Also by Tilly Bagshawe
Fame
Flawless
Scandalous
Adored
Showdown
Sidney Sheldon’s Mistress of the Game
Sidney Sheldon’s Angel of the Dark
Sidney Sheldon’s After the Darkness
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
First published in 2008.
Copyright © 2013 Tilly Bagshawe
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
PO Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612186955
ISBN-10: 1612186955
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012943131
To my parents, Nick and Daphne Bagshawe.
Whenever I count my blessings, you’re first on the list.
CONTENTS
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PART TWO
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
OVER MY DEAD body! D’you hear me? You’ll take Palmers over my dead body, you scheming, greedy little—”
A fit of wheezing stopped Trey Palmer from finishing his sentence. But Honor, his eldest daughter, had already gotten the gist. Alzheimer’s may have cruelly eaten away at his mental faculties and old age ravaged his once-enviable physique, but his bitterness was as razor sharp as ever.
“Mr. Palmer, please, don’t upset yourself,” said the lawyer. Sam Brannagan had sat through more family disputes than he could remember, many of them in this very room. With its dark oak-paneled walls and reassuringly expensive soft furnishings it was all very old-school Bostonian—an appropriate setting for internecine warfare if ever there was one.
Watching the old man grapple with his oxygen mask while he glared at his hapless daughter, however, Sam didn’t think he’d ever seen quite as much open hatred as he’d witnessed today. Looking around the room at the eager, greedy faces turned toward him, he felt intensely depressed.
Honor Palmer, who had convened today’s meeting, was the only decent one among them. But even she was not exactly warm and cuddly. With her spiky, boyish hair, aquiline features, and tiny, taut athlete’s body, the newly minted Harvard Law graduate looked beautiful but forbidding. Everything about her, from her four-inch Louboutins and starkly formal black Prada pantsuit to her low, authoritative voice and impressive grasp of the complex legal issues being discussed, betrayed a steeliness unusual in one so young. Especially a woman.
As for the rest of them—crowded into his office, huddled around the old man like sharks circling a wounded seal—they made his stomach churn.
There was Tina, Honor’s younger sister, looking bored in the corner, glancing pointedly at her Chopard diamond watch. Also beautiful, but in a polar opposite way from her sister: blonde, blowsy, and buxom were the three words that most readily sprang to mind. Tina looked like she’d picked up her wardrobe from Hookers-R-Us. Even at an important legal meeting like this, Boston’s answer to Paris Hilton had shown up in a frayed denim skirt that barely covered her crotch and a pink man’s shirt tied beneath her breasts to reveal a mind-boggling expanse of cleavage. From the look of distaste on her face as she listened to her father’s phlegmy spluttering, it was clear she had no sympathy for him; nor did she seem remotely interested in her sister’s attempts to save them all from financial ruin.
Even more see-through were the Fosters. Jacob, a distant cousin from Omaha, and his wife, had heard in the press about Trey’s Alzheimer’s and the threat to his empire and crawled out of the woodwork to see what they could scavenge. Both wore ostentatious crosses and proclaimed themselves loudly to be born-again Christians, but every reference to Trey’s frozen bank accounts had them salivating like starving puppies. They’d spent most of today’s meeting glowering disapprovingly at Lise, Trey’s bimbo wifelette, whom they wrongly considered to be their key rival for the family inheritance.
Lise might give Lil’ Kim a run for her money in the slutty dressing stakes, but unlike the Fosters, she did at least have the advantage of being recognized by her husband. It was clear to Sam that neither Trey nor his daughters had ever set eyes on Cousin Jacob before in their lives.
On reflection, perhaps it was hardly surprising that they’d all shown up today. There was, after all, a lot at stake. The Palmers were one of the wealthiest, most prominent families in Boston and had been for three generations. Already rich when he emigrated from England, Trey’s great-grandfather had multiplied the family fortune fivefold, becoming one of the first great American hoteliers. His first hotel, the Cranley on Boston’s exclusive Newbury Street, made so much money that within a decade he’d opened two more: the King James Hotel in Manhattan and the now-legendary Palmers in East Hampton. By the time Trey’s father, Tertius Palmer, came into his inheritance, the family’s net worth was conservatively estimated at over ten million dollars. And that was in the fifties. Heaven only knew what it translated to in today’s money.
Like his father and grandfather before him, Tertius had been a naturally shrewd businessman. But whereas they had been expansionists, Tertius was a consolidator. Cashing in on the postwar real estate boom, he sold the original two hotels for an outrageous profit, which he went on to invest very successfully in the equity markets. Having hired a raft of stockbrokers to manage his portfolio, he was free to focus his own energies exclusively on the one hotel he hadn’t sold: Palmers. By the time of his death—the year before Honor was born—Palmers was widely considered to be the most exclusive, most desirable hotel in the world.
Honor and Tina grew up surrounded by reminders of its illustrious history. The hotel itself was like a second home to them. As little girls they could hardly contain themselves with excitement when, every summer, their mother, Laura, would help them pack their cases and they’d set off for three joyously long months of fun in East Hampton.
But when their mom died—Laura Palmer was killed in a car accident when her daughters were aged ten and eight, respectively—everything changed. Trey, unable to admit his grief for fear it might overwhelm him, had cut himself off emotionally from everything that reminded him of his wife and their former life together. This included not only his children, who needed him more than ever, but also Palmers. The hotel that had been the jewel in the Palmer family crown for half a century rapidly lost its premier status as Trey started spending less
and less time there.
Now, some thirteen years later, it had become little more than another dime-a-dozen “luxury” hotel, perhaps even a little shabbier than most of its rivals. If it hadn’t been for the Palmer fortune propping it up, and for its still-legendary name, it would doubtless have closed years ago.
Honor took a deep breath to calm herself and gazed out the window. She knew that what she was doing was right. Taking control of her dad’s assets was the only way to save Palmers and what little was left of her once-immense inheritance. But she still couldn’t look Trey in the eye. Even after all these years, his dislike and distrust of her still hurt her very deeply.
Ironically, Brannagan’s offices were on Newbury Street, almost directly opposite what had once been the Cranley hotel and was now a souped-up shopping mall. It was June, the schools had just got out for summer, and the place was busy. Students in shorts and varsity T-shirts stood around in groups laughing, sipping their Frappuccinos in the courtyard café out front, while wealthy women hurried past them into the designer stores, no doubt looking for bargains in the summer sales.
They all seemed to be having so much fun. For a fleeting moment, Honor wished she were down there too, frittering away her trust fund like she didn’t have a care in the world. That was how Tina lived her life, after all, along with most of the other vacuous Boston rich kids they’d grown up with. So why not her?
But her stepmother’s whining, wheedling voice soon dragged her back to reality.
“It’s outrageous, Mr. Brannagan,” Lise was saying, doing her best to look hard done by, which wasn’t easy given the twenty-odd carats of diamonds scattered generously about her person. “Just because my baby is sick,” she placed a skinny, red-taloned hand on Trey’s wizened leg, “these vultures are trying to move in and take advantage.”
“Oh, please,” said Honor witheringly. Her voice was low and husky, making her seem even more masculine. “Dad’s nobody’s ‘baby.’ And if anyone’s the vulture here, it’s you.”
Though officially her stepmother, Lise was actually only a couple of years Honor’s senior. A former flight attendant with inflated Angelina Jolie lips and hair extensions that must weigh more than she did, she was the fourth bimbo Trey had married in the last twelve years, in the vain hope that one of them might bear him his longed-for son.
Ever since Honor and Tina’s mom died, Trey had been obsessed with fathering a boy to take over Palmers and carry on the family name. Honor, who loved her father deeply and wanted desperately to please him, had spent most of her teenage years trying everything she could think of to become the son he wanted. Not content with excelling at both academic work and overtly male sports like baseball and shooting, she started cutting her hair short and wearing boyish clothes in an attempt to make him happy. She even began starving herself: anything to stave off the arrival of puberty and the breasts she dreaded as unwanted, but irrefutable, symbols of her femininity.
But nothing was ever enough for Trey.
Unwilling to accept it was he who had the fertility problems, he’d refused to give up hope, foisting a series of ridiculously young stepmothers on his daughters. When each one failed to get pregnant, he simply divorced her in favor of a newer, younger model. But not before he’d been forced to pay out a small fortune in alimony.
After a while, Honor had become immune to these women. Lise was no better or worse than the others. But at twenty-seven, she sure wasn’t with an elderly cripple like Trey because she loved him. To pretend she was was laughable.
“Dad’s been declared incapable of managing his own affairs,” Honor continued matter-of-factly. “That gives Mr. Brannagan, as his trustee, automatic power of attorney. The decision to put me in control of Palmers, and the rest of the family assets, was his and his alone. Right, Sam?”
The lawyer shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Was it just him, or was it getting awfully hot in here?
“So you’re saying it means nothing that cousin Trey made it abundantly clear during his lifetime that he wanted Palmers to pass down the male line?” spluttered the Omaha cousin, sensing his hoped-for payday slipping through his fingers.
“It’s still his lifetime, Mr. Foster,” said Honor scathingly. “He’s not dead yet.”
“I’ve told you,” the cousin snapped back, “it’s Jacob.”
“Sorry,” said Honor, with heavy sarcasm. “I’m afraid I was raised never to use first names with people I don’t know from Adam.”
“Who’s not dead?” Trey looked around him, bewildered. “And who’s Adam?”
Despite everything, it broke Honor’s heart to see him so lost and confused. If the doctors were right, he might not remember who she was in a few months’ time. Alzheimer’s was a bitch of a disease.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about, Mr. Palmer,” the lawyer interjected kindly. “I can assure you that your daughter is acting in your best interests. She’s very well qualified to take over the running of the business.”
Trey gave a short, derisory laugh. “Well qualified? She’s a woman, Mr. Brannagan,” he sneered. “Evidently she’s every bit as sly and conniving as the rest of her sex. But that hardly equips her to run the greatest hotel in the world.”
“But a dick and a pair of balls would equip her perfectly, right?” chimed in Tina. “You’re so pathetic.”
It was the first time she’d spoken since the meeting began, and everyone turned to look at her. Cousin Jacob’s wife looked like she might be about to spontaneously combust with disapproval at the coarseness of her language. “Don’t get me wrong,” Tina continued, smiling at Brannagan. “I really don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to Palmers. But if Honor wants to play the great white hope, I say we should let her. As long as I get my trust fund and my allowance, I’m easy.”
“Yes, we all know how easy you are,” said Honor furiously. It was bitchy, but she couldn’t help it. Tina’s devil-may-care wantonness had always provoked a mixture of revulsion and envy in Honor.
She certainly didn’t need it in her face today. “And for your information, I’m not ‘playing’ at anything. I’m only doing this because Dad’s so ill.”
“Please,” said Tina, reaching down her bra to rearrange her breasts without a hint of embarrassment. “That’s bullshit and you know it. You’ve wanted to run Palmers since the day you were born.”
Honor was silent. It was true: she had always wanted Palmers. But not like this.
From her earliest childhood, Honor Palmer knew she was different.
It wasn’t just the envious way her little friends looked at her when the chauffeur would drop her and Tina off at elementary school in the Bentley T-type. Or the photographers who frightened her by swarming around her mother and father whenever they went out to dinners or charity events. It was more than that. It was an awareness, reached very early, that the Palmer name she bore was not just a privilege but an immense responsibility.
She had never known her grandfather, and yet Tertius Palmer’s presence seemed to be everywhere when she was growing up. His portrait hung in the entrance hall of the family’s grand Boston townhouse. His books were on the shelves in the library. His heavy mahogany desk still dominated Honor’s father’s study. Even the gardens where she and Tina used to play, with their formal maze and the willow walk along the banks of the Charles, had been designed and planted by Tertius.
Nowhere, however, was his spirit more alive than at Palmers. In the early days, before her mother died, Honor would spend every summer at the grand old Hamptons hotel listening to stories of her grandfather and the wild and wonderful times he’d had there. To her child’s eyes, Palmers was a wonderland. When she and Tina played mermaids in the pool or had tricycle races along the endless polished parquet corridors, it was as if the outside world didn’t exist.
The hotel guests, many of whom were elderly and had been coming for years, were remarkably tolerant of Trey’s two boisterous little girls. Those who remembered Tertius were happy to pull Honor asi
de and tell her tall tales about the New Year’s Eve party when her grandfather had danced with an Italian princess or the day he’d landed a biplane on the hotel’s croquet lawn.
Honor lapped up the romance of it all like a bear with a pot of honey. She wasn’t the most attractive child—with her short hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and skinny, matchstick legs, strangers often mistook her for a boy, and a nerdy boy at that. But at Palmers, she always felt like a princess. She was the chosen one, born to inherit and preserve all the excitement and magic that surrounded her. Because for Honor, above all, that’s what Palmers really meant—magic.
Tina saw things differently, even back then. Two years younger than her sister, Cristina Maud Palmer was as blonde, blue-eyed, and chubby-cheeked as a Botticelli cherub, with a line in cuteness that would have put Shirley Temple out of business had she been born a generation earlier. Adults universally pronounced her “adorable.” And she was, if pink hair ribbons, a frilly dress, and an ability to sing, “How much is that doggie in the window?” were all you looked for in a child. But underneath the butter-wouldn’t-melt exterior, a frighteningly detached, self-centered little person was forming.
Having learned early how to bend adults to her will, Tina pursued her own pleasure with all the ruthless determination of a general before battle. “Pleasure” for Tina meant, very simply, the accumulation of things: toys, clothes, money, a puppy. Whatever the flavor of the month was, Tina Palmer would twirl and simper and cajole until it was hers.
Like Honor, she understood from an early age that her family was rich and important. But as far as Tina was concerned, that simply meant that she would grow up to have even more stuff, and live in even more luxury, than she did now. Palmers was nothing more or less than another sign of that wealth. She had never understood Honor’s sentimental obsession with the place and its history. As a child she longed for people to stop blathering on about her boring, old, dead grandfather and bring her another ice cream. Preferably with hot fudge sauce and a cherry on top.