Fortune in the Stars by Kate Proctor Read Free Book Online Page B

grandparents' estate on their
death—mainly vineyards in France and Italy, but also the
gallery in London and the hotel and villa here… My remaining
grandfather's trusteeship ran out when I became eighteen, which he
didn't like in the least.' Dominic paused, his eyes flickering
mockingly towards hers. 'Though his referring to me as a playboy might
also have had something to do with the succession of his secretaries I
seduced— until he learned his lesson and chose them less
nubile.'
    'And I suppose your seduction of them had nothing to do
with upsetting your grandfather,' she observed tartly.
    'Nothing,' he murmured blandly. 'His wrath was merely an
added bonus.'
    'Why on earth did he leave you everything if he considered
you so dissolute?'
    'Because the terms of his own inheritance dictated it be
left to the nearest blood male—yours truly.'
    'But the hotel and the villa—if they were
already yours in the first place, why have you waited until now to
alter them?' she asked, puzzled.
    'I told you—he was my trustee. He couldn't
meddle in the vineyards, because of the terms of Grandpa Raphael's
will, so to compensate—he was a compulsive
meddler—he gave his appalling taste free rein in the hotel
and villa… God, the only thing that appealed to him about
the villa was its size!'
    Penny felt herself shiver inwardly as she saw the depths
of the loathing simmering beneath that urbane surface.
    'You see, I could remember both before he had left his
ugly stamp on them… Sometimes, as a child, I used to feel
physically sick to see how he had desecrated them. But the good
memories always brought me back here—yes, at eighteen I
could
have rectified it, but I had the threat of being barred from seeing
Lexy hanging over me.'
    'How on earth could he have done that?' gasped Penny.
    'He was always threatening it—on the grounds of
my lax moral behaviour, even at that age—but I knew him well
enough to know what I could get away with. He actually saw himself as a
connoisseur, his vanity in that area was such that I would have been
out on my ear even to question his taste. I could have done as I
pleased later, when Lexy was older, but I'd already made a pact with
myself to touch nothing until he was out of our lives for good.'
    'Dominic, I'm so sorry. I—'
    'Penny, why do you always feel obliged to apologise
whenever you get me talking about the past?' he exclaimed impatiently.
'After all, you're the one asking the questions.'
    'I know, but…well, it all seems so sad.'
    'Does it?' he enquired coldly, glancing around him and
signalling a waiter for the bill. 'It would have seemed a lot sadder
had Lexy and I been left penniless orphans… Shall we go?' he
added as the waiter arrived.
    Penny found herself mulling over his words as he paid the
bill, stunned by their dismissive bitterness.
    'You can't say money made your childhood any happier,' she
stated, as he opened the car door for her outside the restaurant.
    'No, but it gave us a comfortable cushion on which to be
miserable,' he answered, getting in and starting up the car. 'I'd have
thought that fairly self-evident, even to someone cushioned so
substantially by money that she doesn't have to work at anything more
than the occasional charity.'
    And that was just the first lie from which she was reaping
her rewards, thought Penny, stunned. She hurriedly cast all thought
from her mind of any potential result from the second.
    'The next time we're down in Palma I must show you the
cathedral. It was begun in the thirteenth century but not completed
until well into the sixteenth…though perhaps you're not
interested in that sort of thing.'
    'Why—because you've decided to cast me in the
role of the spoiled, rich ignoramus, incapable of appreciating life's
finer things?' she lashed out, uncertain against which of them she was
directing the bulk of her anger.
    'If I've misjudged you, perhaps you'd be interested in
seeing my etchings tonight?' he drawled.
    'Yes—I'd be most