LITMIR.BIZ

      The wide, winding driveway before the mansion that she had once called home was packed with various expensive automobiles. Hers looked like a poor relation. Poor, but energy conscious, she thought wryly.

      Recognizing the other vehicles, she realized that she was probably the last to arrive. Couldn’t be helped, Natalie thought.

      Couldn’t it? a small, inner voice mocked. You didn’t need to kiss him back. Didn’t need to stand there, talking to him, hanging on his every word the way you used to.

      Wow, now she was getting into an argument with herself. She was really losing it, Natalie thought.

      Might as well go in and get this over with, she told herself.

      When she rang the doorbell, Clive opened the door almost immediately. His expression appeared to be rigid until he saw it was her. And then he smiled, as if to say, “Ah, the normal one.”

      Natalie was about to ask the butler if he had stationed himself at the front door to get as far away from her family as possible when she was interrupted by a crash that sounded as if it was coming from the living room.

      She raised her eyes quizzically up to Clive’s face.

      “That would be Master Ricky,” he informed her, answering her unspoken question.

      She frowned. Her half brother was a whirling dervish in search of an accident. A walking example of Attention Deficit Disorder, he constantly left chaos in his wake. Her father was at a loss how to handle him and his mother, Rebecca Lynn, refused to, believing the boy was better off if he was allowed to “express” himself.

      This did not have the makings of a good outcome. “Dad called a family meeting, but I thought he meant adults only.”

      “Sadly, no,” Clive told her. “Miss Rebecca Lynn wants Master Ricky present. She said something about Miss Candace being an object lesson for him.”

      On how not to live your life, apparently, Natalie thought. She couldn’t help taking umbrage for Candace even though she felt that no one should attempt to emulate her late twin’s lifestyle. But then everything connected with her stepmother seemed to irritate her to no end. The woman was like a rash for which there was no cure.

      And her father seemed apparently blind to all of his wife’s shortcomings.

      Reluctant to walk into the lion’s den, Natalie stalled for a moment. “How’s the meeting coming along?” she asked the butler.

      A whimsical half smile fleetingly played along the older man’s lips. “No one has killed anyone yet.”

      “Always a good sign,” Natalie agreed.

      She unconsciously squared her shoulders, the way she always did when she was about to face Stepmother 2.0—which was the way she’d taken to referring to Rebecca Lynn. The thinly veiled animosity between the woman and the rest of the family had never really died down.

      Too bad her father’d had that midlife crisis of his. Instead of buying a new sports car—he already had more than ten housed within his cavernous garage—he’d shed his second wife and married a woman young enough to be his daughter.

      As far as she was concerned, Natalie had always preferred her father’s last wife. Anne Worth Rothchild not only had pedigree but she had class. She was a lady in every sense of the word. In contrast, Rebecca Lynn was a grasping gold digger in every sense of that word.

      Try as she might, she just couldn’t get herself to like Rebecca Lynn, or her spoiled brat of a half brother. The only male heir in the family, Ricky, even at this tender age, radiated an aura of entitlement. Something, Natalie had no doubt, that had been taught to him by his mother. As someone who preferred to earn her own way, she found it absolutely repugnant.

      Rebecca Lynn, Natalie was certain, was angling to be become the sole heir of the Rothchild fortune—once Harold Rothchild passed on.

      Over her dead body, Natalie vowed. Not that she wanted any of the money. She just didn’t want Rebecca Lynn getting her hands on it exclusively.

      Natalie stopped just short of the living room. As a matter of fact, now that she thought about it, Candace’s sudden death dovetailed nicely with their stepmother’s plans. She’d bet her last dime that Rebecca Lynn would have liked nothing better than to have Candace’s fate befall her and her two remaining siblings—her sister Jenna and stepsister Silver.

      Can’t tell the players apart without a scorecard, Natalie thought dryly.

      Forcing herself to walk into the living room, Natalie saw her youngest sibling, Jenna, a self-assured twenty-five-year-old, currently heading up her own party planning business, crouching on the floor. She was busy picking up the pieces of what had been, until moments ago, a colorful vase from a trip to Hawaii.

      The vase, for reasons unknown, had suffered Ricky’s sudden displeasure. He would have gone on a rampage except that Harold had grabbed him.

      Rebecca Lynn took immediate possession of their son, giving her husband a dark, censoring look. When that faded, it was replaced by a disdainful expression that took up residence on her perfectly made-up face.

      Everything about the woman screamed “fake,” Natalie couldn’t help thinking. Rebecca Lynn’s hair was currently a riotous cloud of red that could not be found anywhere in nature.

      Silver, Anna’s daughter, was sitting over in a corner, her expression barring anyone from attempting to approach her.

      Ever the outsider. Although, from what she’d heard, in the last few years, Silver and Candace had actually gotten closer. However, the relationship had come about for all the wrong reasons, at least when it came to Candace, who had orchestrated the “friendship.” Her twin had been extremely jealous of their stepsister. Silver, who was the same age as they were, had been born beautiful. With her mother’s support, she had become a singing sensation by the time she turned sixteen. This after bringing the modeling world to its knees.

      Silver, Natalie had always felt, could have become anything she wanted to be.

      Looking around the room at the various members of her extended—or was that distended?—family, Natalie viewed them all with a disparaging eye and now just shook her head.

      Talk about dysfunctional families. Hers would probably be up for some kind of prize—if there were prizes given for something like this.

      His temper on edge because Rebecca Lynn had usurped his authority to discipline their son—again—Harold Rothchild looked at the latecomer with no attempt to hide his displeasure.

      “So you’ve finally decided to grace us with your presence.”

      “Yup, finally,” Natalie echoed in the same tone her father had just used.

      So far, it’d been one hell of a day, and the rest of it wasn’t shaping up to be any better. Making her way over to a chair that was near Silver, Natalie sat down. Her stepsister slanted a glance in her direction and nodded a silent greeting.

      “All right,” Natalie said, bracing herself for anything. “Let’s get on with it.”

      Chapter 9

      After Natalie took her seat, Harold didn’t begin speaking immediately. Instead, he moved restlessly about the wide, cathedral-ceilinged living room like a caged man desperately searching for the way out and only coming up against dead ends.

      Finally, his back to the baby grand piano his wife insisted on getting for their son, he said, “By now, you’ve all heard the news. Candace is dead.”

      “Is that why you called us here, to make sure we all knew?” Silver asked incredulously, raising her voice to be heard over her stepbrother’s high-pitched whining. “There’s been nothing else all over the news all morning,” she pointed out.

      “No, I called you together because we need to make funeral arrangements.” His

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