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folder, and Trinity got a bad feeling. She noticed he hadn’t asked why she was divorcing Harper. He didn’t care. Or maybe he already knew why. “What’s that?” she asked.
     
     
    “Background check.”
     
     
    Her mouth was suddenly dry and swallowing hurt. “When did you do that?”
     
     
    “I had it done when you came back from Tahoe.” He tapped the top page in the file. “I have the private investigator update me monthly on Harper’s activities.”
     
     
    “You were talking to your investigator, weren’t you?” That supposed conference call.
     
     
    He nodded.
     
     
    Trinity stared at him. Her heart beat faster, and the blood rushed in her ears, the sound like a million ants going to town on a picnic table. Her breath felt harsh, like the first time she’d smoked a cigarette when she was thirteen and knew she was never going to smoke another.
     
     
    She remembered a time with Faith when she’d claimed Daddy could do a background check on Harper if she decided to marry him. She’d never given her father the chance, and now she didn’t want to know what was in the report. She’d already seen enough.
     
     
    Her father didn’t let her say no. “He’s a liar and possibly an embezzler. ” His lip curled as he spoke. “That so-called business deal is a fabrication, and the last deal he was involved with, a quarter of a million dollars disappeared. They couldn’t prove how he stole it, but”—Daddy shrugged—“you’re well rid of him. I’m so glad you’ve seen the light.”
     
     
    Thank God he didn’t ask how she’d come to see the light on her own. What he’d revealed about Harper was humiliation enough. It was obvious she’d been married for her money.
     
     
    She toyed with a tiny prick in the leather arm of her chair. “Why didn’t you tell me this right after I married him?”
     
     
    “You wouldn’t have believed me.”
     
     
    “I might have.”
     
     
    “Then you’d have hated me for telling you. And I’d already lost Lance.”
     
     
    Lance. Her brother. Another reason Trinity hated to add to her father’s burdens right now. Lance had never forgiven Daddy for “selling out” to Castle. Daddy had never forgiven Lance for his lies. There was more to the story, a lot more, but Trinity and her father never talked about it. She’d learned the details from Faith. She hated the rift between them, hated not knowing how to fix it, but Lance had broken Daddy’s heart, and her father had gone so far as to forbid Trinity to speak her brother’s name in front of him. Now, it seemed, Daddy had feared she’d break his heart if he’d told her the truth about Harper.
     
     
    Still. “I had a right to know.”
     
     
    He stroked his double chin. He’d lost so much weight that the flesh hung loosely. “Maybe. Then again, just because he’d screwed up in the past, didn’t mean he’d make you a bad husband. I didn’t think it fair to judge the boy before giving him a chance.” He ran a fingernail along the edge of the blue manila.
     
     
    Trinity wondered why he hadn’t given Lance the same kind of second chance, though she didn’t dare ask the question. “But you kept on checking up on Harper.”
     
     
    “I wanted to make sure you were adequately protected.” Daddy shrugged tired shoulders. “Just in case.”
     
     
    “That’s why you put the condo in your name.”
     
     
    "Yes.”
     
     
    It wasn’t only Harper. Daddy didn’t trust her, either. She had to grant he was right. She’d demonstrated appallingly poor judgment. And she felt like a gullible fool. Harper had probably seen her as a ditzy blond heiress he could bamboozle, and he’d been right. She remembered the first day she’d met him at her salon. She’d been having her nails done, and he’d claimed he’d gotten the time of his appointment mixed up with hers.
     
     
    She should have known any man having his nails done in the middle of the day was suspect.
     
     
    Her father