The Long Hot Summer (Billionaire Season Book 1) by Kimball Lee Read Free Book Online

Warfield the third hugged Allie as tightly as if she were his long lost beloved sweetheart. “It’s been thirty years since I set eyes on my dear Liza but I would have known you at a glance. You have her beautiful face and magnificent grey-green eyes and your hair is your crowning glory. It’s exactly the same lovely blonde as your mother’s, a color only nature could bestow. How proud she must have been of your beauty and your academic achievements, my dear.”
    “Thank you Mr. Warfield, you’re just as handsome as my mother said. She s wore that you looked like a Danish prince and she was right. Your son has your handsome features but not your blue eyes and blonde hair.”
    “You’re exac tly right, my sons have the dark eyes and black hair of my wife’s Portuguese ancestors. And yet, like my forebears they are Vikings through and through, both of them fearless and with a great love of ships and the sea. Not to deny the Portuguese sailors their own sea-fairing victories, they proved to be courageous and valiant explorers and of course they were true pioneers as navigators across great expanses of uncharted ocean.”
    “I’ll bet Allie could use a glass of iced tea, Father. I think I’ll leave you to show her the grounds and I’ll go up and check on… I’ll see how the air-conditioning installation is progressing.”
    “This house faces the bayou, William, there’s a constant breeze. No need for air-conditioning and these ‘installation specialists’ as they refer to themselves are swarming throughout the house and grounds. You’re aware of how I detest having strangers snooping about and yet here they are at your insistence. I suppose I understand that you believe it’s for your brother’s comfort while he’s staying here. But he’ll be on his way to Lausanne shortly so you needn’t have gone to all the fuss and bother.”
    “Your brother is here? I’d love to meet him,” Allie gave William a quizzical look, as if she was surprised that he had kept that fact from her.
    “My brother is unwell, Alaina, perhaps you’ll meet him another time,” William said and he watched her sip from the glass of iced tea a maid offered her and then his father took her free hand and led her outside for a tour of the grounds.
    The maid handed William a glass of iced tea as well and he asked which bedroom his brother was in.
    “ Upstairs, blue bedroom lookin’ out toward the bayou,” she said tilting her head toward the massive double staircase. “Your daddy tried to put him in your mama’s old room but Walden wasn’t going for that even though the doctor had him all doped up. Nope, that boy don’t want nothin’ to do with Miss Stella’s room. I still cry myself to sleep most nights thinkin’ ‘bout him bein’ there when your mama passed away.”
    “Let’s not dredge that up, alright , Mae? Thank you for the tea,” William said with a sigh of resignation as he climbed the stairs to find his brother.
    *
    Walden was not in the blue guestroom although the bed was unmade and a glass of water and prescription bottles sat nearby. A set of French doors to the upper veranda were open and William only hoped his brother wasn’t lounging around naked in case Allie passed underneath. Thankfully he wasn’t, he wore tattered blue jeans that hung low on his hips and he was leaning over the railing smoking a cigarette. He was tall and broad-shouldered and well-muscled just like William. They were naturally athletic and had been football stars in high school. William played polo on the Crescent City Polo team and both brothers worked out religiously. William was committed to an intense military type regimen to push the limits of his body and because it was part of a routine he did not like to break. Walden’s sole interest in exercise was to maintain stamina for his rigorous and often over-the-top sexcapades.
    “Is this what the doctor ordered?” William asked , snatching the cigarette from his brother’s lips