Heiress Behind the Headlines by Caitlin Crews Page B

all that, there was nothing at all shabby about the Endicott house. It was simply, quietly comfortable, on every level. The wealth of the Endicott family was evident everywhere, yet never overt. It was in the way the furniture was so well-maintained, despite the salt in the air and the fact that a summer house could not possibly see as much use as a primary residence. It was clear in the well-appointed ease of the sitting room Jack led her into, the quiet excellence that seemed to perfume the air.
    It was as if people really lived here, she thought, maybe even a real family—and then she told herself she was being fanciful. A house was a house, and Jack was no different from anyone else in their empty little plastic-fishbowl world. There was no reason she ought to feel flushed withsome kind of deep, pointless yearning for things that could not exist. Not for people like them.
    She told herself it was only the fire, cheerful and bright, that warmed the room and took the edge off the night’s chill. She felt unsteady—awkward—so she moved to the sofa and lowered herself onto it, assuming as languid a pose as she could without sliding off. Yet another one of her many skills. She should thank him for allowing her to showcase them all.
    “Drink?” Jack was already moving toward the bar in the corner.
    “By all means, anesthetize yourself,” she said coolly. “I prefer a clear head while making huge mistakes.”
    Jack laughed, and ice cubes rattled against crystal. “Since when?”
    She could only take that hit, which she’d walked right in to, and pretend it didn’t sting.
    “It’s a recent affectation,” she replied after a moment. “Didn’t you rush to remind me that I just spent time in rehab?”
    He threw her a dark, shrewd look. “Are you suggesting you took any of that seriously?” he asked, his voice too even. “You?”
    Because that would be impossible,
she thought bitterly. Larissa Whitney could never change. She would never want it, she could never do it even if she did want it, and—more to the point—no one would let her try. Why did she keep telling herself otherwise?
    “I don’t see why you’d bother,” he continued far too easily, though when he turned, a tumbler of amber liquid in his hand, there was that dangerous light in his cool brown eyes.
    “Maybe I’m following in your footsteps,” she said, forcing herself not to look away. Forcing herself to raise herbrows in challenge. “Maybe I’m refashioning myself, rehabilitating my tarnished image and starting all over. Brand-new. Just like you.”
    “I don’t see why,” he said, with an insulting flash of irritation in his gaze, as if he could not possibly imagine that anything she’d just said could have the slightest shred of truth in it. She was too far gone. Too lost.
    She thought the same thing often enough, but Larissa found that when
he
concurred, she didn’t like it. Not at all. It made something itchy and hard move through her, kicking the despair out of the way.
    “Yes, well,” she murmured, hating him—for a searing moment, even more than she hated herself. “There’s a great deal you don’t see, isn’t there?”
    He looked at her for a long moment. The tension between them pulled tight, crushing the air out of the room, out of her lungs. He didn’t cross to her—but then, he didn’t have to. He only kept that cool, too-astute gaze on her, and Larissa had to fight to keep all her rolling, storming emotions inside, locked away.
    “I think I see all too clearly,” he said. “You need a new, appropriate fiancé and you think you can manipulate me into doing your bidding. Why not? You’re good at it, and we both know you’ve done it before.”
    There was no hint of heat now. There was only that cool assessment, that shattering calm. This, Larissa realized in a kind of panic, was the man he had become in the past five years. Perhaps the man he had always been. And he was not in the least bit blind.
    “Did I