Authors: Brenda Joyce

The Third Heiress (54 page)

BOOK: The Third Heiress

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Their gazes remained locked.

He moved first, smiling a little, then a bit more, and then he touched her cheek briefly. “I believe you’ve got another two months at Barrows’s flat before he comes back.”

“I do.” She knew where he was leading. In two months, she had plenty of time to find another apartment. “But I’m dead broke, remember?”

And Alex started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

Tears of mirth slid from his eyes. “The trust,” he said. “I hate to tell you, Jill, but you are now an heiress.”

Jill stared. And slowly, she did smile. “My God, and to think I never thought I’d see the day where I could pay my rent in advance.” It began to dawn on her what the financial freedom could mean. “Oh, God, I could even buy a flat.”

He laughed again, the sound warm, sliding his arm around her. “Damn right you can. But I think you should wait.” His eyes were intent. “To see what happens. With us.”

Us. She was liking the way he said it, the sound of it on his lips. “Okay. I won’t be rash.”

He lifted both brows in skepticism, then said, “Why don’t we start over with an old-fashioned dinner date? Say, tonight?”

She warmed, all over. “That sounds really good, Alex,” she said, meaning it.

He smiled at her, and gestured toward the car.

Jill and Alex walked around the side of the house, arm in arm, not speaking, not needing to, and not noticing as they passed the barely visible door of the root cellar in the ground by their feet.

And behind them, maybe, just maybe, amid the scrubby trees, back-lit by the sun and the sea, Kate stood, watching, and as the cumulus clouds shifted, opening, the sun grew stronger, brighter, bathing the rough cliffs in its light. Kate turned, fading, becoming weaker and weaker still as she walked slowly away, past the cliffs, past the sea, until nothing was left but an old ruined tower that had once been haunted.

ALSO BY BRENDA JOYCE

(available from St. Martin’s Press)

The Finer Things

Splendor

The Rival

THE THIRD
HEIRESS.
Copyright © 1999 by Brenda Joyce Dreams Unlimited, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Book design by Jessica Shatan

eISBN 9781429905916

First eBook Edition : January 2011

First Edition: September 1999