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Oliver sighed. His aunt had drawn plenty of interest alive and dead. “No. Only seventeen years,” he said with a smile.
Monica seemed stunned by the very idea. “I can’t imagine not leaving my apartment for that long.”
“Well,” Oliver pointed out, “she had a very nice apartment. She wasn’t exactly suffering there.”
“Will you inherit her place? I know you two were close and the article said she didn’t have any children.”
The possibility had been out there until this afternoon when everything changed. Aunt Alice had never married or had children of her own. A lot of people assumed that he and Harper would be the ones to inherit the bulk of her estate. Oliver didn’t need his aunt’s money or her apartment; it wasn’t really his style. But he resented a woman wiggling her way into the family and stealing it out from under them.
Especially a woman with wide eyes and irritatingly fascinating freckles that had haunted his thoughts for the last hour.
“I doubt it, but you never know. Hold my calls, will you, Monica?”
She nodded as he slipped into his office and shut the door. He was in no mood to talk to anyone. He’d cleared his calendar for the afternoon, figuring he would be in discussions with his family about Alice’s estate for some time. Instead, everyone had rushed out in a panic and he’d followed them.
It was best that he left when he did. The longer he found himself in the company of the alluring Miss Campbell, the more intrigued he became. It was ridiculous, really. She was the kind of woman he wouldn’t give a second glance to on the street. But seated across from him at that conference room table, looking at him like her fate was in his hands...he needed some breathing room before he did something stupid.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen before tossing it onto his desk. Harper had called him twice in the last half hour, but he’d turned the ringer off. His sister was likely on a mission to convince him to let the whole issue with the will drop. They’d have to agree to disagree where Lucy and her inheritance was concerned.
Oliver settled into his executive chair with a shake of his head and turned to look out the wall of windows to his view of the city. His office faced the west on one side and north on the other. In an hour or so, he’d have a great view of the sun setting over the Hudson. He rarely looked at it. His face was always buried in spreadsheets or he was doodling madly on the marker board. Something always needed his attention and he liked it that way. If he was busy, that meant the company was successful.
Free time...he didn’t have much of it, and when he did, he hardly knew what to do with it. He kept a garden, but that was just a stress reliever. He dated from time to time, usually at Harper’s prodding, but never anything very serious.
He couldn’t help but see shades of Candace in every woman that gave a coy smile and batted her thick lashes at him. He knew that wasn’t the right attitude to have—there were plenty of women with money of their own who were interested in him for more than just his fortune and prestige. He just wasn’t certain how to tell them apart.
One thing he did notice today was that Lucy Campbell neither smiled or batted her lashes at him. At first, her big brown eyes had looked him over with a touch of disgust wrinkling her pert, freckled nose. A woman had never grazed over him with her eyes the way she had. It was almost as though he smelled like something other than the expensive cologne he’d splashed on that morning.
He’d been amused by her reaction to him initially. At least until they started reading the will. Once he realized who she was and what she’d done, it wasn’t funny any longer.
Harper believed one hundred percent in Lucy’s innocence. They’d been friends since college. She probably knew Lucy better than anyone else and normally, he would take his sister’s opinion as gospel. But was she too close? Harper could be blinded to the truth by her friendship, just as their father had been blinded to the truth by his love for Candace. In both instances, hundreds of millions were at stake.
Even the most honest, honorable person could be tempted to get a tiny piece of that pie. Alice had been ninety-three. Perhaps Lucy looked at her with those big, sad eyes and told Alice a sob story about needing the money. Perhaps she’d charmed his aunt into thinking of her as the child she never had. Maybe Lucy only expected a couple million and her scheme worked out even better than she planned.
Either way, it didn’t matter how it came about. The bottom line was that Lucy had manipulated his aunt and he wasn’t going to sit by and let her profit from it. This was a half-billion-dollar estate—they weren’t quibbling over their grandmother’s Chippendale dresser or Wedgwood China. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—let this go without a fight. His aunt deserved that much.
With a sigh, he reached for his phone and dialed his attorney. Freckles be damned, Lucy Campbell and her charms would be no match for Oliver and his team of bloodthirsty lawyers.
Two
Lucy awoke the next morning with the same odd sense of pressure on her chest. It had been like that since the day she’d discovered Alice had died in her sleep and her world had turned upside down. Discovering she could potentially be a millionaire and Alice’s entire family hated her had done little to ease that pressure. It may actually be worse since they met with Phillip.
Someone would undoubtedly contest the will, which would put Alice’s estate in limbo until it was resolved. When she asked Phillip how long that would take, he said it could be weeks to months. The family’s attorneys would search for any way they could to nullify the latest will. That meant dragging their “dear aunt’s” reputation through the mud along with Lucy’s. Either Alice wasn’t in her right mind—and many would argue she never had been—or Lucy had manipulated her.
It made Lucy wonder if she could decline the inheritance. Was that an option? While the idea of all that money and stuff seemed nice, she didn’t want to be ripped to shreds to get it. She hadn’t manipulated Alice, and Alice hadn’t been crazy. She’d obviously just decided that her family either didn’t deserve or need the money. Since she never discussed it with anyone but Phillip and hadn’t been forthcoming about her reasoning even to him, they would never know.
Alice had been quirky that way. She never left her apartment, but she had plenty of stories from her youth about how she enjoyed going against the flow, especially where her family was involved. If it was possible for her to listen in on her will reading from heaven, Lucy was pretty sure she was cracking up. Alice would’ve found the look on Wanda’s face in particular to be priceless.
While the decision was being made, Lucy found herself at a loss. What, exactly, was she supposed to be doing with her time? Her client was dead, but she was still receiving her salary, room and board. After the funeral, Lucy had started putting together plans to pick up her life where she’d been forced to drop it. She had a year left in her art history program at Yale. Her scholarship hadn’t covered all four years and without it, there was no way she had been able to continue.
Working and living with Alice had allowed her to save almost all of her salary and she had a tidy little nest egg now that she could use to move back to Connecticut and finish school. Then, hopefully, she could use the connections she’d established the last few years in the art world to land a job at a prestigious museum.
Alice and Lucy had bonded over art. Honestly, Lucy’d had no experience as a home health nurse or caregiver of any kind, but that wasn’t really what Alice needed. She needed a companion, a helper around the apartment. She also needed someone who would go out into the world for her. Part of that had included attending gallery openings and art auctions in Alice’s place. Lucy had met quite a few people there and with Alice Drake’s reputation behind her, hopefully those connections would carry forward once she entered the art community herself.
Today, Lucy found herself sitting in the library staring at the computer screen and her readmission forms for Yale, but she couldn’t focus on them. Her gaze kept drifting around the apartment to all the things she’d never imagined would be hers. Certainly not the apartment itself, with its prewar moldings, handcrafted built-ins and polished, inlaid hardwood floors. Not the gallery of art pieces that looked like a wing of the Met or MoMA. It was all lovely, but nothing she would ever need to worry about personally.
Except now, she had to worry about it all, including the college forms. It was September. If this court hearing dragged through the fall, it would mess with her returning to school for the spring semester. Phillip had recommended she not move out, even if she didn’t want to keep the apartment. He was worried members of the family would squat in it and make it difficult for her to take ownership or sell it even if the judge ruled in her favor. That meant the pile of boxes in the corner she’d started to fill up would stay put for now and Yale in January might not happen.
All because Alice decided Lucy should be a millionaire and everyone else disagreed.
The sound of the doorbell echoed through the apartment, distracting Lucy from her worries. She saved her work and shut the laptop before heading out to the front door. Whoever was here must be on the visitor list or the doorman wouldn’t have let them up. She hoped it was Harper, but one glance out the peephole dashed those hopes.
It was Oliver Drake.
Lucy smoothed her hands over her hair and opened the door to greet her guest. He was wearing one of a hundred suits he likely owned, this one being navy instead of the black he’d worn to the lawyer’s office the day before. Navy looked better on him. It brought out the blue in his eyes and for some reason, highlighted the gold strands in his brown, wavy hair.
She tore her gaze away from her inspection and instead focused on his mildly sour expression. Not a pleasure visit, she could tell, so she decided to set the tone before he could. “Oliver, so glad to see you were able to find the place. Do come in.”
She took a step back and Oliver entered the apartment with his gaze never leaving hers. “I have been here before, you know. Dozens of times.”
“But so much has changed since the nineties. Please, feel free to take a look around and reacquaint yourself with the apartment.” Lucy closed the door and when she turned around, found that Oliver was still standing in the same spot, studying her.
“You know, I can’t tell if you’re always this cheeky or if you’re doing it because you’ve got something to hide. Are you nervous, Lucy?” His voice was low and even, seemingly unbothered by her cutting quips.
Lucy crossed her arms over her chest and took a step back from him, as though doing so would somehow shield her from the blue eyes that threatened to see too much. “I don’t have anything to be nervous about.”
He took two slow strides toward her, moving into her personal space and forcing her back until the doorknob pressed into her spine. He was over six foot, lurking over her and making Lucy feel extremely petite at her five-foot-four-inch height. He leaned down close, studying her face with such intensity she couldn’t breathe.
Oliver paused at her lips for a moment, sending confusing signals to Lucy’s brain. She didn’t think Harper’s arrogant older brother would kiss her, but stranger things had already happened this week. Instead, his gaze shifted to her eyes, pinning her against the door of the apartment without even touching her. By this point, Lucy’s heart was pounding so loudly in her ears, it was nearly deafening her during his silent appraisal.
“We’ll see about that,” he said at last.
When he finally took a step back, Lucy felt like she could breathe again. There was something intense about Oliver that made her uncomfortable, especially when he looked at her that way.
As though nothing had just happened between them, Oliver stuffed his hands into his pockets and started strolling casually through the gallery and into the great room. Lucy followed him with a frown lining her face. She didn’t understand what he wanted. Was this just some psychological game he was playing with her? Was he looking to see if she’d sold anything of Alice’s? How could he even tell after all these years?
“So, I stopped by today to let you know that my attorney filed a dispute over the will this morning. I’m sure Phillip explained to you that all of Aunt Alice’s assets would be frozen until the dispute is resolved.”
Lucy stopped in the entry to the great room, her arms still crossed over her chest. Harper was right when she said that her brother would likely be the one to start trouble for her. “He did.”
Oliver looked around at the art and expensive tapestries draping the windows before he turned and nodded at her. “Good, good. I wouldn’t want there to be any awkward misunderstandings if you tried to sell something from the apartment. I’m fairly certain you’ve never inherited anything before and wouldn’t know how it all worked.”
“Yes, it’s a shame. I was just itching to dump that gaudy Léger painting in the hallway. I always thought it clashed with the Cézanne beside it, but Alice would never listen to reason,” she replied sarcastically. Calling a Léger gaudy would get her kicked out of the Yale art history program.
Oliver narrowed his gaze at her. “Which painting is the Léger?”
Lucy shelved a smirk. He thought he was so smart and superior to her, but art was obviously something he didn’t know anything about. “It’s the colorful cubist piece with the bicycles. But that aside, I was just kidding. Even if I win in court—and I doubt I will—I wouldn’t sell any of Alice’s art.”
He glanced over her shoulder at the Léger and shrugged before moving to the collection of cream striped sofas. He sat down, manspreading across the loveseat in a cocky manner that she found both infuriating and oddly intriguing. He wore his confidence well, but he seemed too comfortable here, as though he were already planning on moving in to the place Lucy had called home for years.
“And why is that?” he asked. “I would think most people in your position would be itching to liquidate the millions in art she hoarded here.”
She sighed, not really in the mood to explain herself to him, but finding she apparently had nothing better to do today. “Because it meant too much to her. You may have been too busy building your computer empire to know this, but these pieces were her lover and her children. She carefully selected each piece in her collection, gathering the paintings and sculptures that spoke to her because she couldn’t go out to see them in the museums. She spent hours talking to me about them. If she saw it in her heart to leave them to me, selling them at any price would be a slap in the face.”
“What would you do with them, then?”
Lucy leaned against the column that separated the living room from the gallery space. “I suppose that I would loan most of them out to museums. The Guggenheim had been after Alice for months to borrow her Richter piece. She always turned them down because she couldn’t bear to look at the blank spot on the wall where it belonged.”
“So you’d loan all of them out?” His heavy brow raised for the first time in genuine curiosity.
Lucy shook her head. “No, not all of them. I would keep the Monet.”
“Which one is that?”
She swallowed her frustration and pointed through the doorway to the piece hanging in the library. “Irises in Monet’s Garden,” she said. “You did go to college, didn’t you? Didn’t you take any kind of liberal studies classes? Maybe visit a museum in your life?”
At that, Oliver laughed, a low, throaty rumble that unnerved her even as it made her extremely aware of her whole body. Once again, her pulse sped up and her mouth went so dry she couldn’t have managed another smart remark.
She’d never had a reaction to a man like that before. Certainly not in the last five years where she’d basically lived like her ninety-year-old client. Her body was in sore need of a man to remind her she was still in her twenties, but Oliver was not the one. She was happy to have distance between them and hoped to keep it that way.
* * *
“You’d be surprised,” Oliver said, pushing himself up from the couch. He felt like he was a piece on display with her standing there, watching him from the doorway. “I’ve been to several museums in my years, and not just on those painful school field trips. Mostly with Aunt Alice, actually, in the days when she still left her gilded prison. I never really cared much about the art, but you’re right, she really did love it. I liked listening to her talk about it.”
He turned away from Lucy and strolled over to the doorway to the library. There, hanging directly in front of the desk so it could be admired, was a blurry painting, about two and a half feet by three feet. He took a few steps back from it and squinted, finally being able to make out the shapes of flowers from a distance. He supposed to some people it was a masterpiece, but to him it was just a big mess on a canvas that was only important to a small group of rich people.
Even then, he did know who Monet was. And Van Gogh and Picasso. There was even a Jackson Pollock hanging in the lobby of his corporate offices, but that was his father’s purchase. Probably Aunt Alice’s suggestion. He didn’t recognize the others she’d mentioned, but he wasn’t entirely without culture. Aunt Alice had taken him to the museums more times than he could count. It was just more fun to let Lucy think he didn’t know what she was talking about.
When she blushed, the freckles seemed to fade away against the crimson marring her pale skin. And the more irritated she got, the edges of her ears and her chest would flush pink as well.
With her arms crossed so defensively over her chest, it drew her rosy cleavage to his attention. In that area, she had the cute barista beat. Lucy wasn’t a particularly curvy woman—she was on the slim side. Almost boyish through the hips. But the way she was standing put the assets she did have on full display with her clingy V-neck sweater.
“Irises are my mother’s favorite flower,” Lucy said as she followed him into the library, oblivious to the direction of his thoughts.
Or perhaps not. She kept a few feet away from him, which made him smile. She was so easy to fluster. It made him want to seek out other ways to throw her off guard. He wondered how she would react when she was at the mercy of his hands and mouth on her body.
“I’ve always appreciated this piece for its sentimental value.”
When Oliver turned to look at her, he found Lucy was completely immersed in her admiration of the painting. He almost felt guilty for thinking about ravishing her while she spoke about her mother. Almost.
It wasn’t like he would act on the compulsion, anyway. His lawyer would have a fit if he immediately seduced the woman he’d decided to sue the day before. He did want to get to know her better, though. Not because he was curious about her, but because he wanted to uncover her secrets. He knew what Harper and Aunt Alice had thought of her, but he was after the truth.
This sweet-looking woman with the blushing cheeks and deep appreciation of art was a scam artist and he was going to expose her, just like he should’ve exposed Candace before his father was left in ruins with a toddler. He was too late to protect Aunt Alice, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t put things right.
Turning to look at Lucy, he realized she was no longer admiring the painting, but looking at him with a curious expression on her face. “What?” he asked.
“I asked what you thought of it.”
He turned back to the painting and shrugged. “It’s a little sloppy. How much is it worth?”
“Your aunt bought it many years ago at a lower price, but if it went to auction today...probably as much as this apartment.”
That caught his attention. Oliver turned back to the wall, looking for a reason why this little painting would be worth so much. “That’s ridiculous.” And he meant it. “No wonder my cousin Wanda was so upset about you getting all of Aunt Alice’s personal belongings as well as the cash. She’s got a fortune’s worth of art in here.”
Lucy didn’t bother arguing with him. “It was her passion. And it was mine. That’s why we got along so well. Perhaps why she decided to leave it to me. I would appreciate it instead of liquidating it all for the cash.”
Oliver twisted his lips in thought. It sounded good, but it was one thing to leave a friend with common interests a token. A half-a-billion-dollar estate was something completely different. “Do you really think that’s all it was?”
She turned to him with a frown. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, do you honestly expect everyone to believe that she just up and changed her will to leave her employee everything instead of her family, and you had nothing to do with it? You just had common interests?”
Lucy’s dark eyes narrowed at him, and her expression hardened. “Yes, that’s what I expect everyone to believe because that is what happened. I’m not sure why you’re such a cynical person, but not everyone in the world is out there to manipulate someone else. I’m certainly not.”
This time, Lucy’s sharp barb hit close to home. Perhaps he was pessimistic and became that way because life had taught him to be, but that didn’t mean he was wrong about her. “I’m not cynical, Lucy, I simply have my eyes open. I’m not blinded by whatever charms you’ve worked on my sister and my aunt. I see a woman with nothing walking away from this situation with half a billion dollars. You had to have done something. She didn’t leave the housekeeper anything. You’re telling me you’re just that special?”
The hard expression on Lucy’s face started to crumble at his harsh words, making him feel a pang of guilt for half a second. Of course, she could just be trying to manipulate him like she did everyone else.
“Not at all,” she said with a sad shake of her head. “I don’t think I’m special. I’m as ordinary as people come. I wish Alice had explained to me and everyone else why she was doing what she did, but she left that as a mystery for us all. There’s nothing I can do about it. You can take me to court and try to overturn her last wishes. Maybe you will be successful. I can’t control that. But know that no matter what the judge decides, I had nothing to do with it. Just because you don’t believe it, doesn’t make it any less true.”
Boy, she was good. The more she talked, the more he wanted to believe her. There was a sincerity in her large doe eyes and unassuming presence. It was no wonder everyone seemed to fall prey to her charms. He’d thought at first she wasn’t as skilled and cunning as Candace, but he was wrong. She’d simply chosen to target an older, vulnerable woman instead of a lonely, vulnerable man. A smarter choice, if you asked his opinion. She didn’t have to pretend to be in love with a man twice her age.
“You’re very good.” He spoke his thoughts aloud and took a step closer to her. “When I first saw you at Phillip’s office with your big eyes and your innocent and indignant expression, I thought perhaps you were an amateur that I could easily trip up, but now I see I’m going up against a professional con artist.” He took another step, leaving only inches between them. “But that doesn’t mean you’re going to win.”
Lucy didn’t pull back this time; she held her ground. “The mistake you’re making is thinking that I care, Oliver.”
“You’re honestly going to stand there and tell me that you don’t care whether you get the apartment, the Monet and everything else?”
“I am,” she said with a defiant lift of her chin. Her dark eyes focused on him, drawing him into their brown depths. “See, the difference between you and me is that I’ve never had anything worth losing. If I walk out this door with nothing more than I came in with, my life goes on as usual. And that’s what I expect to happen. To be honest, I can’t even imagine having that kind of money. This whole thing seems like a dream I’m going to wake up from and I’ll go back to being Lucy, the broke friend that can never afford the girls trips and expensive clothes her friends wear. Things like this don’t happen to people like me, and the people in the world with all the money and power—people like you—are happy to keep it that way.”