by Layne, Ivy
Unfortunately, the breakfast room was even dustier than the chandeliers above my head. Years ago, it had been papered in silk of light green and gold, a sparkling crystal chandelier above the table. Vaguely, I hoped Savannah could save the silk wallpaper. Breakfast in that room was one of my few good memories of this house.
Through the open doors of the dining room, the house bustled. Savannah calling out orders, Billy Bob’s slow easy drawls in response. I’d met Savannah’s cousins briefly on my way to the dining room, both of them giving me a firm handshake and an easy, “Good to have you back in town,” before they headed off to carry out their marching orders.
“Put the list away and eat your breakfast, Hope. We can figure out the day when you’ve had some food.”
Hope didn’t put the pen down. “I can’t relax and enjoy my breakfast when we have so much to do and I have no idea how we’re going to get it all done.”
Taking a sip of coffee, I went over the list I had in my head. “Fine. There’s that stack of mail on Prentice’s desk. Then I guess you should walk me through the most pressing issues you know about.”
“What about Ford?” she asked carefully. “And Cole? Don’t you need to talk to Cole, see what’s going on with Ford’s defense?”
My gut gave an immediate, No.
I needed to deal with Ford. I couldn’t ignore him. But not today. Not now.
“Later,” I said.
Hope shook her head but dropped it. “I don’t know everything about Prentice’s business. The best person for that is Ford, but—”
“We’ll work around him,” I said and bit into a biscuit. “Eat your breakfast.”
With a harrumph of a sigh, Hope shut her notebook and pushed it away, picking up her fork and taking a bite of eggs.
Watching her eat I had a new sensation in my stomach as it twisted and turned over, uneasy. Uncertain. Was this nerves? Was I… Nervous?
The box in my pocket dug into my leg. It shouldn’t be a big deal. We were already married.
Only an hour before while Hope had been doing something with her hair with a thing that looked like a giant clamp then fussing with bottles and tubes at the vanity, I’d gone to the safe hidden behind the shoe rack in the master closet.
Harvey had told me about it. New closet, new safe, same combination. Almost as tall as me, a small room unto itself, the safe held everything from decades-old stock certificates to passports to jewelry handed down from generation to generation. I knew exactly what I was looking for.
My great-great-grandmother’s ring. Lady Estelle Ophelia Sawyer. She’d traveled to North Carolina after a whirlwind romance with my great-great-grandfather, William Reginald Sawyer. He’d built Heartstone Manor for Lady Estelle, determined to give her a home worthy of her sacrifice in leaving England and her family for the wilds of America.
I remember my father showing me her ring decades ago, telling me that was the ring I’d give my wife one day. A ruby flanked by diamonds in aged yellow gold. I’d half expected to see it on Vanessa’s hand the day Prentice announced her marriage to Ford.
Vanessa had given me back the diamond I’d bought her, replacing it with Ford’s. Both rings had been ostentatious and obvious. But then, Ford and I had been young and stupid. Back then, it hadn’t occurred to me to ask Prentice for Lady Estelle’s ring.
Not just because I knew he’d never allow me to give it to Vanessa.
This ring was part of the Sawyer legacy. It was our history.
At twenty-two, I’d wanted to rebel against that legacy. I’d wanted to give Vanessa something that was just mine. As it was, I was glad the grasping viper never got her hands on any part of the Sawyers’ history.
It should have bothered me that Prentice intended for me to give this ring to Hope. My knee-jerk reaction was to deny my father anything he wanted. He’d taken enough, meddled enough.
It didn’t matter anymore. Prentice was dead. He’d trapped us with his will, but aside from compelling us to marry and spend a certain amount of time in Heartstone Manor, his influence was gone.
I wasn’t giving Lady Estelle Ophelia Sawyer’s ring to Hope because Prentice wanted me to. I was giving her the ring because she was my wife. She was Hope Sawyer. I needed to see it on her finger, needed to make this real.
Taking another sip of coffee, I set the box with the ring on the table in front of her.
“I know we did this in the wrong order, but I want you to have this.”
The greasy, cold twist in my stomach cranked up a notch. It only got worse when Hope didn’t move.
She eyed the ring box as if it held explosives and not jewelry.
I reached for her hand, catching the tips of her fingers with mine as she jerked her arm back, her elbow slamming into the side of her plate, sending silverware clattering to the floor.
Her cheeks pink, she protested, “I don’t need a ring. I don’t need jewelry or anything. This isn’t—” A furtive glance to the open doorway and I knew what she’d been about to say.
This isn’t real.
She was wrong. This was real. Hope and I were real. Those kisses were real. I watched her carefully, trying to figure out the best way to get through to her. She sat across from me, polished and beautiful, comfortable yet stylish in a dark green cashmere sweater and skinny jeans that tempted me to fill my hands with her ass.
Beneath the veneer I could see young Hope staring at me apprehensively, her cognac brown eyes tinged with fear when she looked at that antique velvet ring box. Why?
Seeing echoes of the child she’d been in the woman she was shook me. When I opened my mouth to speak, I didn’t have the right words. I didn’t have any words.
Like a clod and a fool, I shoved the box across the table at her and said, “Open it.”
Nice proposal, jackass, I told myself. Hope reached out one hand for the box, closing her fingers around it tentatively before she pried open the lid and let out a shocked gasp.
“You can’t give me this. This is a Sawyer ring. It’s over a hundred years old. This is the ring you’re supposed to give to your—”
“My wife,” I finished for her. “My wife is sitting right in front of me.”
Hope stared at me as if I were mentally challenged. I set my jaw and waited. The ring was for my wife. Hope was my wife. I didn’t see why it had to be more complicated than that.
Her fingers trembling, she reached out and tugged the ring from the box. It slid on her finger, a perfect fit. She stared down at it, her eyes wide, twisting the band back and forth on her finger, the ruby and diamonds catching the light. It looked right.
I’d never given that ring to Vanessa because that ring belonged to Hope.
“I’ll give it back,” Hope said quickly, her eyes flashing up to mine. “After the five years,” she whispered, “I’ll give it back.”
I swear, I kept forgetting about the five years. Did she really think after five years we’d sign some papers and that would be that?
I shifted in my seat at the uncomfortable realization that Hope might think exactly that.
What if she was just biding time with me, doing what she had to in order to save the town, to pay me back for what she saw as her betrayal. What if she was just counting down the days until she had her freedom?
I looked at the ring on her finger. I’d do everything it took to keep it exactly where it was.
“We’ll worry about that later. For now, it fits?”
“It fits,” Hope said, stretching out her fingers and then making a fist.
“Good. That’s one thing we can scratch off our list. Now, if you’re done with breakfast—” I raised my eyebrows at her mostly empty plate, “We should hit the office and start digging into the mess Prentice left behind.”
Standing in the door to my father’s office, I thought the word mess had been a gross understatement. “Har
vey said the room was cleared as a crime scene,” I commented. There were scraps of yellow tape at the sides of the doorway and smears of fingerprint powder here and there. Savannah had said she’d done a cursory cleanup, but, as my siblings were descending on the house the next day, most of her attention had been focused on getting the bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens up and running.
Prentice’s office had been spared the worst of the dust and cobwebs plaguing the rest of the house. Probably because he’d used this room right up until the moment of his death. My skin crawled just standing in the doorway.
I hated this room. I’d always hated this room.
It wasn’t the room itself. Much like the rest of the house, it had dark woodwork and tall windows. They should have let in the light, but Prentice had always kept the heavy damask drapes pulled closed. Two of the walls had built-in bookcases, each with its own brass and oak ladder to assist in reaching the higher shelves almost 15 feet from the floor.
On the other two walls where I would’ve hung oil paintings, my father had chosen dead animals, each shot by Prentice himself. I don’t have anything against hunting. I knew plenty of people who loved to spend a weekend laying perfectly still in the woods waiting for just the right moment to pull the trigger.
Venison was no stranger to the dinner table around here. As civilization encroached on the mountains, we had too few predators and way too many deer. I’d gone hunting myself occasionally, though I didn’t have the patience to do it often.
I didn’t mind hunting, but I hated every one of my father’s trophies. I had too many memories of standing in front of that massive desk, being stripped down by Prentice, his sad, dead animals a silent audience for my failures.
I was never good enough for my father. Now he was dead and I’d never have the chance to prove him wrong.
I hated this room, but for now, I was stuck with it. Once we got the rest of the house in order, I’d ask Savannah to look into redecorating. Or see if Hope had any ideas. I thought briefly about finding another room to use. Maybe the gold drawing room Darcy had loved or a corner of the library.
No, both drawing rooms were in total disarray, dusty and barely furnished. The library was better, but the desks in there were too small. It would have to be my father’s office.
My office now. Mine and Hope’s.
Resigned, I crossed the threshold and made my way to the desk. Here the heavy mahogany desk glowed from an application of polish that left this part of the room smelling like beeswax and lemon. Savannah had been here, anticipating we’d need the space. A pile of mail at least a foot high was stacked in the black leather inbox, Prentice’s laptop front and center on the matching leather blotter.
I flipped open the lid and the home screen popped up.
“No password?” I asked.
“He used to have one. Then he kept forgetting it.” Hope pulled up the chair Savannah must have put beside my father’s and nudged my father’s big leather desk chair back from the desk. I sat.
The sooner we got started, the sooner I’d have a handle on my father’s business. Once that happened, it wouldn’t be Prentice’s business anymore. It would finally, truly be mine.
A spark of anticipation lit inside me as I thought about that, really thought about what it would mean to take charge of everything that had been stolen from me. I’d loved my time in the Army and with the Sinclairs. If I hadn’t been shot, if Prentice hadn’t died with this ridiculous will, I would have happily stayed in Atlanta.
But this, taking the helm of Sawyer Enterprises, this was what I’d wanted to do since I was old enough to understand what it meant to be a Sawyer. I had a flash of grief that Ford wasn’t sitting beside me. Or Royal. Or Tenn. Any of them. We were supposed to do this together.
As if she knew what was going through my head, Hope reached over to give my hand a gentle squeeze, the flash of diamonds on her finger chasing away my melancholy.
Clearing her throat, she said, “Okay. I’ve been thinking about it and we need to start here—”
Reaching over me, she opened a file on the desktop, and we were off. Hope had been right. She didn’t know everything about Sawyer Enterprises. Unlike her job with Edgar, she hadn’t been Prentice’s personal assistant. That didn’t matter. She’d still done just enough that if she didn’t know an answer, she knew where to find it.
We’d made our way through most of the mail, determining what was important and what could wait, when the deep tones of the front doorbell rang through the house. Moments later, the click of heels on hardwood came toward us. As one, Hope and I braced.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hope
Maybe it was my sixth sense for bitches, but I knew exactly who those high heels belonged to before she strode into the office. The Viper. Otherwise known as Vanessa Sawyer. Ford had divorced her years before, but Vanessa hung on to his name. She’d sold her soul for the Sawyer name and she’d let it go over her dead body.
She propped her hands on her hips, one leg cocked out to the side, her shoulders angled to give the best view of her cleavage. Tossing her shiny, ebony hair over her shoulder, she pursed full red lips and glared at Griffen before she let her face melt into a sweet smile. “You’re in town three days and you don’t come see me? Griffen. I thought we had more than that.”
Griffen leaned back in the big leather chair, propped his ankle on his knee, and gave her a cool look. “Since the last I saw of you you were married to my brother, I’d say we didn’t have anything at all.”
I didn’t know Vanessa well, but I wasn’t an idiot. I knew why she was here. Griffen and his bank account. And this house. I also knew she wasn’t going to get any of them. Griffen was loyal and expected loyalty in return.
Vanessa had blown her chance years ago and she wouldn’t get another. At that thought, I remembered my own crimes, my own lack of loyalty. I couldn’t change the past, but I wasn’t going to let Vanessa bother Griffen. All of this was hard enough for him as it was.
“What do you want, Vanessa?” I asked, trying to copy Griffen’s cool, detached tone. I don’t think I succeeded, but at least my voice wasn’t shaking. Vanessa’s take-no-prisoners bitchiness had always made me nervous.
Striding deeper into the room, Vanessa took a position in front of the desk, her hands still on her hips. Tilting her head to the side, she said, “Hope Daniels. How cute. Did Edgar send you over to help Griffen sort out all of this?” She waved her hand at the neatly-stacked pile of mail.
“Something like that,” I said bitingly.
Griffen laughed, and the sound was anything but cold. Rolling his chair to close the distance between us, he slid an arm around my back, reaching over me with the other arm to catch my left hand in his. He pressed a light kiss to my fingertips before raising my hand, angling my fingers so the light from the tall windows hit the ring on my finger.
Lady Estelle’s ring. No, my ring. That still hadn’t sunk in.
Griffen missed the flash of Vanessa’s dark eyes, choosing to press a slow kiss to my jaw instead. Despite my nerves and Vanessa’s sharp gaze, I shivered. Griffen’s lips on my skin always did that.
Vanessa lost her hold on sweetly bitchy and slid right into openly catty. “Trying to make me jealous, lover?”
Griffen kept my hand in his as he leaned back to look at Vanessa. “Hope and I are married. Considering the circumstances, I convinced her to quit working for Edgar and help me out over here.”
Vanessa’s composure slipped. Her jaw dropped, dark eyes wide and fixed on my ring. Vanessa was speechless for a whole five seconds.
Good, because I had no clue what to say. Vanessa was deluded if she thought she had a chance with Griffen, but still, it was a little absurd.
Had Griffen really married plain, mousy, inexperienced Hope Daniels when he could have had someone like the glamorous, adventurous Vanessa? I couldn’t blame her f
or being shocked.
Vanessa finally found her voice if not her composure. “Don’t be ridiculous, Griffen. Obviously, this is some kind of joke. This is Hope. Don’t tell me you couldn’t do better than Hope Daniels. I came here to offer you another chance. If you aren’t interested you could just say so. You don’t have to lie to me about hooking up with—” She waved her hand at me. “That.”
Griffen’s eyes flared with temper. He looked like he was ready to pick Vanessa up and toss her out the door. While I kind of liked that idea in theory, Vanessa wouldn’t hesitate to press charges for assault.
The last thing we needed was another Sawyer in jail.
Under my breath, I murmured, “Don’t. She’s not worth it.”
Vanessa tossed her hair. “Oh, like you are. Please. You were panting after him when you were a teenager. You ruined our engagement because you wanted him for yourself. You probably killed Prentice, orchestrated this whole thing so you could end up with that ring on your finger.”
I rolled my eyes. Vanessa scared me a little, but this was just too much. Either I was poor, pathetic little Hope Daniels, or I was a criminal mastermind. I couldn’t be both.
I wasn’t either one. I was just Hope, and I wasn’t putting up with this bullshit.
I pushed back my chair and stood, putting a little space between me and Griffen. I needed space to say what I had to say. It would hurt, but it had to be done. Both of these people were way overdue for my apology.
“I’m glad you’re here, Vanessa. I’ve never had the chance to say I’m sorry. To either of you. I did ruin your engagement. I was sixteen and I had a horrible crush on Griffen. I knew—”
I met Griffen’s eyes, glad to finally—finally—be saying this straight out. “I knew she would make you miserable. It doesn’t excuse telling Uncle Edgar you were going to elope. I betrayed a confidence, and I know you’ll never forgive me for that. All I can say is that I was young and I wanted the best for you. I knew I wasn’t doing the right thing, and I did it anyway, and I’m sorry.”