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been absurdly pleased that Aaron, even at this late date, had seen fit to acknowledge and bequeath a more than sizable piece of his personal fortune to his son.
    “Did you?” Alice asked.
    Kendall stared at Aaron’s widow; the woman’s eyes were dark and cold and radiated a force that made Kendall shiver. Evil , she thought, then laughed inwardly at her own fancy.
    “Yes, I did,” she said determinedly. If this was to be the first of her battles to carry out Aaron’s wishes, then she wasn’t about to start out faltering.
    “Produce it.”
    “Mr. Wellford is Aaron’s attorney. And his executor. The codicil to the will was sent to his office to be filed. So this will just have to wait until he can be reached in Europe.”
    “Do you, by chance, mean this?”
    Kendall’s breath caught as Alice lifted something from beneath the stack of papers before her. It was the brightly colored pasteboard envelope of the express delivery service she had used to send the hard copies of the signed and notarized codicil to Charles Wellford office. Aaron had demanded that; he put little trust in the security of electronic documents for things of this importance. She leaned closer and saw that the address label was the one she’d hastily handwritten before the courier had arrived to pick it up.
    Her gaze went to Alice Hawk’s face. The moment she looked into those eyes she lost all doubt that the woman had indeed intercepted the document; too much gloating triumph gleamed there for her to be bluffing. Kendall’s hands curled into fists. She’d never trusted Alice, had always been wary of the bitter enmity she sensed every time she felt the woman watching her, but she hadn’t thought she’d go this far.
    “If you think that’s the only copy, you’re underestimating Aaron,” she said.
    “In forty-two years, I’ve never underestimated my fool of a husband,” Alice said, not bothering to hide the acid in her tone. “But he often made the mistake of underestimating me. As have you, Miss Chase. You have the stock Aaron left you, and that trust fund he set up. Yes,” the woman said as Kendall blinked, “I know about it. And what you no doubt did to get it.”
    She wasn’t surprised that Alice knew of the fund Aaron had established, over her protests, but the accusation startled her. God , Kendall thought, her, too? She’d always known the woman didn’t like her, but she’d never suspected it was at least in part because Alice thought she was sleeping with her husband.
    Kendall’s stomach churned. Was there no one who could believe the kind of relationship they had really had? That it had been one based on mutual respect? That if anything personal had ever entered into it, it had been as much father to daughter as anything? She wanted to sink down onto the chair beside her, but fought the urge; she could not give Alice any sign of weakness.
    “If you’re after more—”
    Kendall cut her off. “The only thing I’m after is seeing that Aaron’s final wishes are carried out.”
    “I’d advise you not to waste your time contesting,” Whitewood put in. “This will is unbreakable.”
    She gave the snake-smooth attorney a withering look. “I don’t have to break it. The codicil Aaron added supersedes it.”
    “What codicil?” Alice interjected, her voice sounding as her face looked, triumphantly gloating. Kendall turned back to her, reading what was coming in the woman’s eyes before she said it. “I think you’ll discover that no such thing exists, Miss Chase.”
    Kendall watched the woman silently, her mind racing. Aaron had anticipated something like this, had told her to make copies of the codicil, to hide them—
    Alice’s laugh cut off her thoughts; it was a pernicious sound that made her skin creep again.
    “If you’re thinking of Aaron’s little hiding places, be assured, I know them all. The compartment in his desk, the wall safe, all of them. I’ve known for years, but I’m not the fool he thought