Read Online Want to Know a Secret? by Sue Moorcroft - Free Book Online Page A

hung up her camel-coloured coat. ‘Very.’ She turned, slowly, slowly, reluctant to face him. ‘I’m not in it.’
    His face turned to stone. ‘You’re joking.’
    Her hair was up behind her head, tightly, making her head ache. She began to drag out the clips, her scalp prickling as the strands unwound. ‘It’s all there in black-and-white. The whole lot goes to Freddy. Freddy’s embarrassed.’ She reached over to her coat and extracted paperwork from one of the large front pockets, tossing it on the table between them. ‘He’s even provided me with literature about how to contest a will under the Inheritance Act.’
    Gareth snatched at the papers, relief sweeping his face. ‘That’s very fair of him. Your dad was always investing in things, wasn’t he? He must have been worth a few bob.’
    ‘Oh yes. The estate is valued at about two million, including the house.’ She dropped down into a chair. Nausea had held her throat in its hands for most of the day as she’d tried to come to terms with what her parents had done. She was weak with disbelief. Grief. And such bitter disappointment, not over the money that had been withheld, but the love.
    Gareth’s face flushed. ‘My God, we’re millionaires, bar the formalities. Fucking millionaires! We’d better get a solicitor. How long do you think it’ll all take?’
    ‘I’m not contesting the will. Freddy has offered to cut me in for half. All he has to do is sign a thing called a deed of post-death variation.’
    Gareth sank into his chair. ‘You gave me a few nasty moments. But there you are, it’ll be sorted in a few weeks. Freddy’s all right, we might’ve known he wouldn’t try and snaffle the lot.’
    Diane stared. Blinded by pound signs, Gareth wasn’t getting the point. Fury burned in her gullet and she spoke the words that changed her world and had made their marriage, for the past ten years, an empty thing. ‘I refused. My parents have disinherited me. I don’t want their stinking money.’
    It was fully ten seconds before he spoke, his eyes horrified. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he managed eventually, hoarse in disbelief. ‘Don’t be bloody stupid! Money, even some money, even if you only accept forty per cent, or twenty, it’ll make all the difference to our lives. We’re still talking hundreds of thousands, Diane. It’s your right, it’s your inheritance. It’s yours! Don’t you see? Taking the money is the very thing to do because they don’t want you to have it. We’ll be getting back at them.’
    Her guts melted with misery as his voice climbed, but she didn’t waver. ‘I have my pride, Gareth.’
    And then he was lunging across the table, roaring into her face. ‘ We can’t afford fucking pride ! You’re entitled to that money. Pride’s all very well for you but it’s me who’s working my balls off, scrounging for every hour of overtime.’
    Tears flooded from her eyes but she hadn’t wavered. ‘They’re my parents and it’s my decision.’

Chapter Five
    Trembling, Diane filled a waxed paper cone with the cold, crystal water as the dispenser gulped and glugged. Tiny sips moistened her mouth but didn’t ease the thudding in her chest. Her fingers shook as she drained the cone and refilled it. Money. So much trouble in her life had been over money.
    Like the ugly little scene over her mother’s jewellery when she and Freddy had pitched in to help their father after their mother’s death, she processing the debris of the funeral and Freddy going upstairs with his father to help sort out Karen’s things.
    But when she’d carried cups of tea up to the others she’d heard Freddy sputter, ‘Of course I can’t accept it!’
    And her father, clutching her mother’s leather jewellery case. ‘Look, Freddy, you know as well as I do that your sister will let that bloody man get his hands on it. I just couldn’t stand it if your mother’s and grandmother’s jewellery turned up in second-hand shops all over