Loving Read Online Free PDF

circumstances are somewhat trying for Miss Daniels. We'll do our very best."
    "Thank you." Bettina shook hands with them and quickly left the office. Ivo said almost nothing on the way to the car, he only glanced anxiously again and again at her face. She was ivory-pale, but she seemed quiet and very much in control. Once they were in his car again, he raised the window between them and his driver and turned to her with a look of sorrow in his eyes. "Bettina, do you understand what just happened?"
    "I think so." As he watched her he saw that even her lips were frighteningly pale. "It looks like I'm about to learn a few things about life."
    As they drove up in front of her elaborate building he asked.
    "Will you let me help you?"
    She shook her head, kissed his cheek, and got out of the car.
    He sat watching her until she had disappeared into the building, wondering what would happen to her now.

Chapter 5

    The doorbell rang just as Bettina looked at her watch. His timing was perfect and she smiled as she ran to the door. She greeted him with a kiss and Ivo entered and bowed, looking very debonair in a black coat and a homburg. Bettina, on the other hand, was wearing a red flannel shirt and jeans.
    "You're looking very lively this evening, Miss Daniels. How was your day?"
    "Interesting. I spent the day with the man from Parke-Bernet." She smiled tiredly, and he thought for a moment how he missed seeing her in her usual elegant, clothes. She seemed to have abandoned her other wardrobe in the month since Justin had died. But she also hadn't gone anywhere, except to the lawyers, to hear more bad news. Now all she wanted was to get the hell out of the mess. She was about to start meeting with art dealers, real estate agents, antiquaries, jewelers, anyone and everyone who could take the goods off her hands and leave her with something with which to whittle away the debts.
    "They're taking all of this stuff off my hands"--she waved vaguely at the antiques--"as well as everything out of the house in South Hampton and the one in Palm Beach. They've already had someone to look it all over. The furniture in the South of France I'm getting rid of over there, and"--she sighed absent-mindedly as she hung up his coat--"I think the house in Beverly Hills will sell with everything in it. Some Arab is buying the place, and he left everything he had in the Middle East. So it should work out well for both of us."
    "Aren't you keeping anything?" Ivo looked appalled, but he was getting used to the feeling and she was getting used to the look on his face.
    She shook her head with a small smile. "I can't afford to. I'm dealing with the national debt, Ivo. Four and a half million dollars is not exactly easy to wipe out. But I will." She smiled again, and something turned over near his heart. How could Justin do this to her? How could he not have known that something like this might happen, that she would be left to clean up his mess? The unfairness of it tore at Ivo's soul. "Don't look so worried, love." She was smiling at him now. "It'll all be sorted out one of these days."
    "Yes, and in the meantime I sit here helplessly and watch you tear your life apart." It was hard to remember now that she was only nineteen. She looked and sounded so much older. But there was still an occasional look of mischief in her eyes.
    "And what would you like to do, Ivo? Help me pack?"
    "No, I wouldn't." He snapped at her, and then apologized with his eyes. But it was she who spoke first.
    "I'm sorry. I know you want to help. I don't know.
    I guess I'm just tired. I feel like this is never going to end.
    "And when it does end, what then? I don't like your having given up school."
    "Why? I'm getting an education right here. Besides, tuition is expensive."
    "Bettina, stop that!" She sounded so bitter and there was suddenly something so jaded in her eyes, "I want you to promise me something."
    "What's that?"
    "I want you to promise me that when the worst of this is over,