by Kenzie Reed
Oh, fucking Linda. She certainly has impeccable timing for screwing people over.
Sienna proceeds to tell me everything she’s done to try to find her. She tells me about the state of Linda’s apartment, and how nobody’s been able to get ahold of her. “I called the chief back and asked what was up with my mother’s car, if he knew if she’d returned it or not, and he won’t answer me at this point, because of privacy issues. I’m going to call a private investigator,” she says wearily.
“Can you afford a private investigator?”
She’s still insisting that she won’t take money from me. I know she’s secretly keeping a list of everything I’ve bought for her so she can pay me back. Kind of hurts my feelings, but I understand that her trust issues aren’t going to go away overnight.
She chews a fingernail, shifting nervously in her seat. “I’ll be fine.”
That’s not an answer. And I curse Linda for putting her through this, yet again.
I shake my head wearily. “Please trust me on this. Don’t bother with a private investigator just yet. You won’t like what you find.”
“What do you mean?” She looks baffled.
“Has past history taught you nothing? If you hire a private investigator, you’re just going to be throwing money away.”
Her eyes narrow. “You sound very sure of yourself. Are you saying that you know where my mother is, or why she left?”
“I have no idea where she is, and I can only speculate as to why she left. And that’s because she’s an insecure, selfish woman who’s obsessed with chasing after unavailable men, and she always puts her own needs first. I’m sorry. I know you asked me to give her one last chance. Chance given.”
“She isn’t even dating anyone!” Sienna snaps. “She. Has. Changed.”
“No, she told you she wasn’t dating anyone. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t.”
“I would have known.” Her tone turns desperate. “I know my mother. When she’s dating someone, she parades them all over town and brags about it nonstop. Her ability to land a man is what gets her out of bed in the morning. I mean, it used to be.”
Frustration coils up tight inside me. I’ve never been a relationship guy, and I don’t know how to have this kind of conversation. And I’ve got a vitally important meeting coming up. “I don’t know what to tell you, Sienna. I’m trying to be supportive. Just tell me how. Do you want me to just agree with everything you say right now?”
“No. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I want.” Sienna’s face crumples. “I want you to come home. I want my mother to come home.” Her voice is husky with sorrow.
I’d give anything to teleport home and take her in my arms. She’s alone, and going through hell, and I should be with her.
“I miss you too. Let’s change the subject. I don’t want to fight with you. How are Aceto and Ducktape?”
She smiles wanly. The circles under her eyes are like thumbprint bruises against her pale skin. “Oh, they’re right here! I know they’d want to talk to you.” She moves the phone and points the camera at the dynamic duo.
Aceto looks away from the screen and yawns. “Hey, Aceto. Please go easy on the couch, will you? You have scratching posts. Use them.” And then I frown at Ducktape. I don’t like having to be a hard-ass, but someone’s got to do it. “All right, Ducktape, I hear you pecked at Aceto, and that’s not cool. I don’t mean to be a dick, but he’s literally your only friend, and you may want to ask yourself why that is.”
“Are you talking to a duck?” Graham entered the room when I wasn’t looking. He was walking towards me, but he starts backing away and holding his hand over the lower half of his face.
“The duck needed talking to.” I squint at him. “What are you doing?”
“Whatever you’ve got, I’m afraid it’s contagious. Some kind of brain-eating amoeba, maybe?”
“A brain eating amoeba wouldn’t be airborne and your hand isn’t a facemask.”
He backs away even further, but drops his hand. “You left here in April a normal human – well, at least a human who didn’t think he was Doctor Doolittle. And now you’re on a video phone giving counseling to a duck.” He’s backed away until he’s in the doorway.
“Graham? Donovan? What is this about brain-eating amoebas? And you’re speaking to a duck?” Constantine’s voice booms from the computer screen that we have set up facing the conference table.
I start and swivel around in horror. Constantine has showed up to the video call early. His sons stand next to him, looking puzzled. The look that Graham gives me from across the room makes me want to dig a hole in the ground and bury myself in it.
“Nothing, sir! Just a little best-friend humor here.” I bark out a loud, hearty laugh that sounds faker than a 1970s laugh track.
He scowls at me skeptically. “I must not understand the American humor.” He glances at his sons. “Was that funny? Am I missing something?”
They shake their heads in puzzlement and answer him in Greek. I am confident that they’re not taking my side.
Constantine harumphs, clearing his throat loudly. “Maybe the brain amoeba explains why I never got the final figures from your proposal.”
Graham shoots me a look of utter horror. He sent me the proposal to review, and I was supposed to forward it to Constantine. No, I did forward it to Constantine. I know I did.
Right after a huge shouting match with my parents over Jamie and Sienna. My mother tried to give me an ultimatum that I insist that Sienna fire Jamie. She told me I needed to make it clear to Sienna that if she didn’t fire her, I’d break up with her. But, at the same time, of course, Sienna would need to continue to play her part as my wife until the property deal went through. I responded to my mother in an uncharacteristically snappish tone of voice, which made her cry, which made me feel like the biggest asshole in the Solar System, and then my father got on the phone and yelled at me.
So yeah, I was distracted, but I definitely sent that email.
“Constantine, I don’t mean to contradict you, but I swear to you I sent it.”
“Everything that you send me has a read receipt. Go and check it.” His tone is grim. “I’ll wait. If you can show me that you sent it, we can continue this conversation. I will trust you.”
I quickly log on to my computer and check my email. It’s still sitting there in the draft folder. I never sent it.
Graham’s face is so pale that his freckles stand out in sharp relief.
The rest of the meeting does not go well. Constantine cuts it short, his tone abrupt. And I know, with a sinking feeling, that I’ve let my best friend down after I promised him I wouldn’t, and I’ve tanked our deal. I’ve managed to take a sure thing and turn it into a hell no.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
SIENNA
It’s been almost a week since my mother disappeared, and I’m so distracted that I can barely get any work done.
Donovan came back to Greenvale for a few days, and I could see him measuring his every word. I know he thinks my mother left on purpose, but he doesn’t really know her like I do. He did manage to find out that the rental car was left in the rental car lot, with its keys dropped through the drop box, but anybody could have done that.
Everything seemed so bright and sunny before. The vineyard was thriving, Donovan and I were hot stuff, and Linda was acting like a real mom.
Now my aunt’s not speaking to me, which makes caring for the vineyard an exercise in heartbreak, my mother’s AWOL, and my own husband thinks that I’m so worthless that my mother wouldn’t bother to stick around for my birthday.
That’s probably not really his take on the situation, but it’s hard for me to think clearly these days. When he has to go back to Los Angeles to continue working on salvaging his deal, I feel abandoned and mad all over again. I miss him the minute he walks out the door to get in the cab that will take him to the airport.
To take my mind off things, I decide to do a little investigating into Liam
Ferguson, and Ferguson Property Holdings. I try the obvious stuff, using all the search engines I can think of, even though I’m sure Carrie has already done it. I just don’t want to ask her what she’s found out, because it will re-ignite her obsession with sabotaging our deal, and for now she seems to have moved on. She’s become a born-again dater, plowing through all the apps and having Tonya’s husband fix her up with his single friends. From what she’s told me, so far she’s been disappointed.
I don’t find anything on the computer. I know that Rocco told me that they’ve built a couple of similar subdivisions, but I don’t find any record of that online, and there’s not a lot of information about them. That doesn’t mean anything bad. Rocco’s working a million hours a week these days, and Uncle Vito’s got some heart issues that have him in and out of the hospital, so I don’t want to bother them.
I spend the morning in the winery office, updating our social media sites, answering emails, taking phone orders, and doing fruitless computer searches. Finally I give up and call Donovan’s father. He’s the one in charge of the deal with Ferguson. His younger brother Phillip’s just a yes-man who does whatever Montgomery tells him to.
I know that he’ll at least take my call. After the fight at the restaurant, when both of our families realized they’d nearly blown the entire deal, we’ve turned to an icy civility.
He answers with an irritable grunt. Either he’s got caller I.D., or he’s always a crabby mo-fo when he answers the phone. “Yes?”
We won’t be wasting time on phony pleasantries, then. “I understand that Mr. Ferguson has a track record of building subdivisions like the one he’ll be building behind our property,” I say. “Can I get the names and locations of the subdivisions?”
“Why?” he says impatiently.
“Because I’d like to know more about the property that’s going to be located right behind our land, thanks.”
“This is between us and your aunt and uncle and cousin. You’re not even legally part of this deal.”
“Well, my signature’s on the agreement, and I agreed to a marriage of convenience to your son to convince Mr. Ferguson that we’re all besties now, so yes, I am.” I’ve raised my voice.
“Be quiet!” he squawks at me. “Can anyone hear you?”
“I’m sorry, did you just tell me be quiet? I suggest you never do that again!” I yell at the top of my lungs.
“I do not know what my son sees in you,” he says furiously. That makes me smile. It’s more reassurance that Donovan’s feelings for me are real.
“I repeat. What subdivisions has he developed before?”
“There are several of them. Listen, I’m in the middle of something. I’m busy.”
“Sure. Just give me the names and I’ll let it go.”
“I don’t have time to look them up.”
“I’ll be at your office in ten minutes. I’m sure someone can find them for me.”
“Don’t worry about it, we’ve got it handled,” he snaps.
“Well, I wasn’t really worried about it until this conversation.” A faint chill settles over me. “Now I am.” Is it possible that there’s a reason everyone’s giving me the runaround?
“I said don’t be!” His voice vibrates with fury.
“Sorry, I’m not one of those women you can bark orders at.” And I hang up the office phone.
He immediately tries to call back.
As the phone rings and rings, I lean back in my chair and chew my lower lip. Without any useful information to go on, I don’t know what to do next. I’ve run into a temporary dead end, which returns my focus to my mother. And even though the vineyard’s doing much better, we’re just starting to climb out of the debt hole my aunt dug for it. I just don’t have enough money to pay a private investigator a few hundred dollars a day for any length of time. I’ve only got one choice.
The office phone’s ringing again. Whatever. He can keep dialing until his fingers fall off.
My heart is heavy as I pick up my cell phone and call Donovan.
“Hey, beautiful,” he says wearily.
My heart twinges in sympathy. “Things not going so well?”
“It’ll work itself out eventually. Thank you for asking, though. Any news?”
“No, and I have a favor to ask of you. I want to borrow some money to have a private investigator look for her.”
He starts making noises of protest. I rush ahead. “Before you argue, let me explain. I will accept the car and the furniture, and even the vineyard machinery, with gratitude and thanks. I will stop trying to pay you back for all that. I am trying very hard to get past my fear of depending on other people, and I think I’m making some progress there. I will let you make me coffee every day of our lives. The private investigator, though, I absolutely cannot let you pay for. This is between me and my mother. It’s a family thing, and also, I know you believe she just left voluntarily. I can’t ask you to pay for something you don’t believe in.”
“If you really want the money… Sienna, you’re just going to find out that she’s holed up somewhere with her latest toolbag of a boyfriend. And you’re so damn stubborn, I know that you’re going to consider yourself in debt to me, and it will be a waste of your money. I’m sorry, but she’s not who you think she is.”
“Why do you keep saying things like that?” Now I’m getting really mad. I really thought he’d be more supportive. “Why do you always act as if you know her better than I do? For God’s sake, before you came back to town this spring, how many times have you even met or talked to her?”
I’m hit with dead silence, and suddenly the blood in my veins is pure ice water.
Oh my God. He’s not answering me. He told me he wouldn’t lie to me. And this is what he’s doing instead of lying to me – he’s not even speaking.
“Tell me.” I bite out the words. “You said you were keeping secrets from me. Do these secrets involve my mother?”
“I can fly home this afternoon. I need to talk to you in person.” His words come out in a rush, tumbling over each other.
Panic balloons inside me. I hit the video chat app on my cell phone, and after a few rings, his haunted, guilty-looking face appears.
“Sienna, please. I’ll book a flight right away. I can get a private flight.”
My throat squeezes in fear. I don’t want to know whatever he’s hiding, but I need to know. “Donovan, if you ever cared about me, you will tell me what you’re hiding from me. This is your one and only chance.”
“Of course I care about you. How can you question that?” He looks me square in the eye and swallows hard. I’ve never seen Donovan looking unsure before.
“Tell me!” I insist. “Damn you, Donovan! Do you know what you’re doing to me right now?”
“All right.” He runs his fingers through his hair, and his hand is shaking. “Your mother didn’t give you the money to go to college. I did. Twice.”
I almost fall off my chair. “What the hell are you talking about?” I shriek.
“After the whole thing with Simon, she reached out to me and told me that she knew I still cared about you, and you were falling apart. She named this insane amount of money that you supposedly needed to go back to college, to get a new degree. She’d obviously padded it. I looked up the actual cost, plus reasonable living expenses for you, and wired it to her. She sent it to the husband she was trying to win back. Then she came back to me again and confessed what she’d done. She said it was just a business loan and he was definitely going to repay her, but in the meantime, you were already enrolled in college and needed to make your first tuition payment.”
I gasp for words and can only wheeze air. The ground has opened beneath me, and I’m falling into a pit with no bottom.
“So I had a shell company pay the college directly, rather than give the money to her, and I let her claim credit for it. I did the same with your living expenses, and the money that Simon stole from your aunt.”
“Why would you d
o that for my aunt?” I say faintly.
“Because I knew you’d be devastated if your fiancé caused the vineyard to go bankrupt.”
I hold onto the phone very tightly, as if it could anchor me to reality. But I don’t know what reality is anymore. “What else have you hidden from me?”
He heaves a sigh. “I sent the cops after Simon when you guys were engaged, because I knew he was a cokehead, a thief, and a piece of garbage, and I was genuinely worried for your safety. I knew you wouldn’t believe a word I tried to tell you about him. Also, a couple of times your mother spent your monthly trust fund money and hit me up for it, and I repaid her, but I finally put my foot down and told her that if she used your money for herself again, I’d make sure she went to prison for fraud.”
I need to respond. Words bubble up in my throat, but the bubbles pop. I’m struck dumb.
“Sienna?”
I can’t think of a single thing to say. The silence stretches between us. The air burns my lungs. My heart is too big for my chest, and every single thump is agony.
“Sienna.” His voice is a tortured plea.
“You…you had no right.” I should be crying, but even my tears have abandoned me. I’m a dried-out husk. “You just destroyed the relationship I thought I had with my mother. You let me live a lie for seven years, Donovan. Everything I thought about her, for all that time, was a lie. All the hope and love and forgiveness that I felt… Do you know how many times I lent her money because I felt guilty that she’d spent her whole divorce settlement to bail out me and my aunt? You could have warned me. Instead you let me believe in something that didn’t exist. You married me, made love to me, told me you had my back, and let me walk around with a head full of absolute bullshit. My mother is a ghost, Donovan, a fantasy, and so are you.”
“I know. I know. It’s been eating me up, but I was afraid if I told you… I was afraid you’d hate me.” Tears fill his eyes, glittering on his thick dark lashes when he blinks. “Sienna, I did it because I love–“
“Don’t you dare!” I scream, and hang up the phone.