The Runaway Heiress

by Meg Tilly

  By some miracle Maggie had been able to maintain her composure while contacting the wedding guests, canceling what services she could and donating the rest. She still had to contact the store where she’d registered and arrange to return the enormous pile of gifts so credit cards could be refunded. However, first she needed to sort through the presents so she could personalize the thank-you notes that had to be written. There was too much to do. No way in hell was she going to allow herself to fall apart now and start bawling in the middle of the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

  “I want to kill that son of a bitch,” her dad said. Her dad had always been even-tempered and slow to anger, but he was angry now.

  Maggie dragged her gaze from the departure board to where her dad stood beside her mom. Bill Harris’s large hands, hardened by years of construction work, were clenched, and worry had etched deeper grooves in the lines on his face.

  “Dad,” Maggie said, reaching out and patting his arm, “really, it’s all right.” Her parents looked at least five years older than they had a week ago, and for that alone, she wanted to kill the bastard herself. “I’m just sorry you flew all this way for nothing—”

  “Nonsense,” her dad said, his voice gruff.

  “We’re grateful we were here,” Rosemund said, pulling Maggie in for a hug. Her mom was small, a tiny bird of a woman, but seriously strong for a woman of any age, let alone one in her sixties. All those years pitching in on sites, running wiring, lugging pipes, installing pot-lights, had kept not just her mom but the whole family fit.

  Maggie felt her dad’s arms encircle the two of them. A part of her longed to give herself over to the comfort of her parents’ support, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to shatter. “Not every occasion,” her mom continued as if Maggie weren’t standing stiffly in her arms, “is going to be a happy one. But it’s the spending of time, the sharing of experiences, that is the glue that bonds a family together.”

  The boarding announcement for the flight to Tampa came over the loudspeaker just in time. Maggie blinked her eyes hard and pulled away. “You gotta go,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “You don’t want to miss your flight.”

  There was a final hasty hug, and then her parents left, turning to wave a few times before disappearing from sight.

  3

  “Don’t you think you are being a little unreasonable?” Brett said, leaning forward and steepling his tanned, manicured fingers on the desk in front of him. Their desk. He was smiling that smile that used to make her melt. Funny how two weeks of hell can change one’s perceptions, she mused. She’d always thought he blow-dried his “sun-streaked” blond hair a little too poofy, but she had never noticed before just how practiced his smile was.

  Her sister had. “He’s too slick,” Eve had said when she’d first met him. “Too smooth. I don’t trust him.”

  Maggie had waved her worries aside. “Are you kidding? He’s perfect.”

  “Yes, and that’s what worries me, because no one—Maggie, look at me—no one is perfect.”

  And now, standing in the Camelback East Village office that she and Brett had shared, she saw what Eve had seen all those years ago. Five years and four months of her life Maggie had wasted on this narcissistic, insensitive creep. A frigging five-year engagement. Ha! That should have been a clue.

  “Just because I decided I didn’t want to marry you doesn’t mean I don’t want to continue working with you. We’re a great team. I’m the ideas man and you implement all the details. Take that derelict church, for instance. Turning it into a high-end condo development was a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. Presales are moving extremely well. Yes, I know you’re doing a lot of work, but we’re going to make a shitload of money on this one. Comfort Homes is just starting to hit the big leagues. Seriously, sweetie, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”

  “First,” Maggie said, holding up her hand, palm thrust out like a traffic cop, “I am not your ‘sweetie.’ Second, even you, with your pin-sized brain, must know that calling off a wedding the night before it’s supposed to occur would not, under any circumstances, be classified as a molehill!”

  Brett opened his mouth to speak, but Maggie steamrollered right over him. “If you were having all these doubts, why did you insist on making it such a big event? I wanted something small and intimate, but no! You felt it was necessary to invite three hundred and eighty-six friends, family members, and business colleagues to our wedding! Some of them could ill afford to fly themselves out here and put themselves up in a hotel, but they did it because they wanted to show us their love and support. My mom and dad rebooked their world cruise vacation because they wanted to be here for our special day. Did that even cross your mind, how you inconvenienced so many people? Then you get cold feet, and you don’t even have the balls to stand up like a man and let people know. What a jerk!”

  “A guy’s entitled to—”

  “You are entitled to nothing. Not after leaving me to make excuses and explanations and to settle the accounts. Oh, by the way, did you and Kristal enjoy our honeymoon holiday?”

  Brett blanched.

  “Yes, I know all about that. Carol enlightened me. Amazing how loose the lips of everyone at the office got once the shit hit the fan. I gather your little fling has been going on for some time. The silver lining, I suppose, is that I finally understand why you pushed so hard for her to get the VP sales position.” Maggie had been trying to keep her voice calm and modulated, to present herself as a woman in control, but it wasn’t working. She could feel the deep waves of anger rising. “Well, I hate to break it to you, buddy boy, but this?” she said, swirling her hands in the air. And it was as if the movement lit a match to the dynamite stockpiled in the pit of her stomach, because she heard herself bellow, “WAS NOT a frigging MOLEHILL!”

  Brett shifted uncomfortably. “Toots, come on. You’re being unduly harsh—”

  Eyes narrowed, Maggie snatched the John Fitzstein metal sculpture from the desk and brandished it. “Don’t you ‘toots’ me, you son of a bitch, or I’ll bash your brains out and enjoy every second of it.”

  Brett shut up.

  “Now,” Maggie continued, slamming the sculpture down on the desk with a satisfying thunk and enjoying the nervous expression on his face way more than she should. “This is the way it’s going to go down. Either you buy my half of the company, at fair market value—”

  “That’s ridiculous. You’re the one who wants to walk away. So leave. No reason I should be penalized and give you half of my company—”

  “Our company.”

  “—just because your feelings got hurt,” Brett continued, shrugging. “I understand. I’d be emotional, too, if I was going to be missing out on all of this,” Brett said, gesturing to himself.

  “Why, you self-satisfied, pompous peacock,” Maggie said, shaking her head. She couldn’t believe the nerve of this guy. “Yes, I am feeling a little emotional, but not because I’m going to miss you. Was it painful? Yes, but I’m glad my blinders were ripped off. I am angry I had such terrible judgment and didn’t see through you. I am pissed off that I let you talk me into plowing my entire inheritance from Great-aunt Clare into the start-up costs for this company. Our company. It’s amazing to me that I never noticed the timing between her death and our engagement.” Maggie had thrown that last comment in, hoping that she was wrong. That there had been something genuine in their relationship and that it hadn’t been all about money. Maybe Brett had truly wanted to marry her, and the timing of her inheritance and his sudden desire to get engaged and start their own company was a coincidence. But she could see from the expression on his face that it wasn’t.

  Maggie had thought she was fine. Now that the blinders had been ripped from her eyes, any kind of emotional tie would no longer have its talons sunk into her. But the knowledge that she had been played all those years was like a fist
to the gut. “Did you ever love me?” she heard herself whisper.

  Damn. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. That was a mistake. She knew it instantly. She could see Brett’s mind ticking over her question, figuring out how to use her vulnerability to his advantage. She’d seen him do it many times when they were negotiating contracts for the company.

  “Won’t work, Brett,” she said before he could open his mouth. “Don’t even bother.”

  He shrugged, giving her that boyish smile that used to make her go weak at the knees. “Maggie, come here. You look like you need a hug.”

  “Over my dead body,” she said as she took a step back and crossed her arms. “Back to business. The seed money was mine. You didn’t put a red cent into the start-up.”

  “I didn’t have—” Brett started to say.

  “I don’t want to hear your sob story, and neither do the courts. I’ve put my money and my sweat, blood, and tears into this company. Count your blessings I’m only asking for what we wrote down in the original contract. And yes, I still have it.”

  Brett’s fingers were tapping a staccato rhythm on his desk. He always did that when he was irritated.

  Maggie didn’t care.

  He leaned back in his chair, swiveled right and then left, eyes on her. “We have no idea what the current market value would be.”

  “No worries.” Maggie reached into her purse and pulled out a file. “I had ten whole days to cost it out while you and Kristal were frolicking in the sun.” She slapped the file on the desk and slid it over to him.

  “Forget it,” Brett said, crossing his arms, shaking his head. “Not going to happen.”

  Maggie shrugged. “Either you buy me out, or I’ll talk to Pondstone Inc. They were sniffing around last year, and I’m sure they would love to own my controlling shares. Though I can’t promise they won’t decide you’re useless and toss you out on your highly toned ass. That would be their call.” She arranged her features into a polite, civilized veneer and then straightened up to her full height. “Are we clear?”

  No answer.

  “Good.” Maggie dusted off her hands. “I’ll give you a couple days to mull it over. If you decide to move forward with the purchase of my shares, two weeks should be sufficient time to arrange a loan from the bank.”

  “Two weeks,” Brett choked out.

  “Yup,” Maggie said over her shoulder as she headed toward the door. “Better get cracking.” Her hand closed over the brass doorknob. It was odd to think that after all these years, she would never walk through these offices again. “Oh, wait.” She turned and went back to the desk. “I’m taking this,” she said, scooping up the sculpture and shoving it into her purse. “A souvenir.”

  Then she left with her head high. Too bad Mom and Dad couldn’t have seen me in action, she thought. They would’ve been so proud.

  4

  Supporting her weight against the boat’s rail, Maggie tilted her head back and shut her eyes, enjoying the late-afternoon sun. She could feel the thrum of the ferry’s engine vibrating through the deck below her feet. The breeze off the Pacific Ocean was brisk, stinging her cheeks and making her snuggle deeper into her sweater. She was grateful for her hat. It was cold almost to the point of discomfort, but still she didn’t go in. Yes, the passenger lounge, with its thick, salt-splashed windows, was heated. But too many people were in there, families and couples laughing and living life, huddled next to the old radiators.

  She took a deep breath, filling her body to the very brim, then exhaled and opened her eyes. It was better out here. The view from the top deck was glorious. The deep, green-gray water rushing past the bow of the boat, leaving a frill of white in its wake; the birds spiraling higher and higher, then swooping down again; the purple-blue, shadowy shapes of islands beyond islands; and the sun partway through its downward arc toward the horizon.

  “I’m glad I left,” she said out loud, tossing the words onto the wind. Trying to rally the confidence with which she had stormed out of Brett’s office yesterday afternoon, but her throat suddenly felt constricted. “That spoiled trust-fund rich bitch Kristal can have him. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say, because I really don’t care.” And then, inexplicably, her eyes filled with tears and overflowed. It must have been the cold wind, or the sun sparkling too brightly off the water—whatever it was, it was too much to bear. And she had to sit down and give way to the overwhelming sensation, sobs coming hard and fast, ripping through her body.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Meg Tilly may be best known for her acclaimed Golden Globe-winning performance in the movie Agnes of God. Other screen credits include The Big Chill, Valmont, and, more recently, Bomb Girls and the Netflix movie War Machine, starring Brad Pitt. After publishing six standout young adult and literary women's fiction novels, the award-winning author/actress decided to write the kind of books she loves to read: romance novels. Tilly has three grown children and resides with her husband in the Pacific Northwest.

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