Rescued By Marriage. Dianne Drake

Чтение книги онлайн.

      CHAPTER ONE

      FOSTER ARMSTRONG slid the offer across the table to Della Riordan with an anxious smile. “It’s the best offer you’re going to get. In my opinion, for the money, it’s quite a bargain.”

      He was correct, it probably was. One medical practice, one medical office and one house on rolling acreage. Actually, it was much more than she thought she’d be able to manage, which was why she was still a bit hesitant about this deal. It seemed too good to be true, and she simply didn’t have the money to gamble if that’s how it turned out. This was their future after all—hers and Meghan’s. There was no room in it to make a drastic mistake.

      Except for her own little pittance of a nest egg she’d had tucked away when Anthony had died three months ago, Della had very little else to get herself going again. Anthony had seen to that quite handily, which had come as quite a shock. Barely one day after being widowed, Della had learned that her husband had left them virtually penniless with, quite literally, only the clothes on their backs and a handful of personal items. On top of that, he’d acquired more debt than Della had known about, debt she could still barely even comprehend, debt she was going to be forced to make good on. It wasn’t like she was dumb about these things—she’d always balanced the household books and even assisted with the clinic financial records. But Anthony had been deceitful about his spending. He’d been a successful surgeon and an amazing doctor overall. But he’d also been a liar and a cheat, and ev-everything he’d been to Della had merely been an illusion. Smoke and mirrors.

      For all their eight years of marriage, Anthony Riordan had been living well beyond his means and hiding every speck of it from his wife. That, and a high-style mistress or two along the way.

      “It’s a bargain,” she said tentatively. “And I’m definitely tempted by it.” And the good thing about Redcliffe Island was that it was a thousand miles away from Anthony’s family. But that was the bad thing, too, because they had Meghan in their custody now, and a thousand miles would be such a staggering distance from her daughter. Even thinking about it brought a sharp pang to Della’s heart. The loneliness seeped in so easily these days without Meghan, and she spent most of her time in the very depths of despair over what she’d lost because of Anthony—not the house, not the cars, not the furniture, not the boat. She’d lost Meghan, and for that she would never forgive him. “So let me get this straight. If I agree to the terms, the residents of the island will chip in and subsidize half of the cost? Just like that, they’re going to pay half the fee to buy the medical practice from their former doctor simply to get me there?”

      The balding, middle-aged, serious-looking man opposite her smiled. “That’s the offer they’ve made. They haven’t had a resident doctor in years, and they want one, so it looks like they’ll do whatever’s necessary to get one there, including subsidizing СКАЧАТЬ