Kiss in the Dark Read Online Free PDF

a big stained-glass window curving over the huge iron-studded door. Wakefield has been in the family for so many generations I can’t count them out without the help of the family tree. And as my father’s daughter, I’m the heir to all this. Everything I survey will be mine one day.
    It’s a feeling that always makes me shiver with a mixture of pride and fear of the responsibility. And thinking of my father, I have one of the flashes of memory that flood into my mind every so often—an image of my parents, who died when I was four years old. My father picking me up and sliding me down the banister of the great staircase in the Hall, the polished wood shining, the smell of beeswax suddenly in my nostrils. Pretending he’s going to let go his grip on me, making me squeal with a mixture of fear and excitement in which the latter definitely predominated.
    And my mother, standing by the newel post, arms out to catch me as I slide toward her, laughing. The huge front door open behind her, the sun pouring in, haloing her light brown hair around her face, turning the strands to gold.
    Most of all, I remember the trust I had in my father, the absolute confidence that he would keep me safe.
    It can’t have been more than six months later that they died.
    I swallow very hard to get down the big lump in my throat. It’s as difficult as trying to get a whole cherry past my tonsils. No matter how many times I tell myself bravely that having a father like Mr. Barnes is worse than having no parents at all, it’s never quite as reassuring as I believe it will be.
    Don’t think about it any more, Scarlett, I tell myself firmly. Think about Jase. Think about the future, not the past.
    I’m dressed for a winter afternoon out on a motorbike—jeans, a wool sweater, a leather jacket, boots with a one-inch heel. But the jeans are nice and tight, to show off my legs; the sweater is turquoise, to show off my blue eyes; and the jacket, bought with my Christmas money, is soft as butter and a shade of really dark blue that I agonized over for ages. I wasn’t sure if it was cool enough. Would black be safer? But wasn’t that a bit boring? When I eventually bought the jacket and wore it at school this term, I caught Plum giving it a distinctly envious glance, which was all the confirmation I needed that I’d made the right decision.
    God, shopping is hard. Even when you’re lucky enough to have a trust fund, plus a grandmother who throws money at you for Christmas and birthdays because she hasn’t the faintest idea what to buy you.
    I don’t get any presents from Aunt Gwen, but then I don’t get anything for Aunt Gwen either. It’s been like that as long as I can remember, a mutual admission that we really don’t know each other’s tastes and, to be honest, don’t have any interest in finding them out. Although Aunt Gwen dislikes me intensely, I must admit that I can’t completely blame her. My grandmother, after all, makes her live in the gatehouse cottage, which is pretty tiny, and always refers to me as the heir to Wakefield, even though my aunt is her daughter. I mean, my father was her son, so Aunt Gwen and I should share it, right?
    I do mean to talk to my grandmother about this someday. But I’m much too intimidated to do it now. Especially what with having to call her Lady Wakefield during term time …
    I’m through the courtyard and rounding the side of the new school wing, running down the narrow passage that’s technically off-limits for students, because it leads to the staff cottages. As I emerge from the narrow lane, Jase, who’s leaning against his bike, a helmet dangling from each hand, flashes me the broadest of grins. There’s no pretense at being cool, that he isn’t happy to see me, that he hasn’t been waiting for me. It’s my favorite thing about Jase: he never plays that kind of game.
    Well, that and the fact that he’s completely gorgeous, of course. I never said I wasn’t shallow.
    “You took