Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
She couldn’t ask me to take her to get it?
What happened to we three need to stick together?
I didn’t care what it looked like, after he was done speaking, I pulled out my phone and texted Lou, Where are you?
I then returned to Ian. “Where’s Portia?”
“I’m afraid your plans for visiting the ruins today have changed. Something’s gone wrong at Danny’s work. Considering I employed him for three years, or shall I say attempted to keep him employed, but this didn’t work, spectacularly, one can only assume he’s the cause of it. He’s been called in urgently, and Portia went with him, ostensibly for moral support. Which is a poorly hidden excuse for her not to be at Duncroft so you won’t be able to get to her and talk some sense into her about being involved with my brother.”
Well, one could say that was forthright.
“I see there’s no love lost,” I noted.
Though the brothers had given foreshadowing of that last night, still, with this current brutal honesty, I felt unhappy about pretty much everything he just said as well as the fact he said it.
My phone vibrated with a text, and I looked to it.
Lou.
I forgot my migraine tablets. I had a terrible headache last night. Fortunately, six tabs of ibuprofen and six of aspirin took the edge off. They said you were sleeping, so I didn’t want to bother you. I’m in town picking up a prescription…and some more ibuprofen and aspirin. Do you need anything while I’m here?
No, I replied. Then sent, Let me know when you’re headed back.
Okay, lovey, she returned.
I lifted my head to see Ian still standing where he’d been, but now he had his arms crossed over his wide chest. And as ever, his attention was focused on me.
“Well?” I demanded. “Your comments about your brother?”
“He’s lovable. He’s also a moron.”
“My sister is lovable too, but she can sometimes make this difficult. Perhaps they’re a match well made,” I suggested.
“I inherit the house. I inherit the land. I inherit the accounts that come with them. My father has absolutely nothing to his name. The earldom has vast funds he can avail himself of, but they’re monitored closely by trustees within the banks in which they’re held. He cannot give to himself or others in any way that impoverishes the earldom. He can pay staff. He can pay to keep the home and lands maintained or make upgrades. He and my mother can take first-class vacations around the world, and clothe themselves in head-to-toe logo, but they can’t spend outlandishly, and again, if they did something that endangered Duncroft’s trust, they’d be cut off.”
He took a breath in the midst of this, and I hated to admit it, but I was interested in what he was sharing.
He then kept speaking.
“In other words, Dad cannot land an inheritance on the second son. When Dad dies, it all comes to me. And then it’ll be me who can’t give money to Danny. Unless I feel like taking care of him as a matter of course should he wish to remain at Duncroft, and this would include me agreeing that he could do so, he needs to make his own way.”
I supposed this wasn’t a surprise. Bank trustees making sure the funds weren’t squandered might be how Duncroft and the Alcotts survived all these years.
Ian carried on, “As you could probably read from our exchanges last night, Danny doesn’t care much for me. He wants nothing from me, or my inheritance. Hence, he finds a woman worth one hundred billion dollars.”
I heard the hissed-in breath I took at that, and I imagined Ian did too.
Because that was viciously forthright.
“So he’s into her for her money,” I whispered.
Ian shrugged. “My guess, yes.”
“And you openly share this with me when we barely know each other, and it has nothing to do with some demented sibling rivalry?”
“Do you honestly think I consider Danny a rival?” he scoffed.
“I think you’re possibly the most arrogant man I’ve ever met,” I replied.
He smiled a wolfish smile. “Good. I’m doing it right.”
Ugh.
He was terrible.
It was damnably attractive.
He was still terrible.
“Perhaps I don’t want a tour.”
“Oh, you want a tour, Miss Ryan. They all want tours.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“Anyone, not us.”
I studied him.
He let me.
Then again, he was probably used to all kinds of attention, completely comfortable with it.
It was his due.
“How often have you been around Daniel and Portia?” I asked.
“Since I dated her first, and he met her through me, often.”
Holy crap!
“You dated her first?” I breathed in horror, shocked Portia hadn’t shared this with me.
That put an entirely different spin on “some friends set us up.”
“This isn’t the first time it’s happened. My brother can be very incestuous when it comes to availing himself of what used to be mine. It comes from his competitive streak. That streak runs in the family, fortunately skipping me.”