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Apart from the rental on her small flat, and a few decent clothes for public appearances, she needed very little. Unlike most of her colleagues, she rarely socialised, and wasn’t interested in expensive holidays or status symbol cars.
She’d pressed her point home. ‘I only decided to g
o for a modelling career to earn money fast, so that I could do this for you. For years I thought the big bucks wouldn’t come, but now they have I don’t expect you to go all mulish on me! I know how happy you were at Studley, and that even after Dad died you’d have gone back like a shot had it been possible. I can’t give you Studley back—I wish I could—but I can give you a country cottage. It will be up to you to put the roses round the door!’
As soon as she’d seen her mother’s mouth begin to quiver she regretted having mentioned Studley. Laura had been devoted to the place. Still was. All her happy memories were there.
So, Allie’s mind had been occupied with worrying about the way her mother seemed to be going downhill, with racking her brains for the right tack to take to persuade her to accept what Allie could offer her, right up until the moment when the solicitor had seen her seated and told her, ‘Your late uncle, Fabian Brannan left his entire estate to the nation. Apart from the property known as Studley Manor, and its contents, which goes to you.’
He glanced at her, pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. ‘There is, however, one condition.’ He raised one eyebrow and permitted himself an almost imperceptible shrug. ‘That you are married at the time of his death, or within one month of it.’
Allie stared into his bland brown eyes, stunned. Her stomach churned sickeningly. She wanted to scream.
Her initial reaction to the first part of his statement had been a huge upsurge of elation. Fabian, at the end, had made amends. Studley Manor, the lovely old house where she’d spent the first fifteen years of her life, the place where her mother yearned to be, where her most treasured memories were, was within her gift.
Laura would be happy there, after years of drudgery. She would have her memories of better times, would be at last content, finding peace working in the beautiful gardens she had created out of a virtual wilderness.
But the condition Fabian had imposed took it all away from her. He had known, because she had once told him in no uncertain terms, that she would never marry, never entrust her happiness and security to a mere man.
The condition he had made was nothing but an elderly man’s spite, the vicious sting in the tail.
Just for one moment she knew what real, gut-twisting hatred was. Then she made herself breathe, expelled the frozen air from her lungs, and told herself that Fabian wouldn’t get the last laugh because she wouldn’t let him. Brazenly, she lied.
‘I don’t see a problem there. My fiancé and I didn’t intend to marry until the end of the year. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t bring the date forward to comply with that condition.’
She gave him a cool, level look down the length of her neat nose, saw his eyes flick down to her ring-less fingers and calmly told another whopper. ‘I don’t wear my ring on a day-to-day basis; it’s far too valuable. I’d be afraid of losing it, or getting mugged.’ She got to her feet, smoothing non-existent creases from her skirt, collecting her bag. ‘We have a month, you say?’
‘Actually, rather less.’ He rose when she did, glancing down at the document on his desk. ‘Your uncle died a week ago, as you know. There are three weeks left—a day or two over if we take it as a calendar month. I did try to persuade him against making that condition, but to no avail.’
‘Fabian was a stubborn man,’ she agreed. And she left, the stupidity of what she’d done hitting her as soon as she reached the street.
That lie had been instinctive, she thought now. A need to hold onto the dream of giving Studley back to her mother.
She, too, had wonderful memories of the years when she and her parents had lived at Studley, but she should have walked out of that office the moment that condition had been mentioned, dismissing it for the evil taunt it was.
But her mother still wanted to go back, and it would be smooth, poetic justice if she could take the legacy he’d so briefly dangled under her nose, then snatched away with that hateful condition of his.
But how? How could she hope to turn that lie into the truth?
She went through to the kitchen and made herself a strong black coffee. She leant against the work surface, sipping it, frowning.
Many men had tried to date her in the past, but she hadn’t been interested—too wary of so-called commitment to fall into that trap. She wasn’t into casual sex, and she had no intention of getting into a serious relationship, so what was the point?
She wasn’t vain about the looks she’d inherited from her mother, simply regarding them as an asset—like a good head for business or a talent for interior design—and using them accordingly, working hard to give her mother back some of the happiness she had lost.
Surely she could use those looks to get herself a husband?
She put her mug down and began to pace the shoe-box-sized room her eyes half closed in concentration. There had to be a way. She could put on her glad rags and go out partying, pick out an unattached male and—
Allie stopped herself right there. She wasn’t a complete idiot, so why was she thinking like one?
No sane man would agree to marry in an almighty hurry—and in name only; that went without saying—just so she could claim her inheritance, then disappear as soon as the deeds were safely lodged with her, and file for divorce a couple of years later!
No sex, no strings. Nothing in it for him. No man would go for that. She had very little time and nothing to offer in the way of inducement, except— She stopped pacing, her eyes going wide as the answer hit her.
Except money!
She could buy herself a short-term husband!
