Raquel Byrnes Read Online Free PDF Page B

shoulders and back was evident. He glanced back once, his expression unreadable, and then he was gone.
    I felt a tug in my chest at this sudden turn of events. I had a job after all. A place to stay. Glancing back at the heavy door to Davenport’s room, I swallowed hard.
    Why then, did I feel so unsettled?
     
     
     
     

4
     
    Simon
     
    The small generator that powered his office hummed to life and Simon’s gaze went to the flickering lamp on his desk. Noble Island’s electrical grid struggled to keep up with the demands of the growing population and needed an upgrade. Simon rubbed his face, tired. He needed to meet with the island’s mayor to discuss plans soon. As one of the island’s founding families, the Hales held a permanent chair on the governing board.
    A series of bleeps signaled an incoming fax, and Simon turned in his office chair to face it. The information he’d requested took longer than anticipated. When Tuttle hired the nurse, Carl, Simon had done an extensive background check. Bringing someone to live in the home brought risks, and he was determined to keep those he loved safe.
    The file the employment agency sent over on Rosetta an hour ago held nothing more than her name and work history, which he was surprised to see, was almost non-existent save for some internships at the University of California in San Diego. Just out of college, she would count her job at Shadow Bay Hall as her first. He gathered the papers from the tray and flipped through the wider search he’d asked his lawyer to conduct this morning. Simon leaned back in his chair, feet on his desk, and read with growing interest.
    Rosetta Ryan did not have a work history because she’d not needed one. The only child of Wall Street mogul, Stratham Ryan, Rosetta’s major life events routinely made the society page of West Coast publications. Her engagement to an oil heir, Michael Whitman, even made the New York papers due to her fiancé’s ties to East Coast society. Rosetta had lived the privileged and pampered life others only dreamt of.
    But Simon discovered the reason for such an incredible change in her circumstances. When the FCC investigated her father and his company for false reports and manipulation of their hedge-fund stockholders, it seemed like the powerhouse Stratham would avoid prosecution.
    With the brunt of the fraud charges landing on a young accountant who worked with her father, federal prosecutors were dealt a devastating blow to their case against the business tycoon until his daughter, Rosetta, came forward to testify on behalf of the employee. She’d been her father’s personal assistant and her position made her the star witness for the prosecution. She exonerated the accountant and paved the way for her father’s indictment. Her testimony resulted in millions of dollars in losses for many important families.
    Her very public shunning and disownment by her family was followed by an even messier jilting. Rosetta was left at the altar in front of over four hundred guests of Michael’s family just weeks after her father was sentenced to prison. Her mother was not in attendance.
    Simon read the last line of the photocopied news article. The only quote Rosetta ever gave was to a reporter who’d caught up with her a few days after the jilting while she was walking on the beach outside her home. A photo of her showed a ‘For Sale’ sign in front of an impressive beach house. When asked how she would manage now that she had been so publicly disinherited and black-listed among the elite on both coasts, Rosetta’s reply stunned Simon.
    “ And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And if you’re wondering, that’s from the Bible: Matthew 7:25.”
    Sitting back on his chair, Simon wondered how the woman he’d just met, the one who’d panicked and crashed her car, could be the same person who took on all those who