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Confusion whipped up storms of dust in my mind. I frowned, staring at the stack of magazines on the coffee table in front of us. “I thought you’d be happy I’m selling these places off. I thought it would make you feel good to see that old house come down. The house we couldn’t move into unless we prostrated ourselves at her feet. The house she denied us when we had nothing.”
“Destruction never makes me happy, honey.” Her voice was soft and nonjudgmental.
I gritted my teeth. “You deserve better, Mom. The inheritance should have been yours, not mine.”
“And yet she left it to you.”
“And I’m doing all I can to return it with interest!” The words burst out of me, and I inhaled sharply to calm myself down. As I combed my fingers through my hair, my mother’s hand appeared on my back.
She drew soothing circles with her palm for long moments, then said, “What do you mean by that, Sebastian?”
Our knees nudged as I angled myself toward her, dragging my gaze up to meet hers. She had grays poking through her hair. Laugh lines crinkled outward from her green eyes, and there were deep brackets on her cheeks from how hard she smiled.
She hadn’t been angry at Lydia for a long time. No one who smiled as much as my mother could carry that kind of anger.
Just like that, the rug got pulled out from under me. I met her patient, quiet gaze, and I grasped at the only thing that had made sense through this whole nightmare of a month. “Hamilton Bach approached me about buying The Bach Company. I needed capital, so I made a deal with a local winery owner. He’d buy the properties off me at a premium, as long as I got approvals from the town council for a new hotel and dealt with the demolition of Radcliffe House. Then I’d buy The Bach Company and give you and Dad shares. I want to make sure you got everything that Lydia withheld, and then some. I’m going to make this right, Mom, this wrong that happened with the fire.”
My mother’s hand slid from my back to my cheek again, and she gave me a soft, tender smile. “My sweet boy,” she said. “You’ve always wanted to take care of us.”
“I will take care of you.”
She took her hand from my cheek and grasped my hand. Holding it in both of hers, she met my gaze and, very quietly, asked, “What else happened while you were here?”
“Nothing.”
She patted my hand with one of hers and waited.
I blew out a harsh breath. “Nothing, Mom.”
Seconds bled into each other, and I knew my mother would wait an eternity for an answer.
I closed my eyes and said, “There was a woman.”
“Ah.”
“She lived in the attic apartment. She’s the town’s historical preservation officer, and she tried to stop me. We worked together on the hotel, came up with a compromise to save the façade and lobby of the Monticello. But she couldn’t do anything about the house.”
“I see. What’s her name?”
My throat tightened. It was hard to get the sounds out, but I managed to rasp, “Charlie—Charlotte—Reeves.”
“Reeves,” my mother said, surprised. “Patty and Lyle Reeves? I didn’t know they’d had a child. They always said they never wanted any.”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “She was adopted. She said they were older. They passed a while back.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
I thought of Charlie’s devastated face outside the Monticello, and a hot wash of shame went through me. “I lied to her, Mom. Lied by omission. I never told her about the deal. Never told her why I was tearing down her home.”
“She became important to you,” Mom finished.
My eyes prickled, and I leaned back on the couch and shoved my fingers into them. “Yes. But it doesn’t matter now. She hasn’t spoken to me in weeks.”
“And you’re demolishing the house.”
“The only home she ever had,” I corrected. “The place where her best memories of her parents exist. The place where she first felt safe. A house she offered to buy from me, but I refused, because it would tank the deal and my plan would fall like a house of cards.”
My mother let out a long sigh. “And you did this for me and Dad.”
