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That was more unexpected than anything he could have said to me.
“You’ve come a long way in a short time. I’m… honestly kind of proud of you.”
I lifted the mug of coffee to my lips, sipping it gently. “That’s surprising considering you were right about everything.” I didn’t know why I said it. Maybe because I was far too relaxed after my night with Lottie, or maybe because the stakes were so minimal now. Or maybe because I’d fooled everyone into believing a love story was happening between us—even myself. “You had every right to question my motives.”
“What do you mean?” He leaned forward in his chair, his face scrunching into hard lines.
No point in going back now. “Me and Lottie. It was all fake.”
He stared at me for what felt like hours, silence hanging over us like a heavy blanket, building and building, and just when I was about to open my mouth to break it, he erupted into a fit of laughter loud enough that I worried he’d wake Lottie up.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because” he said between laughs, “you outdid yourself. Honestly, if anything I’m impressed. You actually married her.” His hand covered his mouth, his chuckles almost unconfined. “Are you going to stay married forever?”
I sighed and leaned back into the squeaky, wooden chair. “I don’t know. We said we’d get divorced in a year, but…”
His laughter slowly faded, the wrinkles beside his eyes softening. “You don’t want to.”
“I don’t know. It might have started out fake but it isn’t anymore. For either of us,” I explained. I stared down at the mug, getting lost in the painted swirls and imagining the little girl in that family photograph painting it at a pottery class. “It’s messy, now. The marriage was never supposed to be a part of it. We did that for her dad.”
“Did she get something out of it, or just you?”
“I promised her forty-nine percent of the horse breeding business.” I glanced through the kitchen’s entryway, making sure Dana or Lottie weren’t lingering. “I didn’t realize that it meant so much to Dad when I offered that. I’m not sure what to do about it now. I don’t want to take it away from her, not when she’s lost so much already.”
Fred stayed quiet for a moment, his lips pursed, his fingers tightening around the mug. “It doesn’t surprise me. Any of it,” he said simply, a small smile twitching at his lips. “You’re so much like me sometimes. And I know your problems might not be the most conventional, but everyone has issues in a relationship. I mean, hell, Penelope and I almost filed for divorce two years ago, but we’re good now. If you love her, Hunter, and I can tell you do—we all saw how you looked at her on your wedding day—it’ll work out.”
My brother wasn’t the most talkative, wasn’t the most sympathetic, and certainly wasn’t the most loving person in the world. But in that moment, that singular, formative moment, it felt like we were kids again and he was teaching me how to ride a bike. Like he was my older brother in more than just title alone. There was a closeness, a relativeness that I hadn’t felt for a long, long time.
“I wouldn’t worry about the promise you made her,” he said simply.
“I have to worry about it. If I don’t take it back from her, I’ll have to tell Dad at some point, and he’ll lose his mind.”
Fred shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. “It’ll still be in the family.”
Still in the family.
Why the fuck didn’t I think of it like that? That one sentence, Fred’s tiny bit of wisdom, lifted a weight off my shoulders. I could let her keep it. I was the CEO now, I was in charge, I called the shots. If I wanted her to have it, Dad didn’t have a good reason to be upset about it.
I’d been a fucking idiot to think otherwise.
Chapter 36
Lottie
Hunter had handled absolutely everything.
As if he were my knight in shining armor, he’d organized everything the way I would have wanted it. I didn’t have to go back to the funeral home. It was decided that Dad would be buried here on our property, the land he loved so much. I didn’t have to pick out flowers and music or create a slideshow—Hunter had somehow fit all of that in around his busy schedule on top of being here every single night. He’d given me room to breathe when I didn’t think I could. He’d given me comfort, peace.
I stood in front of the open casket. We’d already done our speeches, allowed those who wished to pay their respects to come up and say goodbye to him. But I couldn’t finish it. It wasn’t right; his casket was empty save for his body.
I’d love to be buried with your mother’s ashes in my casket.
“I don’t know if I can, Dad,” I whispered, staring down at his lifeless form the same way I had when he’d taken his last breath. But he was still warm, then, his skin felt normal instead of waxy. Letting go of the one tangible, holdable parent I had left felt like an axe to my chest.
A large warm hand came down gently on my shoulder. I looked back at Hunter. In his all-black suit he was almost a void in the sunshine. In one hand, he held me, and in the other, a small, ornate urn.
Mom.
