The Golden Chance by Jayne Ann Krentz Read Free Book Online

“Phila, wait.”
    She was fumbling in her shoulder bag for her keys. “I don't feel like talking any more tonight, Mr. Lightfoot.”
    “I do.” He removed the keys from her hand, deliberately taking advantage of her distracted state. He was good at taking advantage. He shoved the key into the door and stood aside.
    “Are you always this obnoxious?” Phila asked as she stepped into the hall and turned on a light.
    “Yeah. So I've been told. Sit down and I'll fix us a tuna-fish sandwich.” He headed for the kitchen without waiting for permission.
    Phila trailed after him and sat down in one of the small kitchen chairs. She scowled. “You think this is amusing?”
    “No. I think I'm hungry and I think I've got a few more questions. That's all.” He opened a cupboard door and located a bowl. Tried another drawer and discovered a can opener. He was on a roll.
    Phila's eyes followed him without much enthusiasm, but her shoulders had already relaxed a bit from the hunch of tension and depression she'd been sitting with in the car. “What questions?”
    “Let's see. How about we start with how long did you know Crissie Masters?” he asked casually.
    The vibration she'd emanated earlier abruptly returned. He was not even touching her, but he could feel her immediate reaction. She was on the alert again; the exhaustion cleared from her eyes.
    “I met Crissie when I was thirteen.”
    “You know she raised hell when she descended on the families last year, don't you?” he said quietly, spooning mayonnaise out of a jar. He remembered the barely concealed despair in Eleanor's gracefully accented voice when she had phoned to tell him of the trauma the family was experiencing at the hands of Crissie Masters. No one had suffered as much as Eleanor Castleton during the time Crissie was on the scene.
    “I know she raised hell, but I'm sure they deserved it. She only wanted what she felt was rightfully hers. After all, she was Burke Castleton's daughter.”
    “A daughter he never knew he had.”
    “Hardly Crissie's fault. Did you know she spent years looking for him? She used to fantasize about him all the time when she was a teenager. I remember lying awake in bed at night listening to her make up elaborate tales of how he must be searching for her and how he would find her someday. He lived in a mansion, she would say. And he was handsome and rich and dynamic.”
    “She wasn't far off,” Nick admitted.
    “I know.” Phila smiled wistfully. “Except for the part about his actively searching for her. He never bothered to look, did he? I still remember the day she phoned to tell me that she had finally traced her father and that he had turned out to be everything she had fantasized he would be. Wealthy, attractive and dynamic. And to top it all off, he welcomed her with open arms.”
    “He was the only one who did, from what I hear. What did you say when she told you the good news?”
    Phila's mouth tightened. “I pointed out that since he hadn't even been aware of her existence, he was probably an irresponsible bastard by nature. Any man who goes around fathering children and not being aware of it has a serious character flaw.”
    “I can hear the lecture now.”
    “Then I asked her how she could be certain he hadn't known about her or even suspected she existed. In which case he was even more of a bastard because it meant he'd deliberately ignored her all those years.”
    Nick took a deep breath, remembering an aesthetically lean, good-looking, charismatic man whose sensual appetites had apparently been inexhaustible. He had rarely been without a cigarette in his long-fingered hands. Burke Castleton had been larger than life, with a beguilingly wicked grin and the kind of eyes that made women catch their breath. The Castletons got the looks and the charm .
    “The bastard, as you call him, is dead, Phila.”
    “I know. Crissie was stunned when she got word of Burke's heart attack a few months ago.”
    “And was she