selfish of me to feel this way when your pain is so bad. But what am I going to do without you?’ She held the other woman's hand up to her cheek, her tears falling unchecked now.
Jocelyn gave a sad smile, smoothing the damp cheek with her fingertips. ‘You'll survive,’ she assured her gently. ‘And I've made provision for you in my will——’
‘No!’ Brooke raised stricken eyes, huge limpid blue eyes that reflected the fear in her heart. ‘I don't want anything, don't need anything, you know that. And it will just make Rafe—the family—dislike me more.’
‘I'm not doing this just for you.’ The older woman held her gaze. ‘This has always involved more than just you and me, that's why I allowed things to go as far as they did.’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘Rafe is a hard, unforgiving man, there was no other way. But I haven't left you any money, Brooke, we both know there's little need for that,’ she added wryly. ‘And as you say, the family already dislikes you enough.’
Brooke frowned her puzzlement. ‘If not money then what …?’
‘You'll soon see.’ Jocelyn gave a tight smile. ‘And don't think I didn't give it all a great deal of thought before I did it, because I did.’
‘I would feel easier in my mind if I knew what “it” is,’ Brooke sighed.
‘You'll know all in good time,’ she was assured. ‘My lawyer will contact you at the appropriate time.’
‘When you're dead,’ Brooke said flatly.
‘Now, now, dear, we all have to go some time,’ Jocelyn smiled. ‘I've had a good life, a happy one. And now I want to try and give you a little happiness too——’
‘Your dying couldn't do that!’ Brooke choked.
‘None of us wish for my aunt's death, Miss Adamson,’ rasped a deeply harsh voice. ‘I'm sure none of us wish to even consider it.’
The sound of that voice brought Brooke to her feet, her face averted as she wiped away all trace of her recent tears, not needing to look at the man who had just entered the room to know who he was: Rafe Charlwood, head of the Charlwood family. Thirty-nine years old, dark hair liberally sprinkled with grey at his temples, a harsh face seeming as if carved from granite; the eyes a light steady grey, his nose long and straight, flanked by high cheekbones and lean cheeks, a firm uncompromising mouth, his chin square and strong, his jaw determined. His body was lean, his height immense, and yet he possessed a certain elegance of movement, a feline grace in the wide shoulders, tapered waist, narrow hips, and long legs. Brooke knew all that about the man without even looking at him, hating to look at him, remembering then all the pain he had caused her in the past. And such was this man's arrogance, his fiercely possessive vengeance, that he hadn't even known he had wronged her.
Jocelyn shot Brooke an understanding glance before concentrating on her nephew. ‘You may not want to discuss it, Rafe,’ she said softly, ‘but I can assure you it's going to happen. Now tell me what you're doing here?’ she demanded. ‘I thought you were going to Italy for the next few weeks.’
He shrugged, moving forward to kiss her dutifully on one powdered cheek, as sophisticated as usual in an elegant charcoal-grey three-piece suit and silver-grey shirt and tie, both of the latter looking like silk. ‘I concluded my business early,’ he dismissed, ‘so I thought I would pay you a visit.’ The steely gaze was once more turned on Brooke. ‘I had no idea Miss Adamson was going to be here.’
Brooke hadn't needed to be told that; she knew that if he had realised he would have arranged for his own visit not to have coincided with hers. It was his lack of effort to hide his disapproval of her that had influenced his young brother Patrick into feeling the same way, and his sister-in-law needed no encouragement in that direction; her reaction was hostile on sight.
‘Brooke comes to see me most afternoons.’ His aunt spoke conversationally, although she was well aware of the tension between her friend and her nephew, preferring to ignore it rather than argue against it, as she had once tried to do. She knew Rafe well enough to know that once he decided on something, in this case that he disliked and distrusted Brooke, then nothing would change his mind.
Brooke disliked and distrusted him too—worse than that, she feared him; knew of the cruelty inside him that governed his own actions and those closest to him, mainly Patrick and Rosemary Charlwood. Whatever Rafe said went, as far as all of the family were concerned. Even though Jocelyn stood up to him on occasion she still accepted that Rafe was the head of the family, that he ran the business with precision skill, adding to the family fortune every day that he headed the company.
Brooke had never been able to understand this family's blind acceptance of one man's will, and she avoided meeting Rafe Charlwood whenever possible. Unfortunately, as Jocelyn had already pointed out, neither of them had expected him here today. If they had Brooke would have suitably absented herself. As it was, she would now have to brazen this meeting out—and make her excuses to leave as soon as possible.
‘Indeed?’ Hard grey eyes studied her across the width of the bed as he answered his aunt.
She turned fully to face him, meeting his gaze steadily, unflinching as his mouth twisted in derision, perfectly able to guess at the antagonism she felt in his sensed mockery. Clear blue eyes warred with steely grey ones, and it was hard to say who would have been the first to look away if Jocelyn hadn't softly interrupted the silent battle, drawing her nephew's attention back to her.
‘How are the family?’ she asked lightly.
Rafe looked down at the elderly woman from his imposing height, his thick dark hair styled low over his ears and collar in a casually windswept look that was nevertheless expensively cut—like the rest of him. ‘Didn't Patrick and Rosemary visit you only this morning?’ he drawled.
Jocelyn flushed. ‘They don't happen to be the whole family,’ she said waspishly.
His mouth firmed. ‘If you want to know how Robert is then why not come right out and ask?’
Brooke's temper rose in indignation at the way he spoke to his aunt.
But she needn't have been concerned for Jocelyn. The other woman hadn't reached her sixty-fifth year, remained unmarried, without learning to stand up for herself against the Charlwood men, Rafe most of all, if she felt strongly about something. ‘I shouldn't need to ask, Rafe,’ she snapped. ‘He is the only great-nephew I have.’
‘And likely to remain so,’ the man at her side bit out.
Brooke's sharp gaze raked over the sudden tightness of his face as he talked about his son. Dear God, Robert was only three years old—how could he have evoked such a tight-lipped response from his own father? Was the man completely inhuman?
‘Well?’ Jocelyn demanded.
Rafe gave an arrogant inclination of his head, disapproval of being spoken to in this way emanating from each tautly held line of his body. ‘Robert is very well.’
‘Did you take him to Italy with you?’ his aunt probed.
‘He stayed at Charlwood with Nanny Perkins.’
‘As usual,’ his aunt said disapprovingly. ‘You really don't see enough of the boy, Rafe. He needs his father——’
‘I don't believe that's something that should be
