To her immense satisfaction, Grant turned crimson again.
“I knew damned well you weren’t a child then. Hell, no child would have—”
“What interlude in the elevator?”
Crista looked at Horace Blackburn, whose rabbity face wore a puzzled expression.
“I’ll tell you what interlude,” she snapped—and then she stopped. There was no way she could explain what had happened, not without Grant twisting the facts to make her seem the guilty party. “Never mind,” she said stiffly. “We just—Mr. Landon and I had a difference of opinion, that’s all.”
“We still have a difference of opinion,” Grant said coldly. “Miss Adams does not approve of me—and I most certainly do not approve of her.”
“Miss Adams, Mr. Landon—please.” Horace Blackburn rose from his chair. He was still smiling, but his face was shiny with sweat. “Please,” he repeated, “if we could just get down to business…?”
Grant’s expression was grim. “That’s an excellent suggestion, Blackburn, especially since it’s what I’ve been trying to do for days.”
“Good, good. In that case, let’s all sit down, shall we?”
Crista folded her arms over her breasts. Grant undid the button on his suit jacket and jammed his hands into his pockets. After a moment, Blackburn sighed and sank down into his chair.
“I’m sorry about the mix-up, Mr. Landon. Of course my secretary should have put you through to me in Italy. And she should have given you the Adams file.”
“What Adams file?” Crista demanded.
Grant smiled tightly. “The one that would have told me you weren’t twelve years old—among other things.”
Crista gave him a withering look. “What business is it of yours how old I am?”
What business indeed? Grant thought. He didn’t know if he wanted to put his fist through the wall or burst out laughing. Here he was, Crista Adams’s guardian. All this time, he’d been thinking braces and boarding schools when it should have been bras and beauty salons—although, he thought with a sudden tightening of his body, he doubted if the woman he’d held in his arms in that elevator had need for either.
Incredible, he thought. He was responsible for a woman—not a child—a beautiful, reckless woman with the face of a Madonna, the temperament of a wildcat, the morals of a—a Jezebel…
“Listen here,” Crista said. Her voice was cold and hard and it drew the attention of both men. “Either I get answers, or I’m walking out that door.” Her eyes flashed to Blackburn’s face. “You’ve got five seconds, friend, starting now.”
“My dear Miss Adams—”
“I am certainly not your ‘dear’ anything! And the countdown has already started. You’ve got three seconds left.”
“Miss Adams—”
Crista snatched her purse from the chair. “So long, everybody. I’m out of here.”
“All right!” Blackburn took a deep breath. “I can see that I am not going to be able to conduct this meeting as I’d planned. We are here to discuss the terms of your late uncle’s will. I had thought to read it in its entirety, but it would seem—”
“Get to the bottom line, please.” Grant shot back his cuff and looked at his watch. “I’ve a luncheon appointment, and I’ve no intention of missing it.”
“And I have to get to work,” Crista said tightly, “so if you—”
Grant laughed. Crista swiveled toward him, her eyes flashing.
“Does that amuse you, Mr. Landon? That some of us have to work for a living?”
“Not at all, Miss Adams. I was just wondering what sort of, ah, work it is that you do.”
“Honest work,” she snapped. “Something a man like you wouldn’t understand.”
Grant’s gaze drifted slowly over her. Her hair hung wildly about her face, her raincoat was still damp in patches, and the broken boot heel made her stance uneven.
Even so, she looked untamed and magnificent, and he remembered how it had felt to hold her in his arms…
His jaw tightened. Damn, he thought, and he turned to Horace Blackburn.
“She’s right, Blackburn. You’ve got five seconds. After that, you’ll be sitting in this office and talking to yourself.”
Blackburn took off his glasses, laid them on his desk, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Very well. Miss Adams, as I’d indicated, we are here to deal with the last will and testament of your late uncle Simon.” He paused. “As for Mr. Landon—he is here in lieu of his late father.”
“Wonderful.” Crista tapped her foot impatiently. “Why not go downstairs and invite some people off the street? I mean, if we’re going to have a party—”
“You should be aware that Mr. Landon is a more than appropriate substitute, Miss Adams. He is a man of excellent standing in the community—”
“Hah!”
“And a member of the bar.”
“So he’s already told me. Would you like me to applaud?”
“Miss Adams—”
“Look, why don’t I save us both a lot of time? I know why I’m here, Mr. Blackburn.” She took a breath, wondering why what she was about to say suddenly seemed to put a lump in her throat. “You—you want to tell me that my uncle didn’t leave me anything.”
Blackburn’s eyes rounded. “What? Oh, Miss Adams—”
“But that’s fine. I didn’t expect him to. I knew how he felt about me, and—and…”
Crista bit her lip. What was wrong with her? She hadn’t wanted anything from Simon, not while he was alive, certainly not after his death. So why had her voice taken on this faint tremor?
She’d been a fool to have convinced herself that there’d be any pleasure in a face-to-face confrontation. Coming here had been a mistake, and it was time to put it behind her.
“Look,” she said, “let’s get this over with, okay? Read me what you have to read me, or let me sign whatever I have to sign, and—”
“Miss Adams.” Blackburn’s face took on a look of great solemnity. “Miss Adams, it is my duty to inform you that you are the sole heir to Simon Adams’s estate.”
The words seemed to echo through the room. She was what? Crista thought, staring at Horace Blackburn.
“I’m what?” she whispered.
“It’s all yours,” Blackburn said with another phony smile. “The house. The stock and bond portfolios. The real-estate holdings. You’ve just become a very wealthy young woman.”
Crista groped behind her for the chair and then collapsed into it.
“But—but that’s impossible,” she murmured. “Uncle Simon didn’t love me. He didn’t even like me. He thought I was—that I was—”
“Indeed,” Blackburn said. He was still smiling, but his voice was tinged with disapproval. “Nonetheless, you are the last direct descendant of the Adams bloodline. Your uncle could not bring himself to give away to strangers what generations of Adamses had amassed.”
“Generous to the end,” Crista said with a choked little laugh. She took a deep breath and looked at Blackburn. “I still don’t believe it. There must be some mistake.”
“There’s no mistake, Miss Adams.” Blackburn licked his lips. “But there is a proviso.”
Grant’s sharp bark of laughter cut across the attorney’s words. Crista looked at him.
“Sorry,” he said, but she could tell he was not sorry at all. “Go on, Blackburn,” he said. “Tell her the rest.”
Blackburn cleared his throat. “It’s not at all an unusual proviso, Miss Adams. Many wills—especially when the inheritance is as large as this one—contain similar restrictions, and—”
Something cold seemed to twist inside Crista’s belly. Whatever was coming, she was not going to like it.
“What restrictions?”
Blackburn picked up his glasses and carefully put them back on. Then he looked at Crista.
“Grant Landon is to be your guardian.”
Somewhere inside the walls of Horace Blackburn’s private office, a
woman’s voice rose in a quick burst of shrill laughter. It took Crista a moment to realize the laughter had come from her own throat.
A joke, she thought, staring blankly at her uncle’s attorney, that’s what this is. A very bad joke.
“You have—you have a strange sense of humor, Mr. Blackburn. All this, just to see if you can get a rise out of me?”
“Miss Adams, I assure you—”
“Well, let me tell you something.” Crista’s chair flew backward as she shot to her feet. “I don’t think it’s funny!”
“Believe me,” Blackburn said stiffly, “I see no humor in this situation, either.”
“Then—then what…?”
“What I’ve told you is true, Miss Adams. Your uncle willed everything to you.”
“And—and the rest? The stuff about—about that man being my guardian…?” Crista swallowed dryly. “That can’t be right. Why would—I mean, how could—”
“Hell!” She turned as Grant came toward her, his eyes flat and cold, his mouth hard. He stopped in front of her, his powerful body blocking out everything else. “Let me lay it on the line for you, lady. Your uncle figured you’d get your hands on his money and blow it all. Isn’t that right, Blackburn?”