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“He’s not selling me the house. He won’t even consider it.” I glanced over my shoulder to watch the people streaming out, the scream of fire engine sirens getting closer. But there was no smoke, no flames raging across the marquee. In the throng, there was no sign of Sebastian either. Good. Maybe he’d accidentally drunk an entire mouthful of that awful sprinkler sludge, got some hundred-year-old disease, and shat himself to death.
“Well, that tracks,” she replied darkly. “Goes right along with what I overheard him say about the theater.”
I turned back to face Abigail, frowning. “What about the theater?”
“That jerk has some kind of deal with Theo Sinclair. He’s selling the Monticello to him.”
The red-hot anger that had pulsed in my veins turned ice-cold. I blinked. Blinked again. “What?” Sebastian was selling the theater? To Theo Sinclair? And he wouldn’t sell my house to me? What the hell?
That couldn’t be. But…he’d talked about investors. Was that why he’d been so cagey about his connection with Sinclair?
My breaths became jagged. He’d lied to me. This whole time he’d kissed me and touched me and lied. Everything had been a lie. Everything had been a manipulation.
“You’re sure?” My voice sounded thin, even to my ears.
“Yes, I heard them talking about it by the bar after your presentation. I’ve been trying to find you ever since, but you disappeared.”
Disappeared was right. Disappeared into Sebastian’s deception. Now not only was he ridding himself of my home, he was ridding himself of the Monticello too. Had that been the point of all this? To get rid of everything? To get rid of me? Wasn’t that what happened when a man was done using you?
“Charlie!” Sebastian called my name from the Monticello entrance. He sounded so sincere, but now I was wise to his duplicity. Our eyes met over the heads of the people separating us.
His hair was smeared over his head, dirty water running in rivulets down his neck and soaking his once-pristine collar. His brows rose, pleading, and he made to move toward us.
Pain lashed across me, burning lines of fire that stole my breath. I turned from him and dragged in a deep breath. “I need to get out of here. I can’t believe I fell for that jerk,” I managed through clenched teeth, but all I wanted to do was scream.
“That’s how those slick guys are,” Abigail said, but I knew exactly what she was thinking: Told ya so.
I scanned the parked cars and swore. “Ted’s not here. We drove in that dick-mobile.” I glared at the enemy’s Maserati.
“Charlie!” Sebastian’s voice cut through the dark night in the distance, and my heart raced a mile a minute. If only I could escape this hell just as fast.
“I don’t want to see him ever again,” I told Abigail.
She reached into her glittering clutch, then tossed me her keys. “Here. Take my car over there. I’ll slow him down.”
“How are you going to do that?”
Abigail pulled a pocket knife from her purse, and a blade slashed out of its shell. She eyed the fine Italian tires on his shiny expensive vehicle. “Carrie Underwood-style. Maybe next time he’ll think before he messes with my friend.”
And that was why I could always count on Abigail. She was my loyal ride or die. “Thanks, Abigail.”
“Hurry.” She pointed toward her car.
I rushed for the door, and seconds later, peeled out of the parking lot. My hands trembled and it felt like I couldn’t get a full breath in. Unshed tears stung my eyelids at the thought of giving my heart to a man who never deserved it.
But I bottled up the hurt and buried it deep, then swung the car around and pointed it toward the one place I knew I could get answers.
The municipal building was pitch-black, and I felt almost criminal barging my way in. But I wasn’t the guilty one. I locked myself in my office. My hands were damp and shaking when I flicked on the light and pushed soppy strands of hair out of my face. With my wet gown clinging to my hips, I grimaced at its ruined state. The rental place would charge me a fortune. But I couldn’t worry about that now.
I searched the town’s records going back a hundred years. I scoured heritage listings and development approvals. I even trudged my way down into the dark, dank basement and rifled through old, faded records for the house, all the way back to the day it was built.
Sebastian was right. He had me. Radcliffe House Apartments did not have heritage status in New Elwood. How had I missed this? Why had I assumed the house was protected? How could I be so terrible at my job that I didn’t realize the most important detail of all?
I yelled and threw the book across the room as tears stung my eyes.
This meant I had no recourse. I couldn’t block the demolition. Once the six-month notice period was up, I would have no choice but to watch that house be destroyed. I stared at the old records in front of me with a deepening sense of horror, dread, and bone-deep embarrassment. I’d been stomping around like some puffed-up lunatic, thinking that I’d stop him. All the while, he must have known I had no power at all.
All the while he was out in Sinclair Vineyards, smoking cigars with the other villain in this story. I couldn’t do anything about it. I’d handed him the approval from the council on a silver platter, and now I was going to lose everything I loved. Everything I cared about.
