Read Online Three Wishes by Kristen Ashley - Free Book Online Page B

preparation for something as he came toward her but he just walked by her.
    With no choice, she followed.
    He entered a room and she came in after him. In the room were Laura, Victor and two police officers.
    “Here she is,” Laura announced, smiling at Lily encouragingly.
    The room was lovely, decorated in soft pale greens accented with white cornices and stately yet comfy-looking furniture. Nathaniel moved to stand behind and beside a high backed chair. He glanced at Lily and then down at the chair and she understood somehow that he wanted her… no, was telling her to sit in the chair.
    She did what she was mutely told.
    The interview, as Laura promised, took less than ten minutes. They asked questions, they took notes and Laura and Victor watched her with kind, parental eyes. Not as if she’d met them hours before but as if she had been under their guardianship and devoted care since birth.
    However this was not why the interview was so short.
    Although she did not see him, she knew that Nathaniel stood behind her the entire time. And she knew this because she felt him there. He did not move a muscle or make a noise until the police seemed to be checking facts and asking the same questions over again.
    Then in a tone that even General Patton would have calmly and unresistingly obeyed, he said, “You have enough.”
    They didn’t argue or even demur, immediately one of them said, “Right, Mr. McAllister.”
    They nodded at Nathaniel and Lily found she now had his last name, a name of which she approved. McAllister.
    “Mr. and Mrs. Roberts.” The police nodded at Laura and Victor.
    The realisation dawned that Nathaniel and the Roberts did not share the same surname and Lily wondered at Nathaniel’s relationship with Laura and Victor because he obviously wasn’t blood as she thought. He didn’t look like either Laura or Victor but Lily thought for certain the relationship was deep enough for blood ties.
    Maybe he was a favoured nephew.
    “We’re off,” the policeman finished.
    They did not give Lily a card, ask her to call them if she remembered anything else, they just left.
    Before anyone could say anything, a boyishly good-looking, not-as-tall-as-Nathaniel but still tall, brown-haired man walked in.
    “What’s this? First the anniversary celebration is off, now the police are at the house. What? Has Nate’s chequered past finally caught up with us?”
    Then he stopped dead and stared at Lily for some reason in open-mouthed surprise.
    She didn’t think much about this new man’s open-mouthed surprise. She instead found herself thinking she did not at all consider it was surprising that Nathaniel had a chequered past.
    “My God,” the man breathed bringing Lily’s thoughts back into the room.
    “This,” Victor stated as introduction to Lily, “is my son, Jeffrey.”
    Jeffrey came forward, extending his hand and told her. “Everyone but Mum and Dad call me Jeff.”
    She lifted her hand to shake his but he turned it, bent at the waist and brought it to his mouth, brushing his lips against her knuckles. Then his eyes came to hers.
    “And who are you?” he asked and she thought his tone was flirtatious although she didn’t have a great deal of experience with flirtatious, or at least for the past four years or so she naively hadn’t noticed it relentlessly coming her way.
    “I’m Lily Jacobs,” she answered.
    “No, you’re not Lily Jacobs. You are an angel sent from heaven,” he surprised her by saying quietly, definitely flirtatiously, finally dropping her hand after holding it longer than necessary.
    As he straightened Lily noticed the entire room changed and seemed even to shift at his words. The air became so thick it could be cut with a knife. Victor tensed and his eyes flew to where Nathaniel was still standing at the back of her chair. Laura slowly stood and her eyes slid to Lily, her hand moving to her throat in a strange gesture of imminent peril. And Lily could actually feel