The Inheritors by Harold Robbins

table. I had to call room service to help get you to bed.”
    “Is there any coffee?” I asked.
    “There’s some on the dining room table. I’ll get it for you.”
    I went into the bathroom. When I came out she had a steaming cup on the tray. I took it from her hand and sipped it. “That’s a help,” I said. “But I’ll need more than that to get started. You’ll find a bottle of cognac on the bar.”
    She watched me lace the coffee. “You’re drinking more than you used to.”
    I looked at her silently.
    “Okay,” she said. “I’m not the one to talk.”
    “That’s right,” I said. “Stay loose.”
    “Good advice. Why don’t you take it yourself?” She came close to me. “You’re uptight.”
    “I got a lot of things on my head.”
    “You were wrong,” she said. “You didn’t get him. He got you.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’re drinking more and fucking less. That’s the true sign of a big executive.”
    I didn’t speak.
    “I could have saved myself the bother,” she said. “I wore the new nightgown. I saved it from the last time I was here. But it didn’t work that time either.”
    I watched her walk into the bathroom and close the door. I looked down at the coffee cup in my hand. She was right. It had been three months now. Ever since I got the job. I put the cup down on the dresser. When she came out of the bathroom I was back in bed.
    “What’s the matter?” she asked, a quick concern in her voice. “Don’t you feel well?”
    “I never felt better.”
    Suddenly she was kneeling by the side of the bed, holding my face in her two hands, covering it with quick tiny kisses. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she said in between them.
    “Don’t get personal,” I said, pulling her up on the bed beside me. “You’ll blow your cool.”
    ***
    It was two thirty in the morning when I stopped the car in front of Aunt Prue’s house. The bright, full, winter moon bouncing from the snow turned the night into day.
    “The house is dark,” Barbara said as we crunched our way through the snow to the front door. “You’ll frighten the hell out of her, waking her up at this hour.”
    I reached up and took the key from its hiding place over the doorframe. “Chances are she won’t even know we’re here until we come down in the morning.”
    Light spilled into the foyer from her small office. “Chances are that you’re wrong as usual,” Aunt Prue said from the doorway.
    She came into my arms and for a moment I had that surprise I always had when I realized she was never as tall as I thought she was. Somehow you always think of your elders as bigger than you. I kissed her.
    “How did you get up here?”
    “Drove from New York.”
    “In this storm?” she asked.
    “The snow stopped a long time ago. The turnpike’s all cleared.”
    She turned to Barbara and held out her hand. “I’m Prudence Gaunt,” she said. “And my nephew hasn’t changed a bit since he was a boy. He still forgets his manners.”
    Barbara took her hand. “Barbara Sinclair. And I’m very pleased to meet you. Steve’s been talking about you all the way up.”
    “Lies probably.” But I could see that she was pleased. “You must be frozen. Let me fix some tea for you.”
    “With rum, Aunt Prue,” I said. “If you haven’t forgotten your own recipe.”
    In the morning we went walking in the snow on the beach. The sun was bright and danced like diamonds on the snow. We got back to the house, our faces red and shining, in time for lunch.
    Aunt Prue was at the door. “There’ve been five calls from New York for you.”
    I looked at her. “What did you tell them?”
    “You weren’t here,” she said.
    “Good. If they call again, tell them you haven’t seen or heard from me.”
    “Is there anything wrong, Stephen?” she asked.
    “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “I wanted to get away for a while. I needed a vacation.”
    “What about your job?”
    “It will keep.”
    After three days