The Billionaire's Secrets by Meadow Taylor

the parking metre.” He stood up. “Is your car okay? These metres only have an hour on them.”
     
     
     
    “ I should probably do the same. I’ll come with you.”
     
     
     
    “No, wait here where it’s warm.”
     
     
     
    “Thanks," she said. “It’s the white Jeep in front of the drugstore.”
     
     
     
    She held a dollar coin to him, but he waved it away. “No problem, just don’t let anyone take my stool. ”
     
     
     
    Chloe ordered another coffee for herself , and Bowen was back just as it arrived. He sat down a little breathlessly. “You wanted to know about Colleen.”
     
     
     
    Chloe nodded , hoping she didn’t look as eager as she felt.
     
     
     
    Bowen stirred his coffee slowly as if deciding where to begin. “It’s hard to know where to start. Colleen was my girlfriend. I met her in New York. A friend of mine was in a play off Broadway, and I went to see him in it. And there she was.” His voice was full of sadness. “I thought she was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen. My friend introduced us, and I’d like to think it was love.”
     
     
     
    Chloe could see that it upset him to talk about this . “If this is too hard for you...” Chloe began reluctantly .
     
     
     
    “No,” he said firmly. “It was a long time ago. It’s good therapy for me. And you’re a good listener.” He sipped his coffee. “Everything was fine until I introduced her to the family. Gaelan seemed jealous. He’s the older twin, which is why he has Widow’s Cliff. Ours is an old-fashioned family, everything to the oldest child, and I guess Gaelan figured that also meant my girlfriend. Anyway, Gaelan managed to win her away from me. He poured on the charm and, with all his money, he could promise her the world. And I’m afraid she fell for it.
     
     
     
    “But after she married him, she discovered what he was really like – cold and jealous . And t he isolation of Widow’s Cliff really got to her. She was a model and an actress, and she went near crazy wandering around that creepy castle all by herself. She already felt she was a prisoner there and t hen she had Sophia .”
     
     
     
    He paused, and ran his fingers through his hair. It was a gesture that she had seen Gaelan make , and she was struck again by their similarities - at least in looks and gestures. When it came to personalities, they were miles apart.
     
     
     
    “Windy said Colleen didn’t love Sophia ,” Chloe said. “Is that true?”
     
     
     
    Bowen looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face. “ Windy’s a good soul but pretty traditional, and I think she’ s the only person in the world who believes that Gaelan can do no wrong. I don't think she approved of Colleen wanting another life beyond that of mother and lady of the manor.”
     
     
     
    Chloe silently agreed with Bowen’s description of Windy. “ So Colleen didn’t keep up her career?”
     
     
     
    “ How could she? Every time she tried to get to New York for an audition, he’d have an excuse that kept her from going. The weather was to o bad to go to the airport… he had something more important… you name it, he came up with it. I think he liked to keep her where he could keep an eye on her.”
     
     
     
    “Why?”
     
     
     
    “Because she was miserable , and he didn’t want her to get away from him. She was like everything else to him, a possession,” he said bitterly. “To make a long story short, she emailed me. She was terribly depressed. We arranged to meet in St. John’s the next week. I was going to ask her to come back with me to New York , but she never arrived.”
     
     
     
    Chloe felt a cold chill. “What happened?”                            
     
                 
     
    “She went for a walk along the cliff and never came back.” He swallowed hard. “Her body was never found. The official explanation was that she fell from the cliff and the tide carried out her