The Inheritance, page 1
The Inheritance
ALISON NAOMI HOLT
DENABI PUBLISHING
Copyright
The Inheritance
Written by Alison Naomi Holt
Published by Alison Naomi Holt and Denabi Publishing
Copyright © 2023 Alison Naomi Holt
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
The psychological methodologies used in this book are purely fictional and are not intended to be used in any way in the mental health field. The symptoms of mental illness, psychological stress, and/or PTSD exhibited by the characters in this book are fictional and are not intended in any way by the author to represent actual symptoms of mental illness.
For more information about the author and her other books, visit http://www.Alisonholtbooks.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
A Small Favor
Also by Alison Naomi Holt
About the Author
One
“You expect me to what?” Allegra Saint-Germaine S.J.D., equity partner in Loftquist, Myers, and Saint-Germaine Law Firm, sat on Brendan Loftquist’s leather sofa and glared daggers at him.
“Now, Allegra, he asked for you specifically. In fact, he said he refused to speak to anyone else, and since we represent him—have represented him for the last thirty years—we’re obligated to do as he says. He’s on his deathbed and intends to change the conditions of his trust.”
“That deathbed took much, much longer than it should have to arrive. In fact, someone should have put it on wheels and rolled it into one of his penthouse suites years ago.”
Brendan, a sixty-four-year-old perpetual bachelor, sipped from his Double-Deuce Iced Caramel Macchiato to hide his amusement.
“And why me? The old bastard hasn’t spoken to me since I bought the entire Rearden Complex out from under him seventeen years ago.”
The macchiato rested on Brendan’s tongue for a moment. He looked forward to this drink every morning. In fact, he’d fired his last assistant for not having the drink on his desk when he walked off the private elevator that opened onto his office suite.
“Would you stop orgasming with that blasted drink and answer me?”
Sighing, Brandon set the drink on the coaster and patiently folded his hands on the desk. “It might have something to do with the fact that you’re only one of two businesswomen to ever outmaneuver him during his thirty-year reign as one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen. And of the two, you’re the only attorney and the only one working for this law firm.”
His face hardened into the look that had propelled him to Managing Partner of the largest and most lucrative law firm in the country. “I’m not asking you to do this, Allegra. I’m telling you. You will drop whatever plans you have for the morning and go meet with him. I understand his penthouse has been converted to his own private hospice. Here’s the address.”
Seething now, Allegra stood and glared at the card Brendan was holding out. “I know the address, Brendan.”
As she turned to leave, Brendan cleared his throat. When she spun on the toe of her Aquazzura heels to face him, he indicated a leather-embossed portfolio his assistant had precisely aligned with the corner of his desk. “You might want to take the current trust document with you, don’t you think?”
Allegra studied the valise as though it was a disgusting piece of gutter trash. Her lips twisted only slightly before she composed her features. She’d turned sixty-five the previous week and had immediately booked an appointment with her plastic surgeon to discuss the slight lines she imagined had appeared in her upper lip in the twenty-four hours between being sixty-four and turning sixty-five. She had no intention of adding to them simply because Harcourt Langdon needed to make changes to a perfectly good trust.
She should know. She was the one whom Langdon had insisted prepare it nearly twenty years ago. She grabbed the valise and strode purposefully into the elevator, punching the button for her floor and seething as the doors closed much too slowly on the only man in the company who could and would make her life a living hell if she lost the Langdon account.
Her heels clicked decisively on the marble floor as she stepped out of the private elevator onto the floor immediately below his. This was her domain, where everyone stood as she walked in and stared at their desks or their shoes as though she would bite their heads off if they made eye contact. As she passed her assistant on the way to her office, the woman—she couldn’t remember her name since the chit had only just begun the job the week before—fell in behind her. She held up a finger. “Stay.”
The woman immediately stopped and whispered, “Yes, Ms. Saint-Germain.”
“And tell Jon to have the limo ready in thirty minutes.”
“Yes, Ms. Saint-Germain.”
Honestly, Allegra didn’t think she’d heard the woman utter any other words than, “Yes, Ms. Saint-Germain.” It wasn’t as though Allegra was a monster like Harcourt Langdon. That thought bothered her for precisely one second before she banished it from her mind. “And change that awful-looking sweater before I leave. Heaven forbid I have to walk past it twice in one day.”
Allegra rolled her eyes as her door shut on the woman’s “Yes, Ms. Saint-Germain.”
Her go-to place of comfort was the rather worn, multi-colored wingback chair her grandmother had left her when she’d passed away on Allegra’s twenty-fifth birthday. When Allegra’s parents had died in a car accident on her first day of sixth grade, it had been her beloved grandmother who’d picked her up from school and taken her to a nearby park where she could give the little girl the news that her parents were dead.
Even though her Noma, as she’d always called her, was a poor woman, she was proud, and she’d told Allegra that day that together, the two of them would not only survive but thrive. And they had. The springs creaked as Allegra lowered herself into the chair, pulled the documents from the valise, and began to read.
Twenty minutes later, she closed the folder and held it on her lap. She sometimes forgot that there were wealthy people, such as herself and Brandon Loftquist, and then there were those who were a step above, those who moved into the realm of filthy, stinking rich. Harcourt Langdon belonged to the second group.
She had to give it to the man. He was a truly brilliant businessman who’d built his company from the ground up on chutzpa and raw nerve. And he’d gleefully stepped on everyone he could on the way up, including her. Taking a moment for herself, she closed her eyes, leaned her head back in the chair’s wing, and breathed deeply, allowing herself the indulgence of believing she could smell the Opium perfume her Noma had worn every day of her adult life.
She missed her solid, no-nonsense presence horribly. For the last eight years, ever since her fourth and final husband had passed away, she’d had no one else in her life and, because of her position, found it impossible to make friends without constantly wondering whether they were there for the friendship or for the benefits her own not-so-shabby portfolio could bring them.
Of course, there had been lovers, and for some reason, being confronted with the mortality of one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the country, she thought back on two of them. There had been Lana, a beautiful and brilliant neurosurgeon whom Allegra had found fucking her future wife on Allegra’s sofa when she’d come home early to surprise her. It had been a surprise, all right.
Next had come Paula, a quiet young thing who gave the most wonderful, soothing massages on the planet. It turned out she was too quiet, and Allegra’s aggressive personality drove Paula out of her home and out of her life forever.
There had been others through the years, both men and women, but she’d never found the one just right for her. Now, at sixty-five, even though her personal trainer bullied her into maintaining the body of a fifty-year-old woman, Allegra found she was no longer looking for someone in her life. She was content being alone and honestly didn’t think she could abide having someone else sharing her bed or her home, for that matter.
As she left her office, she was pleased to note that her assistant, who’d jumped up at the sound of her office door opening, was now wearing a perfectly acceptable starched white cotton blouse. Allegra rolled her eyes when one of the legal aides ducked out of sight wearing the horrible, four-year-out-of-date designer sweater her assistant had been wearing earlier.
When she stopped at the elevator, her assistant stepped up next to her. Without acknowledging either the change of attire or the woman’s presence, Allegra pressed the down button. “Did you put together the Lotzenheimer paperwork?”
“Yes, Ms. Saint-Germaine.”
“And my travel reservations?” The elevator doors opened, and the two stepped inside.
“Yes, Ms. Saint-Germaine.”
Maybe she should practice asking non-yes and no questions with this one. Smirking at the thought, she asked, “How many billable hours do we have on Lotzenheimer?” Silence filled the elevator, and when the woman blinked several times and cocked her head, Allegra wondered whether she’d broken her.
“Your consultation with the client. Two hours. Legal research and analysis. Four hours. My drafting of the legal documents. Three hours. My reviewing and responding to emails. Two hours. Your negotiations between parties. Five hours. Document review and preparation for possible litigation. Four hours for a total of sixteen billable hours.”
They’d just stepped out of the elevator, and Allegra stopped in her tracks. She turned and stared at the young woman, who pushed her glasses up on her nose and stared at Allegra’s shoes. “Name?”
The woman started and dared look her boss directly in the eyes. “Oh. Uh, Melissa.”
Allegra nodded once. “I won’t be needing you for this meeting, Melissa.”
“Yes, Ms. Saint-Germain.”
With a barely perceptible smile, Allegra got into the shiny black limo waiting at the curb and ignored the driver, who quietly shut the door behind her.
Two
Allegra wasn’t sure what to expect and was privately relieved that the penthouse didn’t smell antiseptic or, worse, full of the odors of urine and bowel issues.
An impeccably dressed Indian man strode out of a side room to greet her and nodded at the young man who’d answered the door. “That will be all, Jared.” Turning to Allegra, he introduced himself. “Ms. Saint-Germain. I’m Daksh Awani, Mr. Langdon’s assistant.”
Allegra held out her hand, which Daksh took and, with a slight bend at the waist, bowed over. A bit overdone, Allegra thought, but elegant all the same. She supposed she should at least act as though she gave a rat’s ass about Langdon’s condition. “How is he?”
Awani straightened and looked uncomfortable, no doubt wondering how to answer without betraying his employer’s confidence. “Perhaps it would be best if you were to come in and see for yourself. I know Mr. Langdon is extremely anxious to meet with you.”
“Of course.” Allegra nodded, and when Awani returned to the door he’d just exited and pulled it open, she preceded him into the room. Despite girding herself for the uncomfortable experience of seeing a dying man, nothing could have prepared her for the skeletal figure lying in the upright hospital bed, staring at the door with large round eyes and wisps of grey hair that looked lonely and anemic on the top of his head. His oxygen mask was propped on his forehead so he looked like one of the bumphead parrotfish she’d seen on her last scuba diving excursion.
Harcourt Langdon had always been larger than life. A fit, barrel-chested man who came from a long line of longshoremen, men who worked hard and drank even harder. Not ever a man to waste time or words, he immediately began the meeting. He pointed to a red-haired man in his mid-to-late forties standing in front of an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
Not wanting to appear the least bit interested in anything other than the trust, Allegra surreptitiously glanced around the room. An entire wall was dedicated to a custom-designed reading nook, a design that mimicked a hole in a tree of bookshelves running the circumference of the tree. The interior was filled with an oversized bed/chair you could sink into with a book and never be found again. Branches spiraled off the top of the nook, creating the illusion of sitting within an actual tree. The entire creation was so incongruous with Harcourt Langdon’s personality that Allegra had to keep herself from staring since she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how incredibly impressed she was. So, he’d turned his library, his fantasy-esque library, into the place where he intended to take his last breath. Interesting.
Langdon’s voice was surprisingly strong when he introduced the man. “Dr. Trescott. He’s a psychiatrist. Give it to her.”
Trescott jumped at the peremptory order and then strode to Allegra. “I have just now evaluated Mr. Langdon’s mental fitness. I find him in a sound state of mind, capable of making end-of-life decisions pertaining to his estate.” He held out three pages of documentation. “This is my report, properly witnessed and notarized on today’s date.”
Slightly dazed at the abruptness of it all, Allegra accepted the paperwork.
Glancing nervously over at Langdon, Trescott added, “If there’s nothing further?”
With a derisive swish of his hand, Langdon dismissed the man and pointed to Awani. “Awani here will—” Langdon paused, jerked the oxygen mask off his forehead, pulled in three long breaths, and then returned the mask to its previous resting place “—serve as my witness.” He pulled down the mask again, but before centering it over his mouth, he gestured toward Allegra with a bony finger. “Tell her.”
More of a gentleman than Langdon, Awani indicated a chair next to the bed. “Perhaps you’d be more comfortable seated?”
Since her Aquazzura heels were a half-size smaller than she normally wore, owing to the fact that Tara Stratton had implied during a business luncheon last week that the older a woman gets, the bigger shoe size she has to wear, Allegra absolutely would be more comfortable, so she strode over and imperiously lowered herself into the padded chair.
Once she was seated, Awani moved to the other side of the bed so she wouldn’t need to turn her head to see him. “I’m to be witness to this latest change in Mr. Langdon’s trust. I’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement. Mr. Langdon has graciously left ten million dollars in trust in my name, paid out incrementally over a period of ten years, providing I never disclose what he’s about to tell you this morning.” He came around the bed again and handed Allegra a folder. “This is a copy of the non-disclosure agreement, witnessed and notarized.” After handing it to her, he turned and picked up a second folder from an early seventeenth-century two-drawer library table. “The new trust.”
She took it and added it to what she already held in her lap.
They both looked at Langdon, who pulled in a lungful of oxygen. It took so long for him to speak that Allegra wondered whether she should maybe come back another time. But then, she realized he might not last long enough for there to be another time, so she waited silently.
For the first time since she’d arrived, Langdon deigned to speak to her directly. “I considered making you sign an NDA, too, but then remembered you’re a stubborn bitch who’d probably just walk out and not look back.”
That brought a smile to Allegra’s lips. Well, more of a grimace, really, but they’d both hated each other for more than a quarter century now, so a proper smile wouldn’t have fooled anyone. Now she was on familiar ground, sparring with the man who’d tried to ruin her on several occasions and failed. “And I’d take that oxygen mask with me on my way out the door, you miserable sod.”
A sparkle of amusement shone in Langdon’s dull, rheumy eyes as he enjoyed the verbal sparring, but then they became serious again. He made a dismissive motion toward the back corner of the room.
Awani immediately walked to a library chair positioned in the exact middle of the corner and sat.
Langdon’s hands shook as he absently smoothed out the starched white sheet on his bed. “My sons are both dead.”
