The live-in companion of Stieg Larsson, the Swedish crime author who died before his "Millennium" trilogy became a cult hit worldwide, has rejected a 2.82-million-dollar settlement to end an inheritance row.

Larsson's father Erland and brother Joakim offered his companion of 32 years, Eva Gabrielsson, 20 million kronor (1.92 million euros, 2.82 million dollars) in early November.

"She received an offer and turned it down," Joakim Larsson told Swedish news agency TT on Friday.

"We offered her money so she could live a financially comfortable life," he said.

The "Millennium" trilogy has become a phenomenon in Sweden and abroad, translated into more than 30 languages and made into a movie. Its popularity is a striking contrast to the author's tragic fate.

Larsson, who worked as a journalist in Stockholm before writing the books, did not live to enjoy the sensational success; he died in November 2004 of a heart attack, aged 50, a year before the first book was published.

Since Larsson and Gabrielsson were unmarried, childless and he died without leaving a will, his book rights and inheritance -- which swelled with the wild success of his books -- went to his father and brother under Swedish law.

In the years since Stieg Larsson's death, the two sides have argued publicly over the inheritance, with Gabrielsson arguing that Larsson's family should have renounced their rights since "Erland and Joakim were never a part of our lives".

The Larssons', who made their offer to Gabrielsson in an article published in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet on November 2, said they made the offer because they were tired of being portrayed as the "bad guys".

Gabrielsson's lawyer Sara Pers-Krause told TT her client did not want to resolve the inheritance row through media outlets.

The trilogy has sold more than 20 million copies in Europe alone and raked in 130 million kronor (12.5 million euros, 18.3 million dollars), according to TT.

Larsson's books depict a dark and violent Sweden brimming with state and family secrets, and follow the lives of Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative reporter, and Lisbeth Salander, a feisty rebel hacker-turned-detective.