Killjoy by Julie Garwood Page A

Oh, how she wanted to scream. She didn’t dare, though. She had made a bargain with her faithless sleazebag of a husband, and if she didn’t behave and pretend that she was really trying to save their Titanic marriage, she would be paying alimony for the rest of her life. It was a chilling possibility.
    The odds were against her. Tony came from a long line of centenarians. His uncle Enzo was still chugging wine out on his postage-stamp piece of land on the good side of Napa at the ripe old age of eighty-six and didn’t seem to be slowing down at all. His only concession to living healthy was, at the age of eighty-five, to quit smoking his unfiltered Camels—a three-pack-a-day habit—and increase the amount of garlic he put on everything he ate, including his morning wheat toast. If Tony turned out to be as healthy and fit as Enzo was, by the time Carrie croaked, she would be drained dry financially, and there would be nothing left in the coffers to leave to the only person she had ever loved, her niece, Avery. If, on the other hand, she cooperated with Tony and attended all ten sessions with Dr. Prick, and the marriage still ended—a foregone conclusion, in her opinion—then, Tony promised, he would give up his interest in the business and not ask for a dime in alimony.
    Carrie wasn’t a fool. Cynical to the bone, she wasn’t about to accept the word of a man she considered a habitual liar and a thief. There was a hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars missing from one of their business accounts. She couldn’t prove that Tony had helped himself to the money, but she knew he had taken it, most likely to buy expensive trinkets for his mistress. The bastard. And so, to ensure he couldn’t change his mind and come after her for alimony, she had made him put his promise in writing, then had called in her assistant to witness her husband signing the document. The paper was now safely locked away in her safe-deposit box at First Commerce Bank.
    How had they come to this? she wondered. Tony used to be a loving and thoughtful man.
    Carrie remembered the night she’d awakened in excruciating pain. She was sure her agony was due to food poisoning—they had eaten dinner at a new Thai restaurant all of her friends had been raving about. She refused to go to the hospital, and Tony was beside himself with worry. He finally picked her up, carried her to the car, and drove her to the hospital. He saved her life that night. After treatment in the emergency room, she was admitted, and Tony sat in a chair the rest of the night watching over her. He charmed the hospital staff into putting up with her complaints and demands, and filled the room with gerbera daisies, her favorite flowers.
    Tony was so charismatic then. He still was, damn it, which was probably why all the young wanna-be starlets flocked around him. Was the temptation too much to resist? After all, she was getting older, and the years were beginning to show. Was that the reason he’d decided to be unfaithful?
    Surreptitiously checking her watch again, she suppressed a heartfelt sigh. In just five minutes the last session would be over and she wouldn’t have to pretend to be nice to Dr. Prick. Then, like it or not, she was going away for a little rejuvenation of her own. Her Prada workout clothes were stuffed into her Gucci bags, along with her state-of-the-art laptop computer, three battery packs, and two cell phones with chargers. The luggage waited in the trunk of the limo that would take her from Dr. Prick’s office to the airport.
    The forced vacation was the first time she would be away from her company, Star Catcher, in over eight years, and she was filled with trepidation. She had a good staff, and she knew they could handle any problems that came up while she was away, but she was admittedly a control freak and couldn’t stand the idea of letting anyone else make decisions, if only for fourteen days. According to Avery, Carrie was a Type A personality. She