calm. "I need you to find out everything Sophia said to that woman. And I need you to find out where Lillian Hart actually is —

because I don't think for one second she's doing laundry in Millbrook."