The Heiress Wakes to a Second Chance novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Stairs

Dane caught up with Sylvia on the landing where the grand staircase turned.

She had stopped there to put on her coat.

She did it slowly, one sleeve and then the other, with the ballroom roaring behind her and the rain streaking the tall windows.

When she saw him she did not hurry.

"Mr. Fairweather," she said pleasantly. "I wouldn't touch me. There's a pending charge against you, and three hundred telephones."

Dane stopped three steps below her and set his feet.

He had put hundreds of dangerous men against walls in his life.

He had never wanted anything as much as he wanted to take her by the pearls.

He kept his hands at his sides.

"I'm not going to touch you," he said. "I'm going to stand here."

"That's very dull."

"It's all I need."

Sylvia buttoned her coat.

"Your mother is in the nursing home in Worcester, third floor, room nine," she said, in the same warm voice. "The director is an old friend of the foundation. Imagine how awful it would be if her bed were needed."

For a second the floor seemed to tilt.

Dane let it, and then he straightened.

"You made that offer once already," he said. "I tore it up in front of everyone. Go on and tell the whole staircase."

She smiled.

The smile was slow and small and entirely without fear.

"You're only a bodyguard," she said. "You were always only a bodyguard."

"Yes, ma'am."

"She'll tire of you."

"Probably."

"She's a Kellaway. She'll want a Kellaway's husband."

"Then she'll tell me so," Dane said. "Herself."

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