Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
“They’ll take away your Indian card,” Diya had said with a giggle when I confessed to her after the first time Shumi handed me a cup of the chai she’d made with such love. “Are you sure you’re even half-brown?”
“Ha ha.” I’d tickled the bottoms of her feet in vengeance, sent her squealing.
Despite her teasing, however, she’d grabbed my chai the next time it was thrust on me and gulped it down while no one else was watching. “The things I do for love,” she’d whispered afterward.
What, I thought around the pulsating ache in my heart, had Shumi done for love?
Chapter 34
Susanne
Connelly West, attorney-at-law, pushed up his reading glasses even though he already knew the contents of the will verbatim.
His small audience waited in silence.
“Mrs. Susanne Eliza Winthorpe was of sound mind when she updated and verified this last will and testament four months ago. She insisted on recording herself in the process so that no one would dare imply that she’d—and I quote—‘lost her marbles at the end.’ ”
A sniffle of laughter from the red-eyed woman Connelly knew to have been Susanne’s dearest friend. “That sounds like Sue.”
“It does,” Susanne’s nephew said, his face florid and his suit ill fitting.
The much younger man who sat behind the two, next to another woman, said nothing, but his expression was stark. Susanne had planned her own funeral and given Connelly that plan during the same session in which she’d updated her will. “If I give the responsibility to anyone else, Lord knows who will browbeat them into pomp and ceremony. With you, it’s a legal imperative and they won’t dare interfere.”
Connelly had enjoyed Susanne as a client and appreciated her as a woman of strong character.
As it was, she’d wanted no pallbearers or lengthy speeches aside from the one she’d taped herself, so Connelly hadn’t seen her young man speak, but he’d recognized Tavish Advani from Susanne’s descriptions of her lover, a man who, she’d told him, had turned out to be of far deeper character than she’d ever imagined when they first met.
Connelly remained taken aback by the age difference between the two, but with Susanne being who she was, Advani clearly had to be more than looks. Susanne assuredly wouldn’t have permitted him to stay with her in her last months if he’d been nothing but a pretty face.
That her young man had remained by her side when so many much older men vanished without a trace when their wives and girlfriends got sick? Yes, Connelly was predisposed to like Tavish Advani.
“First of all,” Connelly began, “she’s left her New York apartment to you, Cici.” He knew none of the group would want him to read out the legal verbiage. “While it’s yours to do with as you wish, she thought you might want to pass it on to your granddaughter in time, as she’s a city girl like Sue.”
Cici laughed again, the sound wet. “She’s right. It’s like my child gave birth to a younger version of my best friend. Only nine, and she’s already putting on shows and telling us about how she’s going to be on Broadway.”
Susanne had said that Cici wouldn’t argue for more, that she wouldn’t even expect this much, and Connelly was pleased to see that Sue had been right about her friend. It wasn’t often that he saw the better side of human nature at these readings. People—especially people with money—became grasping and venal creatures when more money was on the table.
“She’s also left you some of her jewelry,” Connelly continued. “The exact items are listed in an appendix, but she asked me to assure you that they are all tasteful pieces that will not shock your neighbors or give you the vapors.”
“I am going to miss her so much.” Soft words from Cici, even as the man next to her moved with greedy impatience while attempting a sympathetic expression that came across as a grimace.
“To her nephew, Harold,” Connelly said, meeting the man’s gaze, “she leaves fifty thousand dollars in a lump sum.”
Harold’s mouth parted. “That’s it?”
“It’s considerable,” Connelly said mildly. “Susanne has specifically noted that she assigned you five thousand dollars for every time you visited her in the last fifteen years. She intended for you to receive her dear husband’s prized Rolex, but after you made it clear you found it old-fashioned and ‘fusty’ on your last visit, she decided to donate it to an organization of which Mr. Winthorpe was a patron.”
Harold had the grace to flush beet red and shut up.
Had Susanne had her way, she’d have left her “idiot nephew” the grand total of nothing. Connelly was the one who’d suggested she give the atrocious man a nominal amount in relation to the entirety of her estate, and that she put her reasoning for it in writing. It would make it much harder for him to challenge the will when it was clear that he hadn’t been forgotten—he’d just been left a minor bequest on purpose.