LOVE AND MONEY (Park Avenue Series, Book #3) by Ruth Harris

Author:Ruth Harris [Harris, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, familysaga, bestseller, Sisters, triangle, inheritance, legacy
Published: 2013-12-25T05:00:00+00:00

V

DIFFERENT WORLDS

Wall Street had no building more elegant than that which housed Lancome & Dahlen. Luther Dahlen and Hamilton Lancome, Sr., had bought it at a bargain price during the thirties and in the intervening years had turned down increasingly large offers for the property. Designed in Greek Revival style by Haynes Whittier Apthorpe and built of white granite in 1873, its columned facade and stately proportions made it an architectural masterpiece, a state of place as well as a state of mind, a structure that spoke of prestige, money and tradition.

The name of the company that owned it, Lancome & Dahlen, was chiseled into the white marble over the broad double doorway in elegant Roman letters. A uniformed security guard, obviously instructed to expect her, opened the heavy front door for Lana as she stood there, unable to find a bell and not quite sure whether or not a knock would be heard.

“You’re here for Mr. Dahlen?” he asked. His red potato face was Irish, Lana knew. An Irish face that was, like Will’s, no stranger to the bottle. An Irish face that had been in the basement sipping whiskey when Slash Steiner and Pete Oney had quietly let themselves into the building through the employee’s entrance.

“I’m Miss Bantry,” Lana said nervously. The awe Lana felt at the sight of the palatial building rendered her almost tongue-tied. Through the partially opened door she could see shimmering marble floors and polished antique furniture. She felt she had wandered into a palace, not an office building, and the stirrings of intimidation she had felt at the Paul Revere earlier that day were multiplied by a thousand. She felt awkward, out of place and inferior. She was filled with an unwelcome surge of resentment at the comparison she couldn’t help but make between the physical evidence of her father’s riches and the relentless, remorseless life-draining financial struggles with which she had grown up. The endless self-denial, the constant penny pinching, the always ending up with second best and doing without had all been unnecessary.

“Mr. Dahlen’s already here,” the watchman replied, cutting off Lana’s thoughts. “He’s waiting for you upstairs.”

With a gesture, he directed her toward the stairs and Russell Dahlen’s second-floor office. Picking up her suitcase, Lana, sick to her very soul at the unnecessary unhappiness and deprivations of her childhood, began to mount the stairs.

As Lana made her way up the ornately carved, exquisitely curved staircase, the evidence of her father’s wealth mounted. She caught enticing and tantalizing glimpses of the polished Chippendale, the massed bouquets of fresh flowers, the English landscapes, the working fireplaces and the rich Oriental carpets that decorated the private rooms and offices. Lana had never heard the word Chippendale, did not know the names of the English nineteenth-century landscape painters and was unfamiliar with the terms Shiraz and Kirman. Yet the sense of wealth and luxury, safety and security was overwhelming and, as Lana reached the top of the staircase, she could not help but be profoundly bitter at the way fate had so cruelly cheated her.

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