The Tawny Gold Man Read Free Page A

Anne."
    "I wasn't his daughter," she protested. "I never expected—
    "No, you weren't his daughter," he interrupted. "You were, for all intents and purposes, his slave."
    "He was very good to me." She almost screamed at him.
    "Why the hell shouldn't he have been?" he shouted. "You never made a move he disapproved of."
    Anne drew deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down. This was proving nothing. Her voice more steady, she said quietly, "I won't argue anymore about this, Jud. If there is nothing else you want to discuss I'll go up to moth—"
    "There is," he cut in firmly. "If you have any papers or anything else pertaining to the office here at home, I'd like you to get them together. My secretary will be in the office tomorrow and it will be easier for her if—
    Now it was Anne's turn to interrupt. Her voice hollow with shock, she cried, "Your secretary? But that's my office."
    Even though his voice was bland, it chilled her.
    "I don't need you in that office, Anne; that's what I pay my secretary for. So if there's anything here, collect it before tomorrow. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some phone calls to make."
    Turning quickly, Anne left the room. She heard him dialing as she closed the door. Then she stood staring at her trembling hands. That easily, that coolly, she had been dismissed, not only from the room but from the office as well. Fighting tears, she ran upstairs to her bedroom. What was she supposed to do now?
     

     
    Chapter 2
     
    Anne paced the deep rose carpet in her bedroom, Jud's words still ringing in her ears. If she wasn't going to go to the office and he didn't want her to move out of the house, what was she to do? Get another job? Work for a rival company? That didn't make much sense. Maybe he meant her to stay at home, run the house, live the kind of life her mother did. Women's clubs and bridge games and shopping week in, week out. Anne shivered. She would go out of her mind. Maybe if the twins were still small enough to keep her running, but not now. She was too used to the office. Tears trickling down her face, she riled silently. Didn't he realize she knew almost as much about the managerial end of the business as his father had? She could be of help to him while he was familiarizing himself with it. Why had he turned her out? Did he hate her that much?
     
    In frustration she flung herself onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. He had changed so drastically. Uninvited and unwelcome, a picture of him as he was the last time she saw him formed in her mind. How young she had been then. Young and naive and so very much in love. Anne's face burned at the memory of how very gullible she had been at fifteen.
     
    * * * *
     
    It had been Jud's twenty-fifth birthday and Anne had waited with growing impatience for him to come home to dinner. She felt her spirits drop when her stepfather came home alone and when he told her mother that Jud would not be home for dinner as he had a date, her spirits sank completely.
    The hours had seemed to drag endlessly as Anne, unable to sleep, sat in her room, ears strained for the sound of his car on the driveway. On the table beside her small bedroom chair lay a tiny birthday present, its fancy bow almost twice the size of the package. At intervals Anne touched the bow gently, lovingly. She had saved so long to buy this gift, had been so eager to give it to him. Eager and also a little nervous. It was not quite a year since she had first seen the brush-finished gold cuff links and she had known at once she wanted to give them to him. At first she had thought of giving them to him at Christmas but she had not been able to save enough money. So she had taken the money she had and had talked to the store manager. He in turn had removed the links from the display window, put her name on them, and had set them aside for her. She had made the last payment on them the previous week. Now, staring at the small, wrapped box, she saw the matte surface of the gold ovals,