we are about to find out…’ he added softly as the door opened again to admit the solicitor, quickly followed by Cassandra’s family.
And find out they did! Cassandra’s numbness receded completely as the will was read, to be replaced by shock and disbelief. She couldn’t believe what Charles had done!
Her mother seemed as stunned, and had to be almost physically helped from the house by Joy as the two women left almost immediately after the reading of the will. Which left Cassandra, once the solicitor had left, alone again with Jonas Hunter. And she knew even less what to say to him now than she had before!
Although she needn’t have worried; he seemed more than capable of talking for the pair of them!
‘Well, that must have come as something of a shock to you,’ he drawled knowingly. ‘Me too,’ he murmured almost to himself, frowning, his attention suddenly returning to Cassandra with narrow-eyed assessment. ‘I’m sure you must have thought you would automatically inherit Charles’s share of Hunter and Kyle after his death?’
She had thought no such thing, as it happened, had believed Bethany would be his sole heir, those shares put in trust for her, under Cassandra’s guidance, until she was twenty-one. It was what she and Charles had always discussed. Why had he chosen to change his mind, especially without telling her? She hadn’t wanted any of Charles’s shares for herself; she already had the ten per cent left to her by her father only two months before Charles had died, a fact he had been very aware of.
But for Charles to have divided his thirty-five per cent of the company shares, ten per cent put in trust for Bethany, and the other twenty-five per cent to Jonas Hunter——! She still couldn’t take it in!
Charles hadn’t even spoken to Jonas for years, had made no further effort to contact his younger brother after the other man had refused their wedding invitation—well, he hadn’t exactly refused it; he had just ignored it completely! Charles had certainly given her no indication whatsoever that he intended, effectively, making Jonas the holder of the single most shares in Hunter and Kyle. Even though Cassandra had the voting right over Bethany’s ten per cent that still only gave her twenty per cent to Jonas’s twenty-five.
Her father and Charles had had an equal thirty-five per cent of the shares of the company they had formed together, putting the other thirty per cent on the open market, confident that either of them had the majority over the market, and together they had no fears of any take-over bids.
But the death of Cassandra’s father last New Year had divided his shares, giving Marguerite a fifteen per cent share, and Joy and Cassandra ten per cent each. Charles’s death had now divided those family shares up even more, and in a way that had been totally unexpected, Cassandra readily admitted. Although Charles had to have known what he was doing. At least, she hoped he had!
She shrugged dismissively, determined this man shouldn’t see just how shaken she was by Charles’s will. ‘They were Charles’s shares; he was free to do what he wanted with them.’
‘Because you already have what you wanted from your marriage to him?’ Jonas said accusingly.
Her eyes widened. ‘I married Charles because I loved him——’
‘Oh, come on, Cassandra.’ Jonas’s mouth twisted scornfully. ‘Charles was twenty-five years older than you——’
‘Twenty-three,’ she defended, bright spots of colour now highlighting her cheeks. ‘But that made no difference to how I felt about him——’
‘I’ll just bet it didn’t.’ He shook his head disgustedly. ‘He was Charles Hunter, your father’s business partner, could have been forty years older than you—and you would still have been willing to marry him!’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ she gasped at his insulting tone.
‘Don’t I?’ he said softly, his eyes narrowed. ‘But I know more about my famous sister-in-law than you perhaps realise,’ he told her dismissively. ‘Cassandra Kyle, the designer of exclusive clothes for the woman with plenty of money! And you owe it all to Charles,’ he scorned.
Charles had been responsible for helping her open her first boutique in London, she admitted that, knew that without his help she would probably have remained an unknown for a lot more years than she had. And considering the way her business was now, the state of the economy meaning that those women with plenty of money were a lot less well off than they used to be, perhaps it might have been better if she had remained unknown! But that seemed to be something Jonas Hunter didn’t know! She wondered for how long…
‘Poor Charles,’ Jonas drawled. ‘I could almost feel sorry for the poor besotted fool he must have become! Admittedly you’re beautiful enough, but I credited my self-centred brother with more sense than to go for that older-man-falling-for-younger-woman trick.’ He shook his head scathingly. ‘Hunter became the hunted,’ he added softly, the slow deliberation with which he delivered the words giving them the full insult he intended them to have.
Cassandra paled. ‘Get out,’ she told him shakily. ‘Get out of my home!’ She was trembling so badly that she felt as if she might collapse. And she refused to do that in front of this hateful man!
‘Oh, I’m going, Cassandra,’ he assured her drily. ‘In fact, I’m going back to the States for a while to sort things out over there. But I’ll be back,’ he told her softly. ‘I’ll be back…’ It was a threat as well as a promise!
And two months later he had been, taking over as head of Hunter and Kyle. And Cassandra hated seeing him there, hated him for the way he never lost an opportunity during the following months to torment her anew with those accusations…
Bethany still looked slightly confused even once Cassandra had explained the formality of Joy’s future wedding to her, the necessity for Joy to be ‘given away’ by a member of her family if possible, a close friend if not; Cassandra wasn’t sure which category Jonas came under! And Bethany was easily distracted from the subject altogether once Cassandra had mentioned something she did understand: bathtime!
As far as Bethany was concerned, the huge oval jacuzzi in her parents’ bathroom had been put there solely for her to romp around in, the bubbles created from the surging foam and the scented liquid Cassandra had been persuaded to put in soon up to her small pointed chin as she played games with their rainbow brightness.
As her young daughter played with squealing delight, Cassandra stood in the adjoining bedroom looking through her wardrobe for something to wear when she visited her mother that evening, because even though she wasn’t going to join them for dinner—she already had a dinner engagement—she wasn’t prepared to let Marguerite get away with this as easily as all that, and intended calling at her mother’s house on her way out. And if Jonas should arrive while she was talking to her mother he would no doubt look at her with his usual criticism—hence her frowning attention on what to wear. If she chose something that would flatter her slender darkness then Jonas would treat her scornfully, and if she chose something demure he would deride the effort as being a false one. She had never been able to win with Jonas. He had formed an opinion of her before they even met, because she had been the wife of the brother he despised, and to give him his due it had never wavered; he despised her as much as he had Charles. Cassandra had formed a similar opinion of him after their first meeting, which had also never wavered—how could it when he had treated her with such contempt on that occasion, and every one since?
Jonas’s only redeeming quality, as far as she was
