That was where Curt's loyal stand-in lived—Richard Gilbert. I pulled up the surveillance feed, and sure enough, Curt had barely walked out the door before he was on the phone with Richard.
“Some idiot scattered beans on the road and Lila took a fall. She's in the hospital. I need to be with her the next few days.”
“Richard, these next few days—day and night—you stand in for me and stay with Georgia.”
“And remember, she cannot find out.”
……
Sure enough, an hour later.
Richard walked in pretending he'd just come back from outside.
I lifted my gaze slowly, looked at the man in front of me wearing the exact same face as Curt Dudley.
And smiled.
“Honey, you're back so soon? Done with the client already?”
Richard froze for a beat, then recovered fast.
“Handed the client off to someone else.”
“Georgie, you can't sleep without me next to you. No matter how busy I am, I'm always coming home to you.”
That night, when Richard tried to give me the glass of orange juice, I took it from his hand.
And poured it straight into the flowerpot.
Richard's eyes widened. “Geor……Georgie, you……”
“Not drinking that tonight. You're taking me to a dinner party.”
I stepped forward and looped my arm through his. “Come on. Help me pick out a dress upstairs.”
A few minutes later, Richard held out an orange gown.
“This color suits you. You'd look like a princess in it.”
“Oh?”
I raised an eyebrow, smiling. “If my husband picked it, it must be beautiful.”
Then I started unbuttoning my blouse.
Richard shot to his feet, color flooding all the way to the back of his ears. “What are you doing?”
I blinked at him, innocent as anything. “Changing, obviously.”
“Honey, it's not like you haven't seen me undressed before. Why so shy?”
He was clenching every muscle trying to look calm, but the vein standing rigid on his neck told the whole story.
One more second and he was going to detonate where he stood.
That was when I finally let up and stopped teasing him.
After the dinner party, I'd just gotten out of the shower when my phone lit up with a photo and a text from an unknown number.
“Georgia, see this? Your husband's been with me the whole time. Three years of marriage and you can't even hold on to your man. Why not just admit you're pathetic?”
“Look at me. Six months pregnant. Curt says he's taking me abroad to have the baby, and after that, every last piece of the Dudley empire goes to my son.”
“So what if you're sitting pretty in the wife's seat? When it's all said and done, you'll still have nothing.”
Anonymous number or not.
I already knew exactly who sent it.
Three years of marriage to Curt, and Lila had never been content to stay a nameless mistress.
This kind of thing was hardly the first time.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the study where I'd planted a listening device,
Richard's voice came through, begging.
“Mr. Dudley, please, you have to come back. If you don't come back soon, things are going to……”
He didn't even finish before Curt cut him off, impatient.
“God, Richard, are you still this much of a coward?”
“It's not your first day. Three years and you're still not used to it?”
“Actually, I was just about to call you about this.”
“Lila's going abroad to have the baby. Between the delivery and recovery, she probably won't be back for a year……”
“So this next year, I'll need you to keep being me.”
“Same thing I always tell you—Georgia is my wife. You can look, but you don't touch. Hear me?”
Richard was still pressing, desperate. “Mr. Dudley……”
“Enough. If that's all, I'm hanging up.”
The line went dead, nothing but the flat pulse of a dial tone.
“Who was that?”
Richard flinched when I appeared, spinning around.
“It was nothing. I was just on a call with a client……”
What a pathetic excuse.
“Drop the act.”
I walked toward him with a smile. “He's taking that woman overseas to have the baby, isn't he?”
Richard's head snapped up, shock and disbelief raw across his face. “Georgia, what are you talking about?”
I smiled and got straight to the point.
“You wear his exact face. So why not replace him entirely?”
“Hmm? Richard Gilbert?”
