by Lana Grayson
“Mom, pack a bag. You have to stay with Aunt Sharidan for a while.”
“Shari?” Mom made a face. “Oh no. I haven’t seen my sister since the wedding, and even then I had two glasses of wine too few to deal with her.”
But Aunt Sharidan was the closest relative I could think to take her in, though San Francisco would plop into the bay once they started to fight.
“Why are you running around?” She asked, “Honestly. Put my bag down.”
The clock on the wall ticked entirely too fast for me to pack more than a few pairs of jeans, a couple shirts, and a random assortment of her toiletries.
“Sprout, stop. What are you doing?”
“Mom, I need you to go visit Aunt Shari. Don’t argue with me, please. I can’t explain now, but I will later. I promise. Just…go get your shoes on.”
“I’m wearing shoes.”
I glanced down. “Mom…two of the same shoe.”
Mom held out her foot, cackling as she realized her mistake. “Oh, look at that. Serves me right for not wearing my glasses.”
I wasn’t so sure.
Her bag zipped tight. I’d call Aunt Sharidan from the car. It’d take a bribe to keep Mom there, especially since her relationship with her sister only worsened with age, but I’d sell half the corn fields if it meant Mom could be safe.
If only for a little while. If only so Darius wouldn’t be able to hurt her for what I was going to do.
I sighed. It was stupid to even return to Cherrywood Valley. Stupid and reckless and utterly selfish.
I meant to drive straight to Roman Wescott’s office, plead my case, and convince him to amend the agreement. I planned to collect my trust and find a way to defend myself from Darius.
But I didn’t make it close to San Jose.
I left the estate and immediately headed south. Toward home. Back to Mom.
A desperate part of me needed to sink in her arms and cry, to reveal everything horrible and frightening and disgusting that had happened at the Bennett Estate. I wanted to beg for Mom to be my mother again.
We’d hire security, find a safer home, and then finalize her divorce.
Darius would slit her throat if I so much as whispered about his treatment, but if she were free of him, we could try to rebuild our life and farm.
Maybe then we’d be safe. I would inherit my trust. I’d help Nicholas depose his father.
And then?
I searched the house to find her cellphone charger. My steps slowed in the kitchen.
There was no more then.
I was an idiot. Idealistic fool.
A little girl who denied that anything was wrong in the storybook fantasy of her family.
The pilot light flickered on the stove with no pots or dishes near.
“Mom?” I called. “Are you making tea or something?”
Mom followed, still fretting about my rampage through her drawers.
“No. Why?”
I didn’t answer. Mom brushed her hands.
“Where did all this dirt come from? Heavens.” She tisked her tongue. “Did you want tea, Sarah? Good gracious, you come bursting in here shouting all manner of nonsense, trying to get me to visit Shari of all people, and now you want tea. I swear, sometimes I think you are just a clone of Mark.”
I flicked the knob on the stove. “You…left the stove on.”
“Oh. Whoops!”
Whoops? She might have set the house on fire, and all she could say was whoops?
My stomach dropped. She hadn’t been the most level-headed woman since the funerals, but I thought it was the depression. The medications.
Darius was right.
She fluttered to the cabinet. “Well, now I’m tasting tea anyway. Put some water on, Sprout.”
I hesitated, but Mom flipped a towel at my behind. She laughed as I visibly flinched against even the smallest nip of the cloth. She didn’t ask why I feared a strike. I wouldn’t have told her anyway.
I filled the kettle. Mom set tea bags and sugar on the table. She hummed as she worked.
When was the last time she hummed?
Three months ago, Mom could hardly get out of bed, torn between the excitement for her new marriage and the crushing despair of her mourning. The pills helped, until they didn’t. They stole the once vibrant and vivacious woman who was my only companion in the family.
A family that didn’t want me.
No.
My father didn’t want me.
Josiah and Mike loved me. They were older and far busier with Dad, but they snuck me sweets when I was sick and let me sleep in their rooms if I had nightmares of earthquakes.
I hadn’t visited their graves since they died, not after Mom took the razor to her wrists just as the funeral procession arrived at the plot in our far field where they’d rest next to Dad.
I hadn’t visited Dad either, not that he deserved it.
My chest tightened.
Coming here was a mistake.
It’d be the first place Darius would look, and Mom the first person he’d hurt. I tried to defend my family, but at my first opportunity, I lured danger to it.
We weren’t going anywhere. I couldn’t trust Mom to go anywhere.
She offered me a fruit salad wrapped from the fridge.
“Fresh from the garden.” She pushed the fork toward me. “Bet you miss that. Darius doesn’t appreciate good fruits and vegetables.”
Neither did his carnivore sons.
Sons who would be on their way to find me. To capture me. To imprison me with him again.
I had no idea what would await me when I returned or how angry Nicholas would be.
I savored a bite of the watermelon and aimed for the honeydew immediately after.
“Sprout, tell me why you’re so worked up?” Mom spun her spoon in her tea. “You aren’t yourself.”
I didn’t even know who myself would be anymore.
I left the Bennett Estate terrified and enraged, but the revenge I sought wasn’t as righteous as before. I demanded blood, not for the sin perpetrated against my family but the darkness Darius forced me to endure.
Did that make me as ruthless as Reed thought?
The way he looked at me crushed my heart in mounting guilt. I never meant to hurt him. I’d probably hurt them all before it was done.
Except they hurt me first.
What was I supposed to do?
Mom hovered. “Looks like you could use a treat too.”
She tucked a plate of chocolate chip cookies under my nose. I abandoned the fruit.
“Your father loved those cookies,” Mom said. “They were the only compliment he’d ever give.”
The cookie fell to the plate. Almost a year of mourning, and she never once said anything disparaging about Dad.
I tried my hardest to remember anything she ever said bad about Dad. I couldn’t. Then again, until a few weeks ago, I had nothing negative to say either.
I blinked away a damning tear.
“You never told me what a monster Dad was.”
Mom’s teacup lowered. She hesitated.
“He wasn’t a monster.”
I nibbled the cookie. “Helena Bennett?”
“So you’ve spoken with Darius.”
“Nick.”
“It was a long time ago, Sprout.”
“That doesn’t forgive what he did,” I said.
“No,” she agreed. “But Mark never asked for forgiveness.”
“You never said anything.”
“No.”
“Did Josiah and Mike know?”
Talking about Dad no longer weakened her, but her voice slipped when I mentioned my brothers.
“Yes, I suppose they did.”
I hated to think it. “Didn’t they care?”
“You know your brothers.” She trembled. “Knew. They thought they’d change the world.”
“They might have.”
She nodded with a pursing of her lips. “Some things aren’t meant
to be.”
And some things in the world were cruel and unfair. The house stood too silent without my brothers rumbling down the stairs, late for school, late for a date, late for work. Dad called them irresponsible. They were the greatest men in the world.
They never should have died.
Too many things went wrong, and too many lives destroyed with theirs.
It should have ended with Dad.
I hated myself for considering it.
I hated him for writing me out of the will, out of the company, out of the family.
“Dad never thought I was as good as them,” I said. “Did he?”
Mom stirred another lump of sugar into her tea. It was her third cube. She must not have remembered dropping the last one.
“He never saw you, Sprout,” she said. “Had he looked, he would have realized you were so much like him.”
“That’s not a good thing.”
“It can be. Mark was successful because he was shrewd. He saw his opportunities and did what he had to do. He provided for the family. Some people would call that ruthless. He considered it life.” She paused. “He died before his time. And your brothers…”
“Yeah.”
“But that’s in the past. No sense dwelling on such sadness. We have a new family to care for.”
Even half a state away, Darius Bennett turned my stomach.
“Mom, I want to take you far from here. I’m going to get you away from Darius.”
“Away from Darius? Whatever for?”
I stood, casting the cookie into the sink. “He’s evil, Mom. Absolutely evil.”
She gave me the same look she always did, as though my overactive imagination concocted another crazy story.
“You’ve never had any love for the Bennetts, but I hoped you’d try to come to terms with this—”
“If you knew the man he truly was—”
“Sarah, I’ve known Darius Bennett since I was thirteen years old, and I’ve loved him nearly as long.”
I stilled. “You what?”
“Darius and I were childhood sweethearts. Had his family not moved to San Jose and mine not entwined with the Atwoods…my life would certainly look very different.”
“You aren’t serious.”
“Our lives took separate paths, but nothing has made me happier than reuniting with the first man I ever loved. It’s healed a lot of wounds I thought impossible to mend. He’s given me a new hope.” She tapped her fingers over the teacup. “I’m not well, Sarah.”
“Don’t say that.” Any of it.
“Your brothers knew. They tried to help me, but I said they were being foolish. However, all the mourning and stress has only…strengthened the condition. I didn’t tell you. I don’t want you to worry.”
“Mom—”
“Darius is a loyal husband. And you see he is a devoted father. He cares for me, and he cares a great deal for you. Please give him a chance, if only to grant me a bit of peace while we battle this next hurdle for our family.”
She was serious.
Every word, every hallowed implication, every failing hope.
She believed Darius would save her. I didn’t have the heart to warn her what happened when she trusted a Bennett with her life.
“You should have sold the company.” Mom stared only into her teacup. “You don’t need this stress. This hassle.”
“I could have handled it.”
“You weren’t meant to handle it,” she said. “I was glad he didn’t leave the company to you.”
“Mom—”
“Sell, Sarah. Before the Bennetts knock the price off our farm. Get every penny you can before they realize we don’t have a male heir to run the farm and that you…well, sweetheart, you’ll never have a baby.”
It wasn’t stopping them from trying. I let my voice drop. “I’m not selling. It isn’t even possible now that the clause is public. Besides, you don’t know the shit Darius is trying to pull to get the company.”
She tisked her tongue. “Don’t you fault Darius for being financially-driven. He could do a lot with this farm.”
“He’s not financially-driven. He’s vile.”
“Sarah, you are an Atwood. Mark Atwood’s daughter, no less.” Mom sighed. “No one is guiltless in this world. An Atwood loses their innocence very quickly.”
Only if it was stolen.
Strapped to a bed and taken.
Offered.
Given.
Savored by Nicholas Bennett every night thereafter in boundless passion. I gave myself to a man I didn’t know if I feared or trusted, loved or blamed.
The phone rang. I didn’t have to guess who called. I rose. Mom tapped her lips and promised a secret.
“Darius, love.” Mom breathed a gentle hello into the phone. “What a surprise. No, no. I’m not busy at all.”
I shook my head, prepared to run or hide or fight. Neither of my options would keep us safe.
“Sarah?” Mom looked at me. “No, I haven’t seen her. Isn’t she with you?”
I mouthed a thank you. She nodded.
“Oh, yes, I’ll call you the instant she comes by. Let me know if you hear from her. Love you too.”
She returned the phone to the cradle. My heart lurched into my throat.
“Mom, you won’t tell Darius about my infertility, will you?”
She chuckled. “Of course not, sweetheart. That’s the sort of issue you need only to discuss with your future husband. It isn’t my place to tell. But Darius does know some wonderful doctors…when you do meet that right man, of course.”
I feared I had already found the right man.
Or maybe I loved the wrong man who consumed everything innocent inside me.
I stood, stepping into Mom’s hug.
“I gotta go,” I said. “Just…be careful.”
“Unless I develop an allergy to corn, I’m perfectly safe.” She frowned at her packed bag dropped in the middle of the hall. “Sprout, don’t forget your things.”
A punch to the gut hurt less than my forced smile.
“I’ll come back for it.”
She kissed me goodbye, and I didn’t want to think it might have been the last time.
I hurried to Reed’s car. Darius wouldn’t trust my mother, and my step-brothers could fly a helicopter. They’d search for me at the farm first.
But only Nicholas knew where I’d ultimately go.
If he hadn’t already stopped the meeting from happening.
Three and a half hours of aggravation, panic, and traffic did little to ease my fraying nerves. I pulled into Roman Wescott’s building with a pounding headache and the clutching fear that every Bennett would await my arrival.
But I was alone.
And Roman Wescott welcomed me into his office with a waved hand and concerned frown.
Without the pretense of the tux and gown, I feared he saw me for what I was—a fleck of blonde, petite and slim, clutching a purse that hid two different types of asthma medications. He wasn’t Darius Bennett, but I couldn’t be sure the wealth the Bennett family provided hadn’t lined his pockets and warped his mind.
And just because he made a deal with my father and brothers didn’t mean he was sympathetic to any of the Atwood causes. If he was so willing to sell his stake in the Bennett Corporation to their lifelong rivals, was it even worth trusting him?
My world shrunk the instant I escaped the claustrophobia of the estate. I had no one to trust and everyone to fear.
Roman Wescott offered me a chair. I crossed my legs, hoping the pleasant sundress and windswept hair appeared business casual.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” I said. I admired the sleek, modern office, filled with glass tabletops and a view of downtown San Jose. “You have a lovely office—”
“Ms. Atwood.” Roman’s dark eyebrows rose. “Skip the pleasantries. I know why you’re here.”
“I suppose you do.”
“You want the Bennett Corporation.”
I mimicked Nicholas’s practiced stillness and rested my hands on my knee. “No. My interest in the Josmik Trust is…personal. I’m simply acting toward a resolution.”
“But, once the trust is awarded to you, you will possess a considerable interest in the Bennett Corporation.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want complete control of Darius Bennett’s company?”
I tiptoed around the question. “If it’s in the best interests of my investment. But you would not have entered an agreement with my father and brothers had you not anticipated that particular outcome.”
“True,” he said. His dark countenance revealed nothing.
“So why did you do it?”
His chair creaked as he leaned away. “Do what?”
“Why did you agree to sell your interest in the Bennett Corporation to the Atwoods? You know the history and the feuds—”
He wagged a finger. “No. I don’t. Any rivalry between the Atwoods and Darius Bennett existed solely between the families. I didn’t invest my fortune in a petty family squabble. I’ve chosen to secure my wealth in a company bound for success and driven by profit and innovation. That is why my father partnered with John Bennett. And that is why, when Mark Atwood approached me, I agreed to terms. Darius Bennett is not his father. He is not protecting my investment.”
All good news.
“I am not my father either,” I said. “I’m not Josiah, and I’m not Mike. But I am an Atwood. Success runs in my veins. We draw it from the very soil itself. You can trust me with your investment. The contractual amount for your shares is held in escrow, waiting to be finalized.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“So why not sell early?” I asked. “If you no longer trust the direction of the Bennett Corporation, sell now, before the stock dips or…any other unpleasant circumstance endangers the company.”
“And what unpleasant circumstance would that be, Ms. Atwood?” Roman’s eyes flashed like marble. “You do see the…complications this sale poses, don’t you?”
What did he know? How many members of the board understood my captivity? How many encouraged Darius’s plot?
Why wouldn’t he just sign and avoid the danger of such a conspiracy?
“I’m doing what I must to protect my family’s interests and secure my father and brothers’ final project,” I said. “It was their decision to approach the members of the Bennett board.”