Chapter 20

After months chasing and killing sex traffickers, Castle Wellington was a welcome change. Deirdre and I basically closed the doors to the master suite and spent an entire week alone. Our days and nights were spent doing nothing but loving each other and refusing to allow anyone, or anything to distract us. Deirdre seemed not to be as all in on our relationship as I was, which was my first clue that something was wrong.

“Terry...” Deirdre was nervous about whatever was coming. We were riding out among the crops on a Honda Pioneer, four-seat, ATV. The lands were large enough that it took most of the day to fully circumnavigate the property. Deirdre has been just a bit off sine I got home. There was something coming and it felt a lot like the days before Andrea sent me away from her family, in Texas.

“Terry, Darling ... I love you like anything ... I do. But while you were away I had way too much time to think and I am going to accept a marriage proposal from the oldest son of Lord Winterbourne. George is nearly my age and has two children by his late wife. He has wanted to be with me since his wife, Cammy, died six years ago.”

Deirdre looked at me with such devoted, confusion. Her eyes were sad, even as she shared her intent to get married. We had something special, but the one thing she needed right then was the same thing the vast majority of women need. It’s a husband and family. I knew I could never compete with that, and it was always in the back of my mind.

She sniffed back tears, and said, “Please say something, Darling. Please talk to me...”

She deserved this. It was my responsibility to let her off the hook and make her feel as comfortable in her decision as possible. We’d never live down the scandal if our relationship ere to become public, and she had lived with that pressure from that first night, right through the time Chasen discovered us in bed, and until that very moment when she finally built up the courage to tell me.

Rather than torment her, I gave her a sad smile, kissed her, and said, “Deirdre ... you mean the world to me, but I know you need a home and family of your own, and we both know that I can’t give you that. I love you with all my heart and want you to be happy even more than I want you to stay with me.

“When are you thinking of leaving?” I was almost afraid to hear the answer, but needed to know the whole story. If she is engaged to someone else, I needed to move out of the castle and stay away from the country home, in England until after the wedding. I could keep myself occupied in the townhome and show up at the wedding full of good cheer, and wishes for a long and happy life for the new couple.

“George wants to get married next month at the family estate on Virgin Gorda, in the Virgin Islands. His father winters there and they can gather their family around for a wedding in no time. It’s his second marriage, so he has no social obligation to plan a big blow out, and I don’t want one.

“It’ll be hard enough to leave home and become George’s wife. I don’t want to spend a million pounds on a wedding where everyone in attendance will remember George and Greta’s wedding and spend the night comparing the ceremonies and receptions.

“Please don’t hate me, Terry. I couldn’t live with it if you did.” Her face was a mixture of fear and tears.

There was no way I could let her go without comforting her, so I hugged her close and kissed the tears on her cheeks, told her I loved her and took her back to the house, where she had all her things packed and ready to be shipped out to George’s estate, outside of Richmond, Surrey.

Deirdre left within hours of breaking the news to me.

She planned to stay at Chasen’s country home until leaving for the islands which meant my plan to stay in the townhouse when I came back to the city was a good plan. It turned out that I didn’t have to worry about Deirdre feeling uncomfortable with me underfoot, because she left with George’s sister, for the islands three days later. Once she was packed up and moved out, I thought that I’d be free to use all three Wellington residences.

As odd as it sounds, I was not invited to the wedding. I understand that Deirdre and her new husband left immediately following the private service and very small reception, for an around the world cruise on the family yacht.

They were gone for almost a year.

It wasn’t more than about a month into their cruise that my lawyers appeared with a comprehensive series of offers from George’s solicitors to buy out virtually everything Deirdre and I held in England and Scotland. The prices offered were very fair and other than refusing to part with Wellington Castle, I was willing to agree to their entire plan.

Deirdre played her hole card when she instructed their lawyers to exclude Wellington castle from the deal and give her portion to me as an incentive to sell out. When my lawyer brought me their new offer, I accepted it immediately. My part in the deal cleared over four-hundred million pounds after taxes, expenses and debts.

When it was all said and done, everybody got what they wanted out of me. Deirdre got a royal husband and built in family. MI6 got me out of the British defense industry. Mossad got me out of their defense. And I got free of the pressure and obligations that tied me down and kept me from moving on with my life as Terry Wellington.

The truth was clear. They had all played me, and I let it happen.

The down and dirty truth was just a bit different - I was very happy with the outcome.

Shortly after Deirdre left for her wedding cruise, London society decided that I was to be the newest eligible Royal bachelor. Overnight my new private secretary, Rodney, was virtually buried in invitations to balls, parties, dinners, ceremonies, weddings and birthday galas. It seemed like every unmarried royal daughter was being pushed towards me at once.

Some of the unmarried ones were that way for a reason. I was shocked at how homely royal daughters can be. Between buck teeth, bad skin, yards of fat and questionable personal habits, Rodney eliminated well over half of the invitations without my input.

My chief of security found Rodney for me, because he had two very important qualifications: He knew what everybody in the royal world was doing, where they were vacationing, who they were sleeping with, and how their family fortunes were doing. Secondly, Rodney was so closed mouthed that my security people couldn’t pry information out of him, when they wanted to know what was coming up on my calendar. I had to provide all the information because Rodney considered privacy to be right up there with godliness.

When it came to accepting invitations, I rarely did more than ask Rodney to reply with my apologies. Royal parties held almost as much fascination for me as competitive Cheerio rolling.

My habit of loving women that took what they needed from me and then left was getting to me. I needed – craved – emotional stability and couldn’t find it. There were hundreds of eligible, single women of London society that would sell their hair for my hand in marriage, but what they wanted was my status, not my heart. Some of their parents were so opportunistic that they didn’t even bother to try and hide their desire to have their daughters marry into my fortune. The Bergendorf’s cured me of those types of women permanently.

The truth was that I missed what I had with Colleen. She completed me, and other than Jennifer, my love life lacked that. Clair came close, as did Tara, but Colleen and I had something that exceeded all the love in those other relationships. Beth Ann died, and then left me in another life. Jennifer died of an assassin’s bullet. Clair died of breast cancer. Angela died twice. Tara loved me to the very end, as did Jenny.

My big problem was the risk of moving back to the United States anytime soon. My money hired people who committed a truckload of crimes. Anytime they wanted the Department of Justice could conveniently forget that they provided support, intelligence and special resources to help my teams do the dirty work they had no stomach for do for themselves. I could quickly find myself in the super-max waiting a trial that wouldn’t be called for several years, if not a decade.