Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
“Nothing,” he confirmed.
I changed the subject. “Any fun plans for your birthday?”
“Mother has a party every year. My sense, this year, Chelsea’s being uninvited.”
I started laughing.
He was a gentleman, so he waited until I wrung all the enjoyment out of that before he asked, “How’d your talk go with Portia?”
“Not great.”
“I think one of our meetings in the Conservatory needs to include some history. You two couldn’t be less alike, and you’ve shown quite the efficiency with dealing with inanity and idiocy. And yet you haven’t marched to your car, roared away in a spray of gravel and called your solicitor to lock down her inheritance.”
“You have a flair for the dramatic, Lord Alcott,” I teased.
“You have patience and loyalty that seems unearned, Miss Ryan,” he parried.
I shrugged. “I try to do what Dad would do. He had a lot of patience with Portia. And it’s his money.” I took another sip to gather the courage, and then I asked, “Did you look into Portia too?”
“You know I have.”
“Is she working?”
“Working?”
“Employed.”
“No. She quit her job last month to be Daniel’s full-time girlfriend.”
I looked beyond him to the moonlight shining through the vast expanse of windows.
“Why?” he asked quietly.
I looked back to him. “I was wondering how she could be here this week. She’s held down a job for eight, nine months. It’s required for her to draw from her fund.”
“Well, shit.”
I tipped my snifter to him. “Now it’s well-said to you, my friend.” I sighed. “I was giving her thirty thousand pounds a month. When she hit her year anniversary at work, I was going to increase it to fifty. Now, it’ll return to two. And that won’t be at my decree. That’s Dad’s.”
“Is there any hope she’s set aside any of those two hundred and forty thousand pounds to get her through a long, cold winter?”
“None whatsoever. The shoes she was wearing tonight cost twenty-five hundred pounds, and they were new. Everything she’s worn that I’ve seen in this house is new. Is Daniel in a position to buy her a diamond bracelet?”
“Not that I know.”
“So there’s another fifteen K, at least.”
Ian just watched me.
I just sighed again.
“This is a lot for your father to saddle you with,” he remarked, a low rumble of annoyance in his deep voice.
“Honey, I’ve been saddled, though I don’t like that word, with Portia since she was born. Her mother took off with a huge settlement and we’ve never seen her again. At least, not anywhere near Portia. On yachts with her most recent sugar daddy. Drinking in Corfu. Frolicking in Capri. Walking out of the Ritz. I can’t imagine. My mom hates my dad and isn’t afraid to say it, but she loves me. She also took in Portia and gave her love. But my mom isn’t her mom. I think if they’re pains in our asses, we can convince ourselves we’re happy they’re in Capri and not in our lives. But I doubt that’s the real way of it.”
“Unquestionably.”
I threw back the last of my Amaretto.
Then, feeling slightly woozy, which probably had to do with bad sleep and lots of wine at dinner, I said, “I want to go check on Lou and get some rest. I need to tackle Portia tomorrow, and to do that, I need to have all my pistons firing.”
He set his Cognac on the table and stood, coming around to offer a hand to help me up.
This time, I didn’t hesitate in taking it.
“First stop, my room for your sleeping pill,” he stated.
“Ian, your thoughtfulness is lovely, but those weren’t prescribed for me.”
“I have a pill cutter. We’ll halve it. Take half. If you need more, take the other half.”
“All right,” I agreed.
We held hands all the way up the stairs and down the hall to his room.
I hadn’t poked around too much on this, his wing. Just stuck my head in a few rooms, worried that I’d run into someone’s private quarters.
But I’d noted they were all like my current one. Much bigger. Sitting rooms. Huge closets. Massive bathrooms. Not rooms as such, but suites.
That was the family wing, created so they each had their own personal space to escape to, and a lot of it, or at least, somewhere in modern times, it had been fashioned into it.
Ian’s suite of rooms was handsome, masculine, and looked like a tornado went through it.
The double doors that framed his massive bed in the bedroom area—a tall bed made taller because, for God’s sake, it was on a dais, of all things—showed that space was tidy. As such. At least the bed was made.
The rest was an absolute mess.
“This is a disaster,” I said, taking in the papers, folders, portfolios, two laptops, graphs, printouts, an overflowing, if attractive attaché. This mess was on his toffee-colored button-backed leather couch. The end tables. The coffee table. Stacked on the floor by the big desk. Stacked on the big desk.