His for the Taking Read Online Free PDF

request for vintage champagne and single-malt whiskey at the wake. ‘What difference does that make?’
    Without needing to leave his chair, Nick reached over and took the kitchen phone off its hook on the wall. He held it out to her. ‘The difference is the funeral parlour is going to be paid a lot. They’ll send someone over to pick up the clothes.’
    She shook her head. ‘Nick, I don’t want to stay here. I don’t live here. All my clothes are in the Bronx. Why don’t you just—?’
    ‘Zoe, I’m not going. I’m sorry that it’s inconvenient for you, but this is my one chance.’
    She grabbed the phone from his hand. ‘Fine. I’ll call the police.’
    ‘Funny,’ he said softly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you needed someone else to fight your battles for you.’
    It was as if he’d poked a crafty finger just exactly in the right place. Zoe winced.
    ‘The only thing that matters to me is finding my father,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes. I really am sorry if it makes your life difficult. But it’s made my life difficult for the past sixteen years. I can’t leave without some answers.’
    He held her eyes steady with his own. He looked big and immovable and very serious.
    The doorbell rang.
    Nick and Zoe’s gazes flickered in the direction of the door, and then met again.
    ‘Are you expecting anybody?’ he asked quietly.
    ‘I have no idea.’
    He rose to his feet. Without a word, they fell into step across the kitchen and down the corridor to the front door. Nick was slightly ahead and he reached his hand out to the doorknob.
    ‘No,’ Zoe said, and he stopped. ‘It’s my great-aunt’s apartment,’ she explained to his enquiring look. For a moment she didn’t think he was going to back down, but then he nodded and stepped back.
    Zoe reached her hand towards the doorknob and realised she was holding her breath.
    Up until this moment, she hadn’t really believed that Nick’s father was hanging around Xenia’s apartment. Sure, there was plenty she didn’t know about her great-aunt’s life—most everything, actually—and anything was possible with Xenia, but it hadn’t seemed quite right. Xenia had been so independent, so in love with her own way, so much like Zoe, in fact, that Zoe couldn’t picture her sharing her space with anybody.
    But Nick was standing as if he were expecting an explosion. Every fibre of his body was tense; she could feel it even with the couple of feet of air between them. She heard his breathing coming in shallow, quick bursts. She had the feeling that if she edged a little closer to him, she would be able to hear his heart beating.
    He wanted his father to turn up so badly that she couldn’t help wanting it, too.
    ‘Will you know him?’ she asked softly.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    She looked at his face. There were lines around his eyes and mouth: tension and hope and, she thought, fear.
    Zoe turned her attention to the door, twisted the knob, and stared at the man standing outside.
    Geez, he’s short for Nick’s dad, she thought, and then she saw it was Ralph, the concierge.
    He looked almost as surprised to see her as she was to see him. Zoe found her voice first.
    ‘Hey, Ralph, how’s it going?’
    ‘Zoe.’ He swallowed, most definitely at a loss for words, which was unusual because normally he was a nosy son of a gun. ‘I didn’t see you come up.’
    ‘You were out back, I think, when I came in. I didn’t bother you because I had my own set of keys.’ And because she hadn’t felt like exchanging sympathetic after-death chat with him, or anybody. She’d hovered outside the front door of the building until she’d seen him turning his back on the desk to fill his ever-present coffee mug, and then she’d dashed through the door and run to the elevators as quickly as she could.
    ‘Oh. Well I was just checking—there was this guy who said he was looking for Ms Drake—’
    Nick stepped behind her, into Ralph’s line of sight. Zoe felt