The Third Heiress by Brenda Joyce Page A

complete bastard after all.
    Alex gripped her arm. Jill leaned into him as he propelled her toward the door. “Come on” he said. “Enough is enough. Let’s end one rotten day.”
    “It was Marisa who saved Hal’s life,” Thomas shouted from behind them. Jill faltered. And she pulled away from Alex to turn and stare across the room at Thomas.
    “Yes,” he gritted. “Marisa saved Hal’s life.”
    Jill was trembling. “What do you mean?”
    He stared. “You don’t know, do you? About the drugs and alcohol?”
    It was a moment before Jill could understand him. “Hal didn’t drink. He didn’t do drugs, either.”
    Thomas laughed, harshly, bitterly. “This entire family was in denial, refusing to see what was happening to Hal before our very eyes,” he said. “He would come home at dawn, sleep all day, reek of alcohol, be sniffing away, but we all believed him when he said he was tired, he was working too hard, he had a cold, we believed excuse after excuse, for years and years. We all closed our eyes to what was going on. But one day Marisa found him, out cold, and it was an overdose. Cocaine, speed, and alcohol. She got the medics, she was with him in the hospital, and she held his hand for the three months he was locked up in an in-patient hospital clinic. And she continued to hold his hand the following year, when he became an outpatient—which was during the year of her own divorce. It was Hal’s battle, but she was with him, in spite of her legal battles, fighting for him, every step of the way.” He was still shouting. He was also close to tears.
    Jill was shaking. She hadn’t known. She was in shock.
    “And you didn’t know,” Thomas cried.
    Jill just looked at him, his anger engulfing her, and it went through her dazed mind that Hal had kept the most important fact of his life hidden from her, and that Marisa had saved Hal’s life.
    While she, Jill, had ended it.
    Jill closed her eyes, but only for a moment. When she opened them,
they were blurred. “Why didn’t Hal marry her?’ she managed. “When was this?”
    “He cleaned up two years ago. But Marisa was in the midst of an ugly divorce. She has a child, a son, and that Italian fortune hunter she married was trying to gain custody just to have leverage against her. She and Hal were seeing each other during the divorce until it tore them apart. When Hal left for New York a year ago, it looked like Marisa’s divorce might go on for years, maybe more, because of the custody battle.” He smiled grimly. “But the divorce came through two months ago.”
    Jill reeled. Thinking, Oh, God, he had been on the verge of leaving her to go back with Marisa … “No,” she cried. “He loved me. He left her. He was with me, in New York, these past eight months—”
    Thomas cut her off. “Bloody right he was in New York with you. And I think the reason is obvious.” His gaze slid over her body in a brutally chauvinistic way.
    “I have had enough,” Jill cried, turning so quickly that she slammed into Alex’s chest, face first.
    “You’ve always known how to be cruel,” Alex said over her head, to his cousin, his hands closing around her shoulders.
    Jill pushed away from him, rushing to the door.
    “I’m not through,” Thomas said, his strides sounding as he hurried across the room after her. He caught her arm from behind, whirling her around. Jill made a small sound—that of a tiny animal, caught by its much larger, dangerous predator—a sound of pure fear.
    “You’re here now for the same reason you went after Hal in the first place,” Thomas said, his eyes filled with fury. “And don’t you deny it!”
    “I have no idea what you are talking about,” Jill gasped.
    “Don’t,” Alex said, hard, slamming one hand down on Thomas’s wrist, forcing him to release Jill.
    Jill backed up against the door.
    “Why are you protecting her? Or has she gotten to you, too?” Thomas cried to Alex.
    “I’ll ignore that. I’m going to