Legacy by Jayne Ann Krentz Read Free Book Online

to make up his mind about something. Then he nodded. "All right. If it will make you feel more comfortable."
    "It will!"
    He smiled faintly. "Yes, I can see that it will. And I do want you to feel comfortable around me, Honor."
    "Do you?" she asked skeptically.
    "It's a priority of mine," he assured her calmly.
    Honor had to admit that by the conclusion of the meal, Conn had achieved at least a portion of his goal.
    Her sense of caution around him was still very much alive, but the compelling attraction he held for her was stronger than ever. There had been no argument over the matter of her giving him the money, so he obviously didn't intend to hold it over her head in any way. His main objective, apparently, had been to protect her from having to face Granger.
    Strangely enough his protectiveness left her feeling in some ways more deeply in his debt than she would have felt if she'd simply owed Conn five thousand dollars. It was an odd bit of irony, she reflected as she gave him the key to open her front door.
    "Would you like some brandy while I write out the check?" she offered politely as she stepped inside the apartment.

    "Thank you, I'd appreciate that," he murmured, prowling through her strikingly decorated living room.
    "Just tell me where it is. I'll get it."
    "In that red lacquered cabinet by the window."
    He nodded and paced across the white carpet. He was taking in every detail, Honor thought fleetingly as she went quickly down the hall to her bedroom to get her checkbook. How much could that man read from the design details of her living room? Probably far too much.
    It was as she stepped into her Japanese-inspired bedroom that Honor experienced her first sense of something being subtly wrong. For an instant she stood poised in the doorway, frowning as she looked into every corner of the room.
    A moment later she shook her head in self-annoyance. Everything was in order. The red-and-black gilt-trimmed drawers of her dressing table were closed, just as they should have been, and her bed was dramatically neat, with its embroidered quilt in place. The room was a visual interpretation of subtle, sophisticated serenity. The only jarring note was the television set, and it was discreetly concealed behind a folding screen.
    Honor nibbled on her lower lip for a few seconds, trying to shake off the feeling that there was a new element in the room. Then, half-disgusted with herself, she strode over to the closet and yanked open the shoji-screen doors. Inside, her brilliantly colored clothing hung in place above the array of equally bright shoes. Everything was as it should be.
    "You're turning into a nervous little old spinster, my girl," she told herself bitingly. Determinedly she bent over the dresser and scrawled out the five-thousand-dollar check. After signing it she straightened, aware that the eerie trickle of uneasiness was still thrumming in her veins.
    The only place in the room she hadn't checked was under the bed. Surely she wouldn't give in to the impulse, she chided herself.
    "Oh, nuts!" She went to her knees on the white carpet and peered beneath the bed. Conn's blandly interested voice from the doorway sent a jolt through her.
    "Well, I'll be damned. I've heard tales of single ladies who reach the point where they start looking under the bed before they go to sleep at night, but I didn't imagine you were one of them."
    "I was right earlier this evening when I decided your sense of humor was not among your limited selection of talents, Mr. Landry." Awkward with embarrassment, Honor got to her feet and turned to pick up the check that lay on the dressing table. Aware that her cheeks were stained with a strong shade of pink, she spent an extra moment studying the check so that she wouldn't have to meet his mocking gaze.
    But when Honor swung around with a flippant remark ready on her lips she suddenly found herself in Conn's arms. He had crossed the white carpet without making a sound, coming up behind her as