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

As soon as she put it on the market, he planned to buy it.

They got down to business.

‘Your letter informs me that I have inherited a small legacy from my grandmother, Mr Dunkley, which I’ll confess was unexpected.’

Owen only just managed to contain a snort.

‘But it’s terribly exciting. What can you tell me about Frances?’

‘She was born Frances Victoria Allbright and grew up in Maine. At the age of nineteen she married Thomas Nicholls, an up-and-coming stockbroker. Thomas tragically drowned over forty years ago, leaving Frances and your mother reasonably well off. Frances, however, never one to rest on her laurels, began playing the stock market. Thomas had apparently taught her everything he knew, and she did rather well for herself.’

As the lawyer spoke Callie moved closer and closer to the edge of her seat, her face glued to Mr Dunkley’s.

Avaricious. That was the word that stuck in Owen’s mind. It made him sick to the stomach. Frances had deserved so much better.

‘She remarried when she was forty-six, but it only lasted four years before ending in an acrimonious divorce.’

‘Who did she marry?’

‘Richard Bateman…’ Mr Dunkley paused, as if waiting for more questions, but when they didn’t come he continued. ‘A year or so after the divorce she moved from her apartment on the Upper East Side to Greenwich Village, which is where she lived for the last twenty years.’

Which was how Owen had met her. His mother had been Frances’s cleaning woman.

Callie leaned forward again. ‘Mr Dunkley, these are all interesting facts, but you say you’ve been my grandmother’s lawyer for over thirty years?’

Mr Dunkley removed his glasses. ‘What is it you want to know?’

‘I want to know what my grandmother was like. What sort of person was she? Did she have a quick temper? Was she fond of cats? Did she have any hobbies? Who were her friends?’

‘Your grandmother could be brusque to the point of rudeness, but underneath she had a kind heart,’ Owen found himself saying. ‘She was fond of neither cats nor small children. She could play a mean game of chess, and she continued to follow the stock market until the day she died. She didn’t have many friends—probably because she was insanely private—but those she did have she cherished. She was a philanthropist; she gave generously to a range of charities. And she spent every Christmas alone.’

Callie turned to him, eyes wide and lips parted, as if hungry for his every word. Things inside him tightened. Things he didn’t want to tighten. Or clench. Or burn. She looked the epitome of wholesome small-town goodness—the quintessential girl next door—with her shiny chestnut hair, her wide smile and glowing skin. She looked like the kind of woman who hid nothing—what you saw was what you got.

In other words: trouble.

Owen knew better than to accept anyone at face value. Fiona had taught him that lesson in the most ruthless way possible. He’d base his opinion of Callie on her actions, not what she looked like. And, based on her actions so far, she was only out for what she could get.

It took all his strength not to drop his head to his hands. Frances deserved so much better…

* * *

The longer Callie stared at the enigmatic and utterly perplexing Owen Perry, the more the breath jammed in her throat. Instinct told her he was the key to everything. This man had known her grandmother. If anyone could tell her everything she needed to know, it would be him.

Which was going to be interesting, because every instinct she had told her he didn’t like her. How odd… He didn’t even know her! Still, in her experience men didn’t need an excuse to act either illogically or belligerently, and there was no way on God’s green earth she was kow-towing to another privileged male, securely entrenched in his sense of entitlement, so help her God.

She’d find out everything she needed to without his help. She knew how to follow a trail of breadcrumbs to put the past back together. It was what she did. She was a trained historian, for heaven’s sake. She didn’t need Owen Perry.

‘Anything else?’ he asked.

While polite, she couldn’t help feeling his words were a taunt she didn’t understand.

‘I’m just envious, that’s all. Until recently, I didn’t know Frances existed.’

He’d known her grandmother. He sounded fond of her.

‘But you knew her—you liked her, I think. What was your relationship to Frances?’

‘She was my godmother.’

Godmother? Owen was Frances’s godson? Her heart, her spine and everything inside her softened. What she’d taken as aversion was grief.

‘Oh, Owen, I’m so sorry for your loss. You must miss her a great deal.’

He didn’t answer, just glanced away.

Mr Dunkley cleared his throat. ‘Let’s move on to the legacy, shall we?’

She immediately straightened and turned back to the lawyer, gripping her hands in her lap.

Please, please, please let Frances have left her a letter, explaining why she’d never contacted her. Please, please, please let her have left her a family tree she could finally start to trace.

‘Your grandmother was a wealthy woman…’

Automatically she nodded, waiting for the lawyer to present her with the yearned-for letter.

‘Your grandmother owned the apartment block she lived in, and she’s left that to you—along with a trust fund she started for you when you were born.’

Her pulse quickened. When she was born? Had she met her grandmother as a baby?

Both men stared at her expectantly as she shuffled to the very edge of her seat. ‘And…?’

The knuckles on Owen’s hands turned white. ‘You want more?’

‘Yes!’ Her heart hammered so hard she could barely breathe. ‘Didn’t she leave me a letter, explaining why she never contacted me? Why would she leave me anything when she never tried to pursue any kind of relationship with me? Why start a trust fund for me?’

None of it made any sense.

Owen leapt to his feet and started pacing. As if… She frowned. As if he were furious and needed