by Teresa Hill
“Nothing.” She sniffled. “I went to see Gram and Gladdy. That’s all.”
“What’s wrong with them?” He’d come to adore them himself, couldn’t stand the idea that anything had happened to them.
“Nothing. We just…we talked, that’s all. They’d sorted through Leo’s room the other day, and Gram sent some of those things with me for you. She said she’s kept a few photos, and that she’ll have copies made and get the originals to you soon, if that’s okay.”
“That’s fine,” he said.
“And she kept his cologne. It smells like him. She loved the way he smelled.”
“She can have anything she wants,” he stated, still not thinking he was getting the whole story here.
Something was wrong. Why would Jane be upset by anything from Leo’s room?
“The first box is just outside the door. I put it down to let myself in.”
“I’ll get it.”
He did, looking at the thing as if something in it might jump out and bite him. It was just a box. Photos of the exes, Wyatt saw, one of him and Leo, one of him and Leo and his father, a few books and some papers.
He’d forgotten about the box he’d brought home, about Jane’s present, until she walked into the living room and saw it. He set Leo’s things down on the floor by the sofa and then took a seat beside Jane, happy to have something here that he hoped would make her happy, too.
“I got you a present today,” he declared.
She sat there, looking surprised and a little apprehensive.
Why would the idea of him bringing her a present leave her uneasy?
He had that tight feeling in his throat again, not the full-blown, awful choking feeling, but something that seemed as if it might turn into that.
“Go ahead,” he spoke, while he still could. “Open it.”
She smiled, but only with her mouth, not with her eyes, and untied the big gold ribbon, pulling it off the top of the box. Inside were a half-dozen camisoles with matching lacy panties and silk robes of different colors.
“I had trouble making up my mind. So I got all of them,” he said, thinking, too late, that he might have done something wrong.
She laughed, barely, and he thought he saw a hint of tears in her eyes, as she reached out and ran her hand along the pale yellow set. “They’re beautiful.”
“One for every day of the week except Sunday. I thought on Sunday, you could just be naked, all day,” he tried, seeing if that would win him a real smile.
No luck.
“Pick a color. See if they fit,” he said.
And the minute she did and disappeared into the bathroom in the master bedroom, he started digging through that box of Leo’s things, needing to know what the hell was going on.
Chapter Fifteen
There was nothing in the box to bring anyone to tears.
Not that he saw, looking through it quickly.
Photos. Lots of photos. Leo’s diplomas from both college and grad school. Marriage licenses. Divorce decrees. Various financial records. An envelope from a lawyer with a Las Vegas address, marked Prenuptial Agreement.
Wyatt didn’t think the prenup could have upset her. She already knew Leo and Kathleen had signed one. She’d even wanted her grandmother to have one to protect Kathleen’s own assets, so Jane couldn’t have been surprised Leo would have wanted one to protect himself, too.
Wyatt opened the big envelope. He was executor of Leo’s estate, after all, and he didn’t see anything else that might upset anyone in this box.
He pulled out copies of a prenup, standard stuff, both keeping assets they had brought into the marriage, making no claim on the other’s assets, agreeing to divide equally any assets they had acquired during the course of the marriage.
Nothing there to be upset about.
The next stack of papers said…Last Will and Testament of Leonardo Thomas Gray, dated the same day as the prenups, the day he and Kathleen went to Las Vegas and got married.
Leo made a new will?
Wyatt sat down, surprised.
He’d drawn up all of Leo’s various wills, handled all of his divorces since Wyatt had passed the bar, done all of his prenups. Why would Leo ever make a new will without Wyatt?
He glanced at the cover letter accompanying the will….
Dear Mr. Gray,
Believe I’ve covered all the changes you asked for…keeping all previous bequests from the most recent will…adding $5,000 in trust for Maxwell Carson, $20,000 for new weight-room equipment at Remington Park and $500,000 in trust for Margaret Jane Carlton….
Leo left Jane a half-million dollars?
That was impossible.
The bathroom door opened and Jane walked out, wrapped in pale yellow silk that fell from her shoulders down to the floor, a hint of the matching lace camisole showing between the folds of the robe.
No wonder she looked so apprehensive when she came home.
He was about to figure out the scheme. That her grandmother and Gladdy hadn’t wanted Leo’s money. That part was true. They’d gotten it for Jane instead.
“Margaret Jane Carlton?” he asked.
“What?”
She played innocent, and did it very well, he saw, infuriating him all the more. “Is your full name Margaret Jane Carlton?”
“Yes. Wyatt, what’s wrong?”
Oh, God, she was really good at it. All innocent and treacherously beautiful and infuriating. He didn’t think a woman had ever hurt him as much as she just had.
“I found out about the money, Jane. But then, you knew I was about to. You brought the box with the new will in it. That’s why you were so upset when you walked in. Dreading this little scene?”
“What scene? What money? Wyatt, what are you talking about?” she asked, walking toward him.
“The money!” he roared, taking some measure of satisfaction in seeing her jump, startled, stopping in her tracks when he said it.
“What money?” she whispered.
“Leo’s money! The half-million dollars you got him to leave you!”
She shook her head. “Why would Leo ever leave me half-a-million dollars?”
“Careful manipulation by three greedy, scheming women, I’d guess.”
She took that like a blow, wavering on her feet and clutching the ends of the robe together. “You think my grandmother, Gladdy and I tricked Leo out of a half-million dollars?”
“I know you did. I’m reading his new will. It’s all right here in black and white.” He smacked the papers against the frame of the door leading to the bedroom.
“You’re crazy,” she insisted.
“It’s right here, Jane! You can’t play innocent anymore! God, I should have known all along. I grew up with women like you. My entire life, I saw nothing but women like you, out for all they could get from my father and Leo, even from me. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I was this stupid! I was actually starting to trust you, to count on you. I even told someone this week that you were different from the other women I’ve known.” He shook his head, laughed bitterly. “What a crock.”
“Wyatt, I have no idea what you’re talking about—”
“God, I have no patience for this. Just get out!” he yelled, and when she didn’t move, kept right on yelling. “Get out or so help me, God, I will throw you out.”
She still didn’t budge, just stood there, gaping at him.
He started toward her, angrier than he’d ever been in his life, and she edged away, backing around the perimeter of the room and toward the front door.
“Wyatt, please,” she begged.
“None of it was real?” He could still hardly believe it. “None of it?”
“Of course it was. All of it was real!”
“Get out!” he roared.
She grabbed her keys, left there by the door, didn’t bother with shoes or clothes or anything else, and fled.
He picked up the nearest thing he could reach, a vase of some kind, and threw it,
feeling some sense of satisfaction as it shattered against the front door she’d just slammed shut as she escaped.
Jane didn’t have on any shoes.
She was shaking all over, trying to hold the robe together. She had her car keys, thank goodness, but no shoes.
Walking hurt. The asphalt was grainy, lumpy, and here and there were little pebbles that she stepped on.
It hurt.
But not as much as her heart.
She was still sobbing. One couple passed her and looked scared of her, and another kindhearted older woman asked if she needed help, the police or an ambulance or something. She thanked her and swore she was okay, which was a complete lie, but she just wanted to get away, to get someplace where she could be alone and cry in private, no one looking at her, no one wondering what was wrong.
Why in the world would Leo Gray leave her all that money? She hadn’t even liked him, and he’d hardly known her.
Vaguely, she considered that Gram might have asked him to leave Jane some money, but surely Gram knew that Jane was incredibly responsible with money and well on her way to being completely financially secure. She wasn’t wealthy, but she earned a good living and had always had a knack for investments that turned out well. She’d been investing in the stock market since she was twelve.
So this didn’t make any sense.
And how could Wyatt believe this whole time that she’d been out for nothing but money? That she and her sweet Gram and Gladdy had schemed to get their hands on Leo’s money?
She sobbed so hard she dropped her keys, and then while she wasn’t paying attention, she stepped on something that really hurt. At least, she’d made it to her car. She hobbled, mostly on one foot, to the door and got in, her need to just sit there and cry it out warring with her need to get away from here, away from Wyatt.
Wanting to get away won. She dried her tears as best she could, though more fell right away to replace them. Then she headed for her apartment and the blessed solitude to be found there.
It was late before Jane stopped crying, and her brain worked well enough to want to think, logically, about what might have happened. And then, she just couldn’t leave all the questions until morning.
She called Gram, apologizing profusely for waking her and likely scaring her. Any phone call at this hour was almost always about something bad.
“Gram, you didn’t ask Leo to leave me some money, did you?” she asked, her voice raw from all the crying.
“Jane, darling, what in the world is wrong? What’s happened? You sound awful. Are you sick?”
“No. I’ve just…Wyatt and I had a fight,” she admitted, then started to cry again, mad at herself for doing it but unable to stop.
“About what? What did that man do to you?”
“Threw me out of his apartment—”
“Told you to get out? Or actually threw you out, because if he hurt you, Gladdy and I will—”
“Just told me to get out,” she rushed on. “Sorry.”
“Jane, honey, you’re crying your eyes out? Over a man?”
“Yes,” she confessed. “Gram, you have to tell me. Did you ask Leo to leave me money in his will?”
“No. Of course not. Why would I? You’re doing fine. Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I never imagined you needed any money from me or Gladdy, and I certainly knew you’d be insulted at the idea of any man giving you money.”
“Yes, I would. But Wyatt says he did. He said Leo made a new will in Las Vegas, and he left me a half-million dollars, left some money to Remington Park for a weight room—”
“Now, he did talk about the weight room. That it just wasn’t what it should be. Apparently, he liked to lift weights.”
“Okay, so that part makes sense. And there was one other thing. $5,000 to someone named…Maxwell. I don’t know any Maxwell. Do you? Maxwell Carson, I think.”
“That’s Amy’s last name. Carson. Her son’s name is Max. Yes, I bet that’s Max. Leo adored him.”
“Enough for Leo to leave Max money in his will?”
“Maybe. We kept Max one day, when he had a day off from kindergarten and Amy’s babysitter canceled at the last minute. Leo had so much fun with Max. He said it was a shame, how hard Amy worked for so little money, and he worried about her being able to take care of Max.”
“Okay, so that makes sense, I guess. But what about me? Why me? He wouldn’t just leave me that much money. Would he?”
“I don’t know,” Gram said. “I’ll think about it while Gladdy and I get a cab and come see you.”
“No, it’s late, and I’m fine—”
“You are most certainly not fine. We’ll call a cab. We’ll be there in thirty minutes. No arguments. We’re taking care of you now.”
They arrived in less time than that, letting themselves in with their key, and rushed into Jane’s bedroom, fussing and hugging her close and trying to dry her tears, as if she was a little girl again.
It felt so nice, Jane decided. She hardly ever got fussed over, hardly ever allowed it.
“That horrible man!” Gladdy said. “Throwing you out of his apartment? Breaking your poor, dear heart? How dare he?”
She was incensed on Jane’s behalf, ready to do battle if necessary, maybe even eager for it, and just knowing that made Jane feel better. They sat on the bed with her, one of them on either side, snuggling close, the three Carlton women, together through good times and bad.
She absolutely adored them.
Gram went to the kitchen eventually, insisting ice cream was in order, that it helped soothe all heartaches, and then nearly had a fit when she found a little blood on Jane’s kitchen floor.
“What did that man do to you?” she demanded, looking fierce.
“He didn’t hurt me. I told you that. I just…I left his apartment without my shoes, and when I was walking to my car, I stepped on something. I didn’t even realize I’d cut my foot until I got back here. I thought I’d wiped all the blood up, but I guess I missed some.”
“Let me see what he did! Let me see right now,” Gram demanded.
Jane pulled the covers off her foot, which she’d bandaged, hastily and not very well before she’d climbed into her bed. Gram and Gladdy fussed some more, unwrapping it, moving a lamp so they could see it more clearly, then insisting that the cut was deep and might well need stitches.
“It does not. I just stepped on something—”
“Glass, most likely. And if it is glass, it could still be in there, and it has to come out.”
“Gram, I just want to sleep, honestly. I feel so much better that both of you are here, but now, I’m just exhausted.”
Gram frowned, but didn’t argue. “Okay, but I’m not leaving you.”
“Me either,” said Gladdy. “We’ll have a sleepover. We haven’t done that in a long time. It’ll be fun. We’ll see how your foot is in the morning. And decide what we’re going to do with that awful man. He’s not going to get away with treating you like this. We won’t let him.”
Wyatt drank himself into oblivion that night.
It was the only thing that made him not really feel anything, and he needed desperately to not feel anything. Because mostly, he just felt way too much.
Feelings, he thought, snarling. Who needed to feel anything, really? It was all so…messy and upsetting and just came out of nowhere at a man. One minute, he was going along with his life, just fine, and the next…He was flat on the floor, drunk and wishing he couldn’t feel a thing.
Life had to be easier that way.
He’d been just fine until Jane came along. Beautiful, deceitful, lying Jane.
He’d actually thought she was different and had even told her so. That was the most infuriating part. He’d believed her. About everything.
What an idiot he was!
He woke sometime later—in daylight as he could see from the windows of his apartment—to someone pounding on his door. Or was that the pounding in his head?
Maybe both, he decided.
Even sitting up, slowly and carefully, the room still did that sickening tilt. And the pounding on the door kept right on going. He wasn’t imagining it. It wasn’t all in his head.
He finally got to the door, opened it, and Jane’s grandmother, who’d worked herself into a full-blown rage, swept inside, looking at him as if he was the devil himself.
Wyatt fought the urge to shield himself from her, thinking she might literally attack at any moment. She fumed at him, bringing her hands up as if she was weighing the value of a good, quick punch or two.
He told himself that surely he could duck the punch of a little old lady, if he had to and stood his ground. He just wished the room would stop its sickening tilt every time he turned his head. He wasn’t sure he could duck a punch when the room wasn’t even standing still.
“You stupid boy!” she said.
“And you,” he shot back. “Ms. I Don’t Need Leo Gray’s Money. He was dying, and the last days he spent on this earth, he spent with you. You and your granddaughter taking him for half-a-million dollars!”
“I didn’t take anything from him!”
“No, you left that part to Jane. What a great scam. I can just hear you, working it on Leo. ‘It’s not for me, Leo. I don’t need anything for myself. But Jane…poor Jane, I worry about her so—”
“Only when it comes to men, not money. Is your view of women so twisted that you can’t even fathom the existence of a woman who earns her own money? Is smart and sensible and financially secure on her own? That there might be at least one or two women in this world who didn’t want the Gray men for their money?”
“Haven’t found one yet,” Wyatt retorted.
“Yes, you have. You stupid boy! Where is this will? I want to see it for myself, because I don’t believe Leo would have done this. He would have known the quickest way to ruin anything between you and Jane would be for you to think she was after your money. Or his.”
“And why would he be so worried about ruining anything between me and Jane?”
“Because this whole thing was a setup. This whole thing between me and Leo and Gladdy, all the trouble we caused. It was us trying to get you and Jane together.”