Harlequin Romance March 2021 Box Set Cara Colter (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📖

She took a step back. ‘Difference. Of. Opinion.’

She was careful to enunciate every word before slamming the door in his face. Because, apparently, she wasn’t above that kind of rudeness after all.

* * *

Callie didn’t clap eyes on Owen for the next two days.

‘Which is exactly how I like it,’ she muttered, kicking the apartment door shut behind her after returning from her daily visit to Mr Singh.

Dropping her coat to the floor, she unwound her scarf and dropped it to the floor too. It was freezing today. The weather in New York made no sense to her. Yesterday had been warm. Today was Arctic.

Ha! Hot and cold. Just like Owen.

Speaking of which…

‘I don’t care if I never see the jerk ever again.’

Which was a lie. A big fat lie. And pretending otherwise wasn’t helping her feel any better.

Her phone pinged as a text came in—her mum, asking if Callie wanted a video chat.

She and her mother had video-called at least once a week since she’d arrived in New York. They’d been careful to skirt around the subject of Frances and the inheritance. Callie had mentioned that she and Owen had taken a trip to Cooperstown, but she hadn’t mentioned Ellerslie. She’d chatted away instead about her impressions of New York, and filled her conversation with news of Barney and Mr Singh, the girls she’d been tutoring, Lissy…and Owen.

She’d not spoken with her mother since her visit with Richard.

She hesitated and then texted back.

Just logging on to my computer now.

‘Darling,’ her mother started the moment she flickered into view on the screen, ‘it’s so good to see you. I—What’s wrong?’

Callie’s jaw dropped. ‘How do you do that? I haven’t even spoken a single word yet. And I’m smiling!’

‘Your smile is strained, honey. Besides, the apartment is a mess when normally you’re so tidy. What really gives the game away is your coat, lying on the floor as if it’s just been dropped there. I know how long it took you to save up for that coat, and how much you love it. So something has to be wrong.’

Callie glanced behind her and with a muttered oath raced across to pick up both her coat and scarf. Shaking the creases out, she hung them on the coat rack before returning to the computer.

‘It’s nothing,’ she tried to say. ‘I’m just feeling out of sorts. The weather has turned frigid here and it’s making me homesick.’

From ten thousand miles away, she could quite literally see the blood drain from her mother’s face.

‘You’ve found out the truth, haven’t you?’

That Owen is a jerk, a pompous prat…just another controlling male who—

‘You know everything!’ Donna’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘About Frances…about why I left and…everything.’

‘Oh, that?’ Callie waved a dismissive hand through the air. ‘I’ve learned a lot about Frances in the past few weeks. But I visited Richard last weekend and he filled me in on the missing piece I’d been looking for. I mean…you did know I was looking, right? I know we never spoke about it, but you know me, and I figured…’

‘Oh, God, you do know.’ Her mother covered her face with her hands.

Callie bit her lip. ‘Mum, I’m really sorry about what Frances and Richard put you through. I’m outraged on your behalf, but I’m okay.’

Donna pulled her hands away, her gaze roving over her daughter’s face. ‘You are?’

‘I know it’s not a pretty story, but… Hell, there’s a part of me that feels Frances took one for the team. I, for one, am glad Richard wasn’t part of our lives. We dodged a bullet there.’

Donna’s mouth opened and closed. ‘Then if that’s not the problem,’ she said faintly, ‘what is?’

Callie folded her arms and glared. ‘Do you think I’m a vengeful bitch?’

Donna straightened and her eyes flashed. ‘Absolutely not! Who accused you of such a thing?’

‘Owen.’

‘Owen?’

‘Well, he said that revenge is my MO, which comes to the same thing.’

Donna’s lips twitched. ‘That’s not precisely true, honey.’

‘Semantics.’ She waved that away. ‘He claims I only want this TV job to revenge myself on Dominic.’

She’d told her mum about the job with Mystery Family Trees weeks ago.

‘Dominic is a pathetic excuse of a man who should be dipped in hot tar,’ her mother said.

‘And that I’m only refusing my inheritance to revenge myself on Frances.’

‘You’re refusing it?’

Donna’s voice had gone faint again and Callie blinked. ‘Of course I am. For the same reasons you are. I don’t want Frances’s blood money—’ She broke off to bite her lip. ‘The thing is, before I found out the full truth—that she stole your boyfriend and cut you off—I… I was starting to like her.’

She frowned again, remembering every word that Owen had flung at her. ‘Owen said it wasn’t blood money, but a gift of love…’ She tried to push his words away. ‘But he sees Frances through rose-coloured glasses, because when he was a boy Frances helped his mother get out of a domestic violence situation.’

‘Frances did what?’

Callie shrugged. ‘She’s helped all the tenants here—they range from recovering substance abusers and domestic violence survivors to illegal immigrants from war-torn countries.’

‘Frances has done all that?’

‘The tenants were worried when I first arrived that I might hike up the rents.’ Callie found she could smile again. ‘But they know better now and we’re all friends.’

‘Frances left you the apartment block?’

‘I know! It’s worth a cool sixteen million dollars. Can you believe that? The price of real estate here is mind-blowing. She left me this building, plus five million dollars she had in a trust for me, and she left everything else to you.’ She clapped her hands over her mouth the moment the words were out. ‘Sorry! That just slipped out. I know you aren’t interested in hearing anything about the inheritance.’

Donna stared at her. Callie held her breath, hoping she hadn’t upset her.

‘Frances helped all of those people?’ she finally said.

Callie nodded. ‘It appears she changed after discovering Richard’s true colours. For the last twenty years she