Save The Date!: The Rebel and the Heiress / Not Just a Convenient Marriage / Crown Prince, Pregnant Bride

His face darkened. ‘Or would you prefer to take it back to the big house and open it in private?’

Her spine stiffened. Her chin lifted. ‘I never once thought you a thief, Rick Bradford!’ A temptation, definitely, and one she fully intended to resist, but a thief? No.

For a moment his slouch lost some of its insolence. ‘Goes to show what you know, Nell Smythe-Whittaker. My teenage shoplifting is on police record.’

‘I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.’ She pulled the box towards her, unlocked it and lifted the lid. Her breath caught. ‘Oh, her rings! I remember her wearing these.’ She had to swallow a lump. ‘My grandfather gave her this one.’ She touched a large diamond ring. ‘And this emerald belonged to her grandmother. The gold signet belonged to her mother.’ She lifted them out one by one and passed them to Rick.

‘The diamond and the emerald might fetch you a bit.’

‘I couldn’t sell them!’

She knew he wouldn’t understand her sentimentality, but...her grandmother was the only person in her life who’d loved her unconditionally.

‘How old were you when she died?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘That must’ve been tough.’

Sure, but it was nothing compared to all Rick had been through in his life. ‘Oh, look.’ She lifted a shoulder in a wry shrug. ‘John has left me a letter.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘He’s turning out to be the regular correspondent.’

Dear Miss Nell,

If you’ve found your grandma’s box then I expect you know why I hid it. I’m sorry I couldn’t rescue it all before your daddy got a hold of the diamond necklace.

She stopped to glance into the box. ‘Yep, gone,’ she clarified.

‘We only have John’s word it was your father who took it.’

‘And my knowledge of my father.’

Rick straightened. Unfortunately, it didn’t make his shoulders any the less droolworthy. ‘Hell, Nell.’

‘Hell’s bells, Nell, has an even better ring to it,’ she told him, resisting the sympathy in his eyes and choosing flippancy instead.

Who are you really angry with?

She cleared her throat and smoothed out the sheet of paper.

I know the old lady meant these for you, and I know you’d want to pass them on to your own daughters when the time comes.

Regards, John.

She folded the letter and put it back in the box. Silently, Rick put the rings back on top. Nell locked it. She pulled in a breath and then met his gaze. ‘Rick, would you please put this back where you found it?’

His head rocked back. ‘Why? You should at least wear this stuff if you’re not going to sell it. You should at least enjoy remembering your grandmother.’

In an ideal world...

She moistened her lips. ‘The set of master keys for Whittaker House are nowhere to be found. Until I find them I can’t...’ She halted, swallowed. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I can’t think of a safer place to keep them than where we found them.’

‘You’re forgetting one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I know where they are.’

‘I’ve already told you that I don’t believe you’re a thief.’

‘No, but I do mean to make you a proposal, Princess, and that might change how you feel about things.’

CHAPTER FIVE (#u3f9fdf6e-fc9a-5cdb-9698-64df85846d7d)

NELL’S HEART STUTTERED at the casual way Rick uttered the word proposal. It held such promise and she knew that promise was a lie.

Oh, not a lie on his behalf, but on hers. She wanted to invest it with more meaning than he could ever hope to give it—a carry-over from her childhood fantasies of making things right over the locket.

The childhood fantasy of having one true friend.

But Rick didn’t know any of that. The man in front of her might look like the boy who’d starred in her fantasies, but inside she didn’t doubt that her boy and the real Rick were very different people.

Life hadn’t been kind to Rick Bradford.

And she needed to remember he had no reason to think kindly or act kindly towards her.

He stared at her with those dark eyes and she drew a long breath into her lungs. ‘Proposal?’ She was proud her voice didn’t tremble.

‘I was going to leave Sydney at the end of the week.’

That didn’t give them much time to crack John’s code.

‘I’ve holidayed long enough and it’s time to be doing something.’

She couldn’t help herself. ‘What do you do for work?’ Did he have a regular job?

‘I usually pick up some building labourer’s work here and there.’

So, that’d be a no then.

He grinned—a lazy insolent thing, as if he’d read her mind. ‘I don’t like being tied down to one thing for too long.’

She knew then he was talking about women and relationships too.

‘I like my freedom.’

Given how his freedom had been curtailed in prison, she could understand that.